Reskilling IT for digital success in a tight talent market

There are few CIOs who haven’t been hit by attrition, as streams of highly talented IT professionals head out the door for bigger salaries, better opportunities, or both. The fact that today’s digital powerhouses are now hiring tens of thousands of employees — often without regard to geography — has only exacerbated the talent crunch for IT leaders.

Employee retention remains top of mind. But amid these seismic shifts in an already high-demand marketplace, leading CIOs are doubling down their efforts to reskill, upskill, and cross-train their employees and new hires. CIO.com talked to three leading CIOs about the challenges, benefits, and best practices related to investing in their teams’ learning and growth.

Ensuring employees get first dibs at the cool stuff

Sue Kozik’s primary talent issue echoes those of most of her peers. “The big challenge is that it’s a buyer’s market,” says Kozik, senior vice president and CIO at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana (BCBSLA), which historically had been a destination employer in the state. In the post-COVID nationwide battle for talent, it’s hard to beat Silicon Valley companies who can pay much more. For Kozik, the focus then is the culture her IT organization can provide — one that invests in employees for the long term.

Kozik’s solution for retention aligns perfectly with her strategy for reskilling and upskilling her in-house team: purposeful and intentional outreach. Since the company went to remote work (a decision it reupped permanently), Kozik and her leaders have elevated their employee engagement game making sure to connect one-on-one with each of the IT organization’s 450 employees.

“It’s one of the things that’s paying us back big time,” Kozik says. “And it’s something we didn’t always make the time to do before.” Kozik’s managers have regular conversations with their reports about what they want to do next. “Those are the precursors to the topic of how we can invest in them to build the skills they need,” she adds.

Kozik’s hardest-to-fill roles involve hot skills related to cloud, cybersecurity, and digital architecture. The good news is that those are the same capabilities individuals on her team are hoping to acquire. “I have people who have grown up in the application space who want to get into cloud or cybersecurity, so we want to create opportunities for them to do that,” she says.