7 Innovative Ways to Navigate the IT Skills Gap in Higher Education

Digital, IT and technology skills are in high demand and in low supply, not only in the higher education sector, but across all industries. In the UK, the 2023 Business Barometer report by Open University shows that 83% of large organizations face workforce shortages, exacerbated by the pandemic, BREXIT and stagnant wages. In the US, the Department of Labor reports 1.45 unfilled vacancies per unemployed person, which is around 4 million unfilled roles.

This issue is not new, we have been talking about “talent wars” for at least 20 years, but the skills gap only seems to be widening as the pace of technology development and adoption accelerates. The “digital natives” bring a digital-first mindset but lack the understanding and knowledge of the tools and technologies that will continue to shape our world, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and advanced computing.

While the higher education sector has a lot going for it, with many professionals seeking employment in purpose-led organizations, it can’t quite compete with the private sector when it comes to salary and development opportunities. The return to face-to-face learning has also reduced the number of hybrid and remote roles available in the sector, which in turn limits the talent pool available for recruitment.

The recruitment process itself is also not designed to attract and secure talent quickly. Having to fill in lengthy forms with information already included in their CVs can deter applicants from applying in the first place. How does higher education measure against the 44 days on average to fill an open position, from planning to onboarding?

According to a recent survey by Gartner, 64% of IT professionals think the skills shortage is the biggest barrier to adoption of game-changing technologies like artificial intelligence.

We know universities struggle to spin multiple plates with acute shortages. This trend has been confirmed by global representative groups, such as UCISA (UK), EDUCAUSE (US), CAUDIT (ANZ and Oceania), HEITSA (South Africa), CUCCIO (Canada) and EUNIS (EU), in a recent International panel discussion at the UCISA Leadership Conference.

Despite the doom and gloom and the ambiguous future for higher education funding, there is so much the sector can do to bridge the skills gap. In fact, some may say it is sitting on a bit of a gold mine. This is, after all, where so many young people come to learn…

1. Grow your own - employ and retain your students

This may be an obvious solution that many universities, especially those in engineering and technical areas have been using successfully for decades. Many IT leaders and CIOs started their IT careers as interns at their alma mater. Mitchell Paris, from Michigan Technology University, was an intern himself before progressing to leading the Windows System team, in charge of the whole Windows estate at the university. He is proud to continue this grow-your-own tradition, by recruiting and training students. The university relies on 40 – 60 students working part time over the summer and during term time, and some end up employed full time. In fact, 4 out of the 5 full time hires in his team have followed the same path.

This system works well in this instance, as the students bring their own user experience and can work to solve pain points, they may have experienced themselves. They know the university systems well, and they are readily available in a rural location where IT talent is in short supply.

Another client we spoke to recently has had students from different faculties come work in their IT team – some came from marketing but found a new passion in IT and stayed with it.

The great advantage of employing students is that they are ready to learn. They have the disposition acquire and apply learning. Whether it’s in their field of study or in IT, these are skills they will use for life.

They will not only be grateful for the support to earn while they learn, but will also value the opportunity-rich studies, which in turn will increase the university reputation. Win-win!

2. Review your recruitment processes

How do you sell the role or institution to the talent you are looking to attract? Are you overselling it or underselling it? Where do you advertise? Are you limiting your search by focusing on a specific employee profile? Is there wording that could deter talent from applying? Are you losing applicants because of lengthy recruitment processes?

These are all areas where small tweaks could make a big difference. Employers are increasingly changing their recruitment practices to tap into the “hidden workforce”, those who may be underemployed or not necessarily meet the standard profile for higher education roles. Get input from people within the business area you are looking to recruit for, especially from new hires – they will have gone through the same process and will happily give you feedback to improve.

Communication is your front shop: anyone going through recruitment feels frustrated with the lack of communication from potential employers, especially if the process is long. By communicating often, you keep those people interested and don’t lose them to others who move faster than you.

3. Create new courses to fill skills gaps and test them on your own staff

There are many reasons why universities and colleges don’t change their course offerings very much, but there is a fine line between stability and stagnation. In fact, some people would go as far as blaming the sector itself for the lack of job readiness and skills disparity in the graduate workforce.

Blame game aside, universities and colleges need to continuously innovate and update their course offerings to stay relevant. And just like successful entrepreneurs work on their innovations alongside their day job (see Adam Grant’s Originals), so can universities come up with alternative courses and continue to perfect them, whilst upskilling their own workforce.

With Artificial Intelligence bringing knowledge to everyone’s fingertips, we need to reframe academics’ position as sole holders of knowledge and expertise and democratise teaching to include those at the forefront of innovation.

In today’s age, lectures can be watched on YouTube or read on ChatGPT, but it is the practical application, the hands-on “test and learn” approach that is more valuable to students.

4. Incentivize continuous education

Newton D. Baker famously said: "The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after”. In the busy-ness of work, how many of us are still prioritizing learning?

Some would argue that most of the learning happens on the job – the famous 70:20:10 framework states that 70% of learning is on the job, 20% from peers and others, and only 10% is formal education. But many criticized the framework, as there is often no structure in workplaces to consolidate it, and learning does not happen by accident: it has to be intentional.

Micro credentials were poised to be the revolution of education, the lifeline of lifelong learning. And whilst short courses have popped up everywhere – some bearing credits towards degrees, some not – higher education institutions have an under-explored opportunity here. Flexible, online learning with on-the-job application is the holy grail of continuous learning for working adults.

And if you can’t find the talent in-house, partner with industry experts – you will be surprised how many will be motivated by sharing their knowledge with others. Or send your staff to learn elsewhere: this not only gives you first hand insights into the learning experience provided by your competitors, but it can also help cross-pollinate learning if you support your staff to upskill the rest of the team. They become masters and the team benefits as well.

Pay for their tuition and pay for time off. The long-term return on this investment will more than outweigh its cost, through retention, growth, productivity, and innovation.

Knowledge and capabilities are the higher education currency. Bring it home.

5. Digital apprenticeships

Typically associated with blue-collar jobs, especially construction, apprenticeships have taken off significantly in the last decade. According to the Department of Labor, there are 580,000 active apprentices working currently in the US. Apprenticeships in the IT and telecommunications sector grew by more than 300% between 2011 and 2020, while cybersecurity apprenticeships grew by 600% during the same period.

In the UK, one provider (Multiverse), claims to have served over 10,000 apprentices, and employers like Rolls-Royce use it to upskill its employees particularly for tech and digital jobs. The IT giant Verizon also use Multiverse to fill software and engineering jobs and claims 95% of apprentices accepted a full-time job.

Digital apprenticeships can lower the entry barriers for many roles and increase the workforce pool to bring more diversity and widen participation to education and training. And they have an opportunity to apply that fresh learning to your organization.

6. Use suppliers’ capabilities to upskill your team through new procurement models

The supply chain servicing the higher education sector provides significant combined capabilities. CIOs and IT teams recognize they often lack the internal capabilities and knowledge to fully engage in meaningful discussions around some of the transformative technologies presented to them.

While outsourcing solves immediate shortages, it rarely advances internal capabilities, unless backed by training and upskilling; and the investment in new technologies is not fully materialised.

Often a mix between headhunting and outsourcing, this new hybrid model involves bringing external expertise in-house and embedding them in your team. Their role is not to settle into your workforce but understand your context and an internal “buddy” can help them navigate it to deliver a new transformative project.

When setting up an Innovation Academy for teachers, the NSW Department of Education hired a high-profile external expert on a 6-12 months’ secondment to run the project from discovery to implementation. She led the project team, had access to the internal resources, including leadership. One of the key deliverables for the external resource was to upskill the team, so they could run it and deliver courses in the long term. This was done by involving the team in different aspects of the project and testing the academy curriculum on them as the first cohort, alongside with a robust program of coaching and mentoring.

7. Use automation and technology to create capacity

No, robots will not take our jobs, at least not in the foreseeable future, but tech and automation can go a long way in saving time, creating capacity, and improving efficiency to deal with more meaningful challenges.

The sector is currently in a chicken and egg situation – IT budgets are shrinking, the needs are growing, but there are no funds or human resources to implement transformative technologies that can save time and money.

Taking a long-term return on investment approach, automation of repetitive tasks across the scope of IT departments could be measured in full time employment (FTE) proportions, then calculated in annual salary or hourly rates. So, the cost invested in time-saving technology can save institutions so much more in the long run, while delivering additional benefits.

The main IT automation areas to consider are workflow or business process automation, IT operations, infrastructure, and data analysis. Choose an area that gives you the most pain or that is the easiest to implement and share the results to get internal buy-in.

How AppsAnywhere can help

Our mission at AppsAnywhere is to support education providers to deliver software to students and staff in a simple, secure, and efficient way. We do that through our unique technology that combines all app delivery methods available, to enable a seamless experience for the user, while doing a lot of the heavy lifting for IT professionals.

AppsAnywhere can make a huge difference in saving time, which then releases capacity to focus on other tasks. Most customers report 70 - 80% savings on time spent reimaging machines or packaging applications. Middlesex University, for instance, had a whole team dedicated to rebuilding computers and packaging apps, and while they maintain the same headcount, their roles have now diversified into cybersecurity and other key areas.

Our experienced team works hard to provide pre-packaged apps and automated licensing so that you don’t have to. We currently have over 150 of the most used applications ready to go, and the list keeps growing. We take a community approach to problems solving, and if we solve a pain point for one customer, we apply those improvements to all.

At Michigan Tech University, the IT student workforce spends 30% of their time working on projects to improve their efficiency, which has been enabled by using AppsAnywhere across the estate.

The in-place upgrades that come with the 3.2 version of AppsAnywhere, remove a lot of the upgrade complexity and risk. It comes with additional security and an interactive dashboard where a traffic light system flags issues in your network before your users report or experience them.

The AppsAnywhere Academy, the AppsAnywhere SUMMIT Series, and the open access to our support teams are only some of the ways AppsAnywhere helps your team to continue to learn through training, sharing knowledge with your peers and learning from our experts.

So, if you’re struggling with skills shortages and your team is stretched for time, these suggestions could help shape a path for growing your talent pipeline. And AppsAnywhere is here to help with any immediate time and resource savings.