Cloud Academy Launches Skill Profiles, Delivering a Data-Driven Approach to Close the Tech Skills Gap

Cloud Academy, the leading enterprise cloud training platform, today announced the general availability of a new platform capability designed to measure and visualize cloud skills at scale: Skill Profiles. In an industry first, Skill Profiles enable senior leadership and corporate learning departments to take a quantified, data-driven approach to identifying skill gaps, measuring the effectiveness of training, and aligning employees and teams to upcoming innovation projects. 

The cloud and technical skills gap continues to be a challenge for many organizations today. According to recent reports, half of companies believe that the talent shortage reduces their competitiveness, while 70 percent have no idea how to address the challenge. In total, missing cloud skills cost organizations $258,188,279 annually, slowing down productivity and innovation.

"The speed and evolution of technology today has forced companies across all industries to become technology companies. Leaders at these companies are finally treating the human side of the equation as a business problem – organizations must understand, validate, and measure skillsets in the areas that are foundational to innovation," said Stefano Bellasio, CEO, Cloud Academy. "Skill Profiles provides organizations the ability to visualize how employee’s competencies evolve over time, address skills gaps, and ultimately remain competitive."

Skill Profiles are a quantifiable representation of employee proficiency across key domains and technologies, tracked through continuous skill assessment including quizzes and exams over a fixed or customized timeframe. Skill Profiles scores are calculated out of 1,000 points and provide:

• Data showing proficiency across platform, domain, concept, and software vendor. End users are able to see their own profile, while managers can see the profiles of their teams. Company administrators will have organization-wide visibility of all users and teams.
• Correlated skills through the Knowledge Graph, a model that predicts proficiencies across topics and technologies for each individual. For example, if there is demonstrated proficiency for a product such as Amazon Glacier, the Knowledge Graph will suggest correlated knowledge in cold storage software.
• A leaderboard that shows aggregate Skill Profile scores for users and teams in an organization, designed for individuals to compare themselves to each other in an organization and see how they stack up.

Skill Profiles add to the established toolkit that Cloud Academy provides enterprise organizations. Managers and administrators already have access to an Analytics Dashboard, which measures training activity and the time invested in the Cloud Academy platform across Courses, Exams, Hands-on Labs, Quizzes, and Learning Paths.

Cloud Academy customers are already seeing the benefits of Skill Profiles and the Analytics Dashboard, integrating both into their learning and development strategies.

Both Skill Profiles and the additional analytics and reporting capabilities are now available to all Cloud Academy Enterprise administrators and managers. To learn more, visit https://cloudacademy.com/product/skill-assessment/.