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It goes without saying, that nowadays technology is involved in almost every aspect of our daily operations. From HR software and productivity tools to automating daily tasks… Technology has helped companies achieve greater efficiency by reducing costs and boosting revenue. In this article, we’ll talk about why companies should upskill their employees in coding in order to help them maximize the power of technology to transform their businesses.
1) Coding Teaches You How To Think
“Everybody in this country should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think” – Steve Jobs
Learning how to code teaches you a core skill – Which is the ability to solve complex problems by applying computation and design thinking skills. In order to program a software you need to first figure out what are the components of the program to be built, and then how to code it out in a language a computer understands. It requires you to think out of the box and find efficient, creative ways to solve problems.
Learning a new computer language is also like learning a new language, and has the potential to unlock the dormant areas of our mind which we seldom exercise.
2) Spur Innovation
Upskilling your employees in coding can unlock new ways to spur innovation within the company. When an employee knows how to code, the way he/she views challenges changes. His/her realm of possibility expands because they know now what technology is capable of, after being armed with the skills of coding. These new tech-driven innovations can often bring new breakthroughs in stagnant businesses.
Fun fact: Did you know that Gmail was created out of the Google Engineering innovation time? It’s been 10 years since Gmail was invented and now it’s the number 1 email service in the world!
3) Employees Will Appreciate It
Here’s what one of our recent graduates had to say about learning to code at NEXT Academy. He works as a communication executive and his company decided to send him over to upskill him in coding. Find out more about what he does at work and how the bootcamp has changed his outlook towards technology and its practical applications in the workplace.
According to Joseph (the guy in the video), investing in your staff creates a culture of learning within the company, and employees feel they are valued by their employers because they invest in training them. He’s certainly happy about it.If you’re apprehensive about sending your employees for a long term training program, this old adage comes to mind:
CFO: What happens if we train them and they leave?CEO: What happens if we don’t and they stay?
4) Automate Mundane Tasks
One of our past coding graduates, Zac built a scraping bot which helped his team (he became an auditor for a well known auditing firm in Singapore) automate the task of looking for important information in piles of documents. The result? He saved the whole team 5 working days worth of work!On to you: Think of what kind of problems you face in your current organization and see if there’s a possibility of automating or “delegating” these tasks to software. The value of the time saved can often times outweigh the cost of producing the technology… Many times fold!
5) Improve and Streamline Processes
Technology driven productivity tools have been shown to greatly improve the systems and processes in companies. Having people with knowledge of implementing such tools can greatly benefit your organization.
For example, Trello is a tool which has multiple use cases. Not only does it serve as a to-do list for yourself and your team (productivity tool); it also has a board view, thus making it suitable to be a sales pipeline.
Lets use the sales pipeline as an example. A coder could link Trello to other platforms such as Facebook Advertising Manager, using their API and have leads from Facebook enter directly into the sales pipeline. A coder could also set up your interested job candidates’ profiles to go directly into your HR management tools for further action. The possibilities are practically limitless with technology!
6) Stay updated with technology
Whether you like it or not, technology is evolving at a phenomenal pace. It’s important to stay updated with the trends in technology, and the best way to do that is by planting tech-literate employees in your organization. It’s a good idea to build a diverse tech team with skills in multiple technology stacks (mobile, web, enterprise software) to have an overview on how these different technologies can come together to innovate on your company.
7) Cyber security
If you store a lot of sensitive data online, you will probably have to think about cybersecurity issues. According to an article by Forbes, the cost of cyber crimes on companies is estimated to reach a whopping 2 trillion in 2019!
This alarming figure will probably make you think twice when considering whether to upskill your employees in tech competencies such as cyber-security.
(Note: The field of cyber security isn’t necessarily directly related to coding, but it draws primarily from three fields: networking, systems administration, and programming)
So should companies upskill their employees in coding? For us, the answer is an astounding yes. It doesn’t matter what industry or what business model you’re in, your organization has a lot to benefit from using technology to spur new innovation.
Want to know how to upskill your employees in coding?
