Three Strategies to Help You Solve Your IT Skills Gap

In today’s world, technological advancements are progressing at an unprecedented pace, creating vast opportunities for individuals and organizations. However, the rapid growth has also led to a significant demand for skilled professionals with the right competencies to meet this ever-increasing need. One area where this demand is particularly critical is cybersecurity, where the shortage of skilled professionals has become a significant concern. Even with technology outsourcing, having strong IT leaders is critical to managing and securing your business today and tomorrow.

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The IT security skills gap is the disparity between the demand for cybersecurity expertise and the available pool of qualified professionals. In cybersecurity, this imbalance leaves companies, their employees, customers, vendors, and partners particularly vulnerable. Rapid technological advancements constantly create new vulnerabilities, demanding a workforce with up-to-date skills to counter emerging threats. Unfortunately, 52% of public organizations state that a lack of resources and skills is their biggest challenge when designing for cyber resilience, according to the World Economic Forum. 

Fortunately, there are several strategies business leaders can implement to strengthen their team quickly and effectively: upskilling the current workforce, retaining current talent, and cultivating a culture of security within the company or organization.

Upskilling Your Employees

Cybersecurity requires specialized skills and knowledge, meaning continuous learning and professional development are crucial within this industry. Unfortunately, organizations that do not invest in ongoing training further widen the skills gap. Upskilling existing cybersecurity talent is more cost-effective than hiring new employees. So, it is important to invest in:

• Continuous, specialized training: For example, this includes threat intelligence, security awareness, incident response, and cloud security.
• Education: Keeping your team current on the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and technologies via conferences, online courses, and webinars is essential for continued education.
• Certifications: These include (and are not limited to) Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and CompTIA Security+, which can enhance your company’s credibility and employees’ knowledge of cybersecurity. 

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By actively engaging in upskilling, cybersecurity professionals will want to stay as you invest in them and their future. Through training, your team will continuously improve their knowledge, skills, and capabilities to protect your critical assets and mitigate cyber threats effectively. 

Prioritizing Talent Retention

Retaining your cybersecurity team is crucial for businesses to maintain (or even bolster) their defense against cyber threats. Speaking generally, the retention of employees plays a role in maintaining productivity levels. For the cybersecurity team, it is essential for employees to feel engaged and motivated, as this directly impacts their performance.

Employees who are content with their work environment tend to show gratitude, leading to improved performance. This can give management the confidence to know that their (and their customers’) IT infrastructure is well-protected and secure. High turnover among cybersecurity staff can raise concerns about the stability of a company, impacting customers and clients while posing a security risk for the organization.

What can you do to retain your team? 

As mentioned earlier, investing in your cybersecurity team’s professional development with continuous, specialized training, education, and certifications encourages your team to keep up with the latest trends and technologies.

Money talks – let’s admit that.

So, offering competitive salaries and benefits packages that meet or beat industry standards, along with retention bonuses or incentives for employees who commit for a specified period, all help reinforce loyalty and demonstrate the company’s commitment to its employees.

Also highly imperative are providing a clear career advancement path and celebrating and acknowledging milestones, promotions, and successful project completions to show appreciation for employees’ hard work. But it’s also important not to forget the small stuff. Maintaining open and transparent communication regarding organizational challenges, goals, and changes plays a key role in retention. Encourage employee feedback and address their concerns to build trust and engagement amongst the team.

Overall, a well-implemented employee retention strategy can create a supportive and engaging environment for your team, improving retention, morale, and customer satisfaction. Positivity goes a long way and serves as a consideration for potential candidates and new employees, contributing to the growth of your cybersecurity team.

Embed Cybersecurity Within Your Organization

Engraining cybersecurity measures and best practices throughout corporate culture is imperative for navigating today’s digital threats.  

Here are a few strategies businesses may want to consider when developing a supportive cybersecurity culture:

1. Promote learning and education. Advanced security training programs are critical for keeping team members updated on the latest threats, attack vectors, and security protocols. It is important to go beyond the basic approaches. Two effective approaches are role-playing exercises and hands-on simulations, which mimic real-world attacks. Making security training fun, engaging, and rewarding encourages a growth mindset amongst employees and fosters a proactive stance toward cybersecurity. 
2. Implement clear and comprehensive cybersecurity policies and procedures, including guidelines, expectations, and security best practices, ensuring that they are communicated effectively and updated regularly to address emerging threats.
3. Create a culture of accountability. This means your cybersecurity team understands the consequences of cybersecurity lapses and is motivated to adhere to security best practices. This includes reinforcing the importance of vigilance and responsibility with recognition and rewards.
4. Create cross-departmental collaboration between the cybersecurity team and other departments within the organization. This promotes a holistic understanding of security. Fostering relationships with IT, compliance, legal, and risk management teams ensures alignment and coordination on security initiatives. Collaboration between departments can also develop a more cohesive defense strategy. 
5. Encourage open communication and feedback within the cybersecurity team to facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and problem-solving. Create channels for team members to report security concerns, share insights, and contribute to security initiatives.
   

By implementing these three approaches, companies can reinforce a strong cybersecurity team. It comes down to investing in your people through continued learning, great compensation, acknowledging, listening, and collaborating to build a world-class team and retain them – remember, if you don’t, someone else will.

All of this contributes to creating a strong corporate culture of security that empowers everyone to effectively protect the organization’s digital assets, mitigate risks, and respond to security incidents proactively.