Bridge the skills gap with Microsoft Learn for Organizations collections

Microsoft

Jan 16, 2024

With the best of intentions, many organizations start digital transformation initiatives that promise greater productivity, agility, and other cloud benefits, only to discover that their teams don’t have all the skills to follow through. Now Microsoft Learn for Organizations—the front door to all that Microsoft Learn offers for learners engaged in team training—provides curated collections of learning resources that can help get teams back on track. These opportunities enable organizations to unblock AI, app modernization, migration, and other strategic projects.

Close the skills gap

Too often, we hear that customers’ IT and engineering teams are midway through a strategic digital transformation—maybe they’re migrating on-premises systems to the cloud or using AI to modernize and transform apps—but then they get stuck. And they don’t have the skills to take the next steps.

Everyone is talking about the skills gap today. The shortage of skilled IT workers will block 65 percent of businesses from realizing the full value of their cloud, data, and automation investments, according to IDC’s Skills Forward: A 2023 IT Skills Shortage Survival Guide.[1] Meanwhile, 80 percent of surveyed organizations say that lack of resources and expertise is a top challenge in cloud adoption, as observed in the Flexera: 2023 State of the Cloud Report.[2]

“We wanted to help enterprises and organizations of all sizes to gain the technical expertise they need to succeed in their digital transformation plans,” explains Natalie Duryea, Director, Business Operations and Programs - Enterprise Skills Initiative at Microsoft. “Part of the challenge for learners and teams is to navigate all the steps in a learning journey. Now we have Microsoft official collections for the in-demand types of solutions that our customers are building.”

Welcome to Microsoft Learn for Organizations collections

Like the perfect playlist, Microsoft Learn for Organizations collections bring together selected resources and opportunities that you can share with learners and teams in your organization. And now, based on customer demand, we’ve created official collections to help close the skills gap for common scenarios. These collections include self-paced learning paths and modules, instructor-led courses, community resources, code samples, webpages, on-demand videos and events, gamified learning, and more. They also organize the resources needed to earn industry-recognized Microsoft Certifications and Microsoft Applied Skills credentials.

Skill up for the modern AI-enabled enterprise

To drive innovation and stay competitive, organizations are modernizing enterprise apps and taking advantage of AI and other new cloud technologies. You can make sure that your teams have what it takes to get the job done. The following Microsoft collections offer recommended resources to master AI fundamentals and related skills:

Build and modernize with AI includes the best learning paths and resources for all things AI—from the fundamentals to mastery. It also provides details on the new Microsoft AI Skills Initiative, which has free coursework developed with LinkedIn, including the first professional certificate on generative AI in the online learning market, along with resources to help learners improve their AI fluency.
Accelerate developer productivity offers virtual and interactive learning opportunities that can jump-start projects, whether learners are just starting to build cloud skills or are looking to master DevOps, GitHub, Azure solutions, and more.

Move your migration forward

One of the first steps that many organizations take on their cloud journey is to move on-premises and server-based workloads to Azure. These Microsoft collections can help you make the right choices:

Migrate and secure Windows Server and SQL Server workloads includes a wide variety of training options for this in-demand scenario, including immersive, challenge-based, gamified learning opportunities.
Migrate SAP covers everything you need to know about the collaboration between Microsoft and SAP and the many options for running SAP workloads on Azure.
Migrate enterprise apps assembles an array of resources designed to help your organization efficiently migrate enterprise applications at scale.

Build a thriving learning culture

Microsoft official collections can also help you get started building a learning culture and empowering a growth mindset across your organization:

Getting started with organizational skilling provides skill-building resources, including details on multiple integration services available, so you can more effectively use Microsoft Learn in your organization.
Transform your organization with Microsoft for business professionals is designed to empower business users and leaders with skill-building resources that can help them stretch their learning and development budget and strategically apply Microsoft solutions.

Don’t see the right collection? Build your own!

Learning isn’t one-size-fits-all. You can also design your own collections to fill the skills gaps in areas unique to your organization. If you have a Microsoft Learn profile, you can curate your own set of helpful resources to create a collection that can be shared with your learners and teams. For details, check out Create and manage Microsoft Learn collections. Whether you create your own or use the official collections—or both—be sure to make the most of Microsoft Learn for Organizations to help your teams build the skills they need to unblock critical technical projects in your organization.