IT skills gap cost enterprises up to $29,000 per team member in 2020

by Paul Davenport on March 09, 2021

According to the 2020 IT Skills and Salary Report from Global Knowledge, 67 percent of IT decision makers polled believe an IT skills gap cost them between three and nine hours of productivity per IT employee each week.

Over the course of 2020, that could add up to 520 productivity hours lost per each IT team member, or roughly $29,000 in wasted pay per employee based on the average IT salary.

All of this can be attributed to the continued expansion of the IT skills gap as the number of remote workers accessing enterprise networks exploded over the course of the pandemic. This has resulted in a dire need for greater networking expertise, in particular, across the enterprise IT space as network connectivity is now more critical than ever to business success.

So how are IT teams attempting to fill their immediate IT needs?

According to the report, when formal training is available, 80 percent of IT decision makers have authorized it for members of their teams, whether that’s a new certification or taking time to vet and optimize new technology solutions. That’s up 36 percent year-over-year, which shows that the need for new skills and strategies to support the newly decentralized enterprise for the long haul is being taken very seriously at the top.

To that end, IT pros who have worked hard to gain new skills over the past year—especially in much-needed areas like networking, cybersecurity, and cloud computing—received an average raise of $12,000-$13,000 in 2020. That’s more than double the global average IT raise of $5,000, showing that teams who are proactive in exploring new strategies, technologies, and skills are not only recognized but rewarded by their employer.

And with 69 percent of IT decisions makers having more than one open position on their team that’s yet to be filled in 2021, it may fall on new technologies to help round out their network troubleshooting operation.

Late last year, researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE) compared the crisis response strategies enterprises took at the start of the pandemic to the measures taken during the economic downturns of 2000-2003 and 2008-2009. The study identified four overarching scenarios that played out broadly during each period: Sweat the assets, Underpin today’s business, Slow the strategy and Adapt strategy and build resilience.

LSE’s researchers found that the businesses who didn’t make digital transformation a priority at the start of the pandemic risked paying significant consequences in the years to come.

“In the recovery, organisations will emerge more technologised than ever before, but some will be much better placed competitively than others, perhaps irreversibly so, partly because of their technology policies before and during the crisis, and their good luck in being in the right sector at the right time,” the LSE study reads. “In this respect, the COVID-19 period may turn out as a significant turning point in the history of corporate digital transformation, exacerbating a pre-existing digital divide.”

Slow the strategy (which is characterized as maintaining the planned technology investments, but at a more adaptable pace) was adopted by 20 percent of organizations, while only 15 percent went all-in on the Adapt strategy and build resilience approach, which called for teams to immediately invest in new technology and staff to ride out the crisis—and ultimately come out the other side stronger.

To ensure your business doesn’t fall victim to a growing skills gap, learn more about AppNeta, which can help deliver visibility into end-user performance from anywhere your users are logging on, at any time.