IT Training: Certification Versus Skills Advancement
By Paula Moreira
For more than a decade, IT training and certification have been driven almost entirely by vendor-specific technologies. However, business requirements that focus on enterprise-specific job skills are starting to make an impact.
Vendor certifications are widely recognized by employers as valuable credentials for new hires and promotions, as well as incentives for retaining career-minded employees. It may come as a surprise, however, that while the number of people enrolled in formal training programs has risen dramatically over the past five years, less than half take the final exams required for certification.
Because technology changes rapidly in the IT industry, vendor-defined training has been the only effective means of developing a qualified workforce. With more jobs than people, IT organizations have recruited employees who have independently acquired certifications or people with diverse experience and knowledge and the ability and motivation to learn new skills on the job. In many enterprises, certifications are as highly regarded as an MBA and are rewarded accordingly. However, vendors and users are beginning to recognize flaws in the certification model as companies deploy mixed-vendor solutions that require knowledge of business processes and soft skills in addition to multiple technologies.
Some concerns with the certification model are
Proliferation of certification programs. A multitude of certification programs are promoted by technology vendors. Overlapping and duplicate content has training managers wondering whether they're supporting vendor requirements rather than company requirements.
Theoretical learning versus practical learning. Vendor-designed programs must meet internal needs, as well as the needs of resellers. That requires a deep understanding of theory behind a product, but vendors are continuously competing to simplify products and technologies for the user, thereby reducing the need for theoretical knowledge. Conversely, IT organizations are often more concerned with the practical use of a product, which may be gained from selective courses within a certification program.
Technology obsolescence. Many certification programs are based on commodity products that are destined for obsolescence. Yet, those products are widely deployed and comprise a set of current skill requirements. It's difficult to justify a complete certification program when essential skills can be self-taught, learned on the job, or acquired from selective courses.
Competition for training budget. Even in the best economic times, training budgets are far from open-ended. For example, "Strategies for Migrating to Windows 2000" is part of the Windows 2000 certification program, but it's difficult to reconcile the time and cost of that course when the company has already migrated to Windows 2000. That course only has value to users in the early adoption phase, systems integrators, or people changing jobs.
Losses due to job hopping. One of the premises of certification is its enhancement of individual employee value. Employers must be very careful to ensure that they can meet expectations of employees or they will lose them to another company. This is a double loss--zero return on training investment and the cost of replacing an employee.
Beyond those generalities, the root of dissatisfaction with certification programs can be found in technology trends. The enterprise no longer relies on one or two vendors. A modern information system consists of central transaction processors, network servers, desktop PCs, technical workstations, network backbones, factory automation systems, environmental systems, portable and wireless access devices, database systems, middleware, enterprise resource management systems, e-commerce systems, and application software--from more than a dozen vendors. The major technical challenge to IT management is integration, but that's just the beginning of the job skills dilemma.
In recent years, IT organizations have joined the frontline in overhauling business processes, affecting people and job functions throughout an enterprise. Technical staff is confronted with the need to understand business processes and to collaborate with non-technical people to implement a solution.
Penny Gelb, operations training manager at Genuity, an Internet service provider headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, sums up the situation neatly: "Just throwing technology at a problem is no longer adequate. You can't isolate technical training from business processes. The successful IT manager must start with a firm grasp of the business need, devise a technical solution, and implement the solution in collaboration with users. The importance of business and soft skills in a successful project is being emphasized constantly by management." She notes that larger companies can customize or supplement certification training through internal programs based on specific corporate needs.
If certification training isn't meeting the complete job skill requirements of the enterprise, two key questions are worthy of discussion: When does traditional certification make a difference? and What can be done to enhance the value of certification?
With regard to the first question, certifications are critical to employees of vendors, resellers, solution providers, and service providers. The people are expected to be experts in core technologies, and certification is a tangible measure of skills and credibility in the marketplace. IT managers in customer organizations are likely to be more selective in their investments, particularly in light of current economic conditions that are forcing downsizing and across-the-board budget reductions. There's a strong demand for certifications in high-end specializations, such as network security and application development platforms, but a declining interest in low-end commodity products.
According to findings of the 2001 Global Training and Certification study conducted by Gartner on behalf of the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and Prometric, a leading certification testing organization, more than 90 percent of IT managers polled said that certifying their staffs brought major benefits to their companies. The benefits cited most often were a higher service level, competitive advantage, and increased productivity. The study also queried IT professionals about benefits; more than 60 percent of IT professionals responding reported salary increases after certification, while 52 percent said increased productivity was a reason to seek certification. More than 70 percent of certified professionals said they would still seek training even if it didn’t lead to certification.
Obviously, certification continues to carry a significant weight in IT organizations, a fact that introduces the question of how to make certifications better. One approach advocated by CompTIA, a non-profit association of 8,000 corporations and 8,000 individual members, is to establish baseline training standards in generic technical and business skills that track to vendor-specific technology and product training. Following the path of its A+ and Network+ certifications, CompTIA is working closely with major vendors to merge their certification programs with CompTIA-designed foundation skills training, according to Lutz Ziob, the association’s vice president of certification. "The foundation training will include generic industry components that precede specialization, including technology common to all vendors, business basics, and interpersonal communications," he says.
The IT industry also anticipates that independent training companies, such as New Horizons, will be launching initiatives in 2002 that implement new CompTIA standards, as well as creating other job skill certifications based on corporate needs. After years of striving to keep pace with changing technology, the IT training profession is currently turning to the additional challenge of the changing enterprise, which increases the focus on essential job skills rather than training for certification’s sake.
Published: January 2002