Frontrunners of the digital skills race with Microsoft | Episode 4
07/05/22 • 40 min
In this episode, Frank is speaking with Maria Damborg Hald from Microsoft. She has a wide range of experience with digitalization in the public sector, and in her previous roles she has, among other things, led a number of major IT implementation projects across government institutions.
The exciting conversation deep dives into the key concerns right now:
What do we do about the digital skills gap in general and what's proving successful for the public sector?
Both Frank and Maria share a passion for digitalization in the public sector. The first key point to recognize, when discussing the public sector, is the diversity and vastness of it. It is as diverse as the private sector is.
Some organisations are digital frontrunners who have restructured their service models based on the most recent technological developments, while others are struggling to keep up with digital transformation.
In the public sector, we are still capitalizing on tech investments made 10-15 years ago, and the question is, when do we need to re-invest to ensure that we stay on the forefront? Skilling is a big part of this issue and, as Frank states, it can even become an opportunity, if we get it right.
What has changed?
Well, Microsoft has always been about skills, but they are picking up the pace on the cultural journey about having a growth mindset with leadership and employees. In essence, that means moving away from being specialists, who know it all, to being partners who contribute more as "learn-it-all's - who listen more than they talk.
Now, we are all facing a more complex digital environment that demands a constant beta mindset.
The time has passed from learning a skill and completing your education. The complexity of technology today demands life-long learning.
The thing about growth mindsets...
In Maria's view, the key to implementing and maintaining a growth mindset is skilling.
You want tailored programmes for senior leadership teams, as skilling plans and initiatives need to be anchored with the leadership to be effective.
Also, you want skilling to be widely available to everybody in the organization, and you want to provide the time and the opportunity to be learning, always.
Public leads the way in Talent Acquisition
The jobmarket for digital skills is burning hot. Everybody is poaching people from each other and salaries increase all the time. The fact is, that we are facing a demographical challenge and we all have to work together to make ends meet.
Basically, it is almost impossible to have a job in Denmark anywhere in the jobmarket without a basic tech skillset, and that clearly contributes to drive demand for digital skills.
We do have a potential to relieve some of the demand with process automation and other technology, but we will need to re-skill and up-skill to help close the digital skills gap, and we need new talent.
How do you acquire Talent?
Maria and Frank have both worked with public sector organizations that are hiring new talent in very ambitious ways. But how do you overcome the digital skills gap and acquire talent? Maria gives you insight on how some of the major public organisations have come about hiring new employees and upskilling thier workforce.
Click the Play button to get full insight, and get in touch with Readynez at [email protected] to join the conversation.
References:
In this episode, Frank is speaking with Maria Damborg Hald from Microsoft. She has a wide range of experience with digitalization in the public sector, and in her previous roles she has, among other things, led a number of major IT implementation projects across government institutions.
The exciting conversation deep dives into the key concerns right now:
What do we do about the digital skills gap in general and what's proving successful for the public sector?
Both Frank and Maria share a passion for digitalization in the public sector. The first key point to recognize, when discussing the public sector, is the diversity and vastness of it. It is as diverse as the private sector is.
Some organisations are digital frontrunners who have restructured their service models based on the most recent technological developments, while others are struggling to keep up with digital transformation.
In the public sector, we are still capitalizing on tech investments made 10-15 years ago, and the question is, when do we need to re-invest to ensure that we stay on the forefront? Skilling is a big part of this issue and, as Frank states, it can even become an opportunity, if we get it right.
What has changed?
Well, Microsoft has always been about skills, but they are picking up the pace on the cultural journey about having a growth mindset with leadership and employees. In essence, that means moving away from being specialists, who know it all, to being partners who contribute more as "learn-it-all's - who listen more than they talk.
Now, we are all facing a more complex digital environment that demands a constant beta mindset.
The time has passed from learning a skill and completing your education. The complexity of technology today demands life-long learning.
The thing about growth mindsets...
In Maria's view, the key to implementing and maintaining a growth mindset is skilling.
You want tailored programmes for senior leadership teams, as skilling plans and initiatives need to be anchored with the leadership to be effective.
Also, you want skilling to be widely available to everybody in the organization, and you want to provide the time and the opportunity to be learning, always.
Public leads the way in Talent Acquisition
The jobmarket for digital skills is burning hot. Everybody is poaching people from each other and salaries increase all the time. The fact is, that we are facing a demographical challenge and we all have to work together to make ends meet.
Basically, it is almost impossible to have a job in Denmark anywhere in the jobmarket without a basic tech skillset, and that clearly contributes to drive demand for digital skills.
We do have a potential to relieve some of the demand with process automation and other technology, but we will need to re-skill and up-skill to help close the digital skills gap, and we need new talent.
How do you acquire Talent?
Maria and Frank have both worked with public sector organizations that are hiring new talent in very ambitious ways. But how do you overcome the digital skills gap and acquire talent? Maria gives you insight on how some of the major public organisations have come about hiring new employees and upskilling thier workforce.
Click the Play button to get full insight, and get in touch with Readynez at [email protected] to join the conversation.
References:
Previous Episode
How Cybersecurity pro's match the evolution of Skills in the criminal world | Episode 3
In this episode, Frank is speaking with Dan Lawrence from Computacenter. Dan is a senior security leader with a wealth of demonstratable experience across a broad range of security functions. During his 30 year! career with both public and private sector organizations he has been protecting businesses and customers from IT related threats, harm and risks.
Dan's long career started in the UK police, and he is now with Computacentre. Dan champions foresight over insight, and specializes in minimizing the impact from harm.
The conversation touches on these subjects:
Security is a core part of any business
Dan feels that Cybersecurity skills are central to all organizations today. The number of risks and attacks is growing daily and with IT Transformations come Cybersecurity concerns and the need for updated and current Skills.
The special thing about Cybersecurity is the urgent call to keep up with the evolution of Skills in the criminal world.
As a business it is simply not an option to fall behind, because the consequence of that is not only missed opportunity, you could also be risking an attack that basically cripples your whole business in minutes.
How big is the problem with acquiring digital Skills for cybersecurity
In Dan's experience, the market is super competitive, there are more vacant positions than there are candidates, and recruiters are doing the very best that they can to make employers attractive. Expectations for salary are very high, and most candidates won't even have ALL the skills you need.
That inbalance makes it interesting to train your own Experts. Especially since Cybersecurity is a lot about the personal traits. Being curious and stubborn enough to keep looking for the abnormal. The technical skills can be taught.
Likely the demand for specialized Cybersecurity skills will always be higher than the supply. Cybercrime is evolving and more and more crime will happen. Cybercriminals share knowledge. You now get DDoS as a service; it is readily available.
These organized crime units are businesses now. They have HR organizations, and they ask for feedback after an attack. Cybercrime is a war between the attacker and the defender.
As they say, The defender has to get lucky every time. The attacker has to get lucky just once. 75% of weapons are designed for that one attack, making it harder to see trends and patterns.
It’s really a war between good and bad - who has the skills to outwit the other?
The Know your Skills Quiz
How does a pro such as Dan do on the Quiz? You'll need to listen to learn some very surprising fun facts around these questions for instance:
Which sector was the most targeted in 2021?
- How many cyber-attacks were distributed via email in 221?
Click the Play button to learn how a Top Pro such as Dan makes cybersecurity skills work, and get in touch with Readynez at [email protected] to join the conversation.
References:
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