How Knowledge Workers Can Convince Employers to Sponsor IT Certifications and Professional Growth

In Landmarks of Tomorrow in 1959, Peter Drucker first described the rise of “knowledge work.” Three decades later, he had become convinced that knowledge was a more crucial economic resource than land, labor or financial assets, leading to what he called a “post capitalist society.” And shortly thereafter (and not long before he died in 2005), Drucker declared that increasing the productivity of knowledge workers was “the most important contribution management needs to make in the 21^st century.”

“If knowledge isn’t challenged to grow, it disappears fast,” Drucker cautioned. “It’s infinitely more perishable than any other resource we have ever had.”

Therefore, organizations need to increase the flow of information and the learning inside and outside the organizational perimeter in order to enable more and more “knowledge workers,” also known as skilled and trained employees.

The Path Forward: Jobs That Pay for Certification
In an article by Penny Hoelscher exploring companies that pay for IT certifications and why asking employers to pay for professional development is worthwhile, the following factors were highlighted:

1. In a Forbes article titled, “Why A Handful of Companies Leave the Rest in the Dust,” Marco Annunziata, while commenting on the widening gap between the best performing companies and the also-rans, underscored the importance of education, training and upskilling.
2. A study by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) found that companies that offered comprehensive training garnered 218 percent higher income per employee than those with less-comprehensive training, and they enjoyed a 24 percent higher profit margin than those who spent less on training.
3. An IBM Smarter Workforce study found that 84 percent of employees in best-performing organizations received the training they needed, 68 percent better than worst-performing organizations.

In addition, John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, says that the traditional organizing principle for businesses was to achieve efficiencies of scale. Along similar lines, organizations should pursue “scalable learning” to foster new knowledge creation, which will help in tackling performance challenges.

From the above discussions, it is clear that for organizations to survive and to thrive, they need to invest in professional development programs for their knowledge workers and to take measures to improve their productivity by increasing the opportunities to acquire more knowledge.

Since it may not be always possible to have in-house training resources to cope with scalable learning needs, companies should strongly encourage employees to pursue industry-recognized IT certifications and other associated credentials in alignment with their technological and business needs, and sponsor them accordingly.

For practitioners looking to convince their employer to pay for IT certifications, some of the key factors to mention include:

1. Increase in skilled and motivated employees. Organizations that sponsor exam fees for obtaining certifications in emerging technologies such as cloud computing/AI/big data analytics/operating systems or emerging enterprise frameworks such as COBIT/agile methodology/ITIL, etc., will have a more skilled workforce that will bring more value to the work they perform, resulting in better job satisfaction and improved morale.
2. Improved reputation of the organization. Certified employees gain trust and a positive image from the stakeholders of the organization, such as partners, clients, financial institutions, regulatory and government bodies, which improves the professional reputation of the organization.
3. Well-managed risk. Certified employees are well trained in managing job-related risk, and they can be “good decentralized decision makers,” in the term coined by Drucker. The thorough exposure to the body of knowledge and the rigors of the examination administered by the professional institutions equips practitioners to do a competent job and become a trusted advisor to the organizations they serve.
4. Enabling innovations and best practices. Knowledge attained through professional certifications enable a person to become more innovative and a pioneer for best practices. The reason is that knowledge was originally derived from industry-proven practices, which are constantly updated by real-life experiences in the workplace. Also, certifying bodies makes it mandatory to submit yearly CPE (Continuing Professional Education) hours, which forces the certified professionals to continuously educate themselves, resulting in better professional services to the organizations they serve.
5. Discounts from vendors. Often big vendors for databases or networks offer lucrative discounts to their servicing organizations when those databases or networks supplied are handled by certified professionals in their respective specialization area. The reason is that when those complex infrastructures are handled by certified professionals, less troubleshooting work will arise to the serviced organization, leading to a win-win situation.
6. Rising employee motivation. When organizations sponsor IT certifications, it will motivate employees to pursue certification examinations, which they otherwise might not have thought of. The cost to the organization is minimal, while the resulting benefit is huge. This could also be a cost-saving option compared to a comprehensive, in-house training program in some cases. Additionally, by keeping employees motivated and happy, companies are less likely to lose them to the competition, thereby saving costs on conducting searches for replacements.

Supporting Professional Development
It is clear that, in order to thrive in this highly uncertain and dynamic environment, organizations need to have trained and skilled employees and to encourage and motivate them to keep their knowledge continuously updated, ideally both by having comprehensive in-house training programs and by sponsoring professional IT certifications and related examinations.

Author’s note: The opinions expressed are the author’s own views and do not necessarily represent that of the organization or any of the certification bodies he is affiliated with.