There is an ongoing Salesforce skills shortage that has many companies hardpressed to find and retain employees with the necessary skills to drive their company’s digital growth. The pandemic changed the world overnight and as businesses rallied and pivoted to new ways of working, the digital skills shortage was amplified.

While it's a popular misconception that younger generations are more equipped to handle the demands of a digital workplace, research shows this is not the case. In reality, many employees believe they lack the experience necessary to do jobs primarily relying on digital skills.

This article will discuss the ongoing Salesforce skills shortage, its causes, and its trajectory. We'll also take a look at how a company can close the digital skills gap by giving employees access to training programs and worthwhile soft- and hard-skill development opportunities.

These opportunities can help your workforce gain the fundamental knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the digital world.

The Salesforce Skills Shortage

The workforce's lack of digital skills poses a serious challenge to businesses trying to keep up with the demand for cutting-edge technology. This situation is expected to persist long-term as enterprise organizations grow and modernize their IT environments.

Many businesses view the lack of Salesforce skills as a significant barrier to growth because of the potential expense and downtime associated with providing training opportunities to their employees. However, the skills gap isn’t an insurmountable challenge.

Many organizations are finding new ways to reskill and train their employees while addressing the internal needs hindering these opportunities. In fact, offering opportunities for Salesforce training in addition to valuable soft and hard skills can make a positive impact. Keep in mind, focusing on soft skills can be just as important as hard skills. They are both necessary and complementary to one another.

Recommended Skills to Overcome Talent Shortage

You might be wondering what skills are crucial to focus on and offer if you're considering providing training opportunities to your employees. Salesforce recommends first conducting a skills gap analysis to help identify any areas of weakness and make improvements that will benefit your business the most. This step will enable you to hone in on the most effective ways to close your organization's skills gap. 

Offering training opportunities to both new hires and existing employees is a great way to reduce the expense of recruiting and hiring new employees. It's also a way to boost employee morale, satisfaction, and productivity. While required skills may differ significantly by industry, we’ve provided a few skill suggestions (hard and soft skills), as well as currently available training programs below to help you get started.

Hard Skill Opportunities

Hard skills include digital skills that are required to perform a job. They’re frequently acquired through training, certification, and upskilling. Your employees will need hard skills to adapt to the changes in the workplace as it becomes increasingly complex and technologically innovative. A few valuable hard skills include:

• Cloud computing: More and more business leaders are looking for engineers with expertise in cloud computing as it is becoming a mainstay in many organizations.
• Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become more prevalent in key business processes. Employees with these hard skills will be assets for companies looking to transition or implement more AI-powered solutions.
• Low-code solutions: Low-code is currently a hot topic in software development. It is a field in which certifications are highly desired. Salesforce testing requires both manual and automated testing skills. Hands-on experience with low-code automated testing solutions will fill gaps in your development processes. 

Soft Skill Opportunities

Contrary to common belief, soft skills are just as valuable as hard skills. Soft skills are the most sought-after skills by hiring managers. Countless situations call for these skills. Your workforce can improve their relationships and job performance by developing interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, empathy, and time management skills. A few valuable opportunities for developing soft skills include:

• Interpersonal communication: Project complexity and global scope are increasing due to digital transformation, making collaboration and communication crucial to success. Collaborating and effectively communicating with coworkers are extremely valuable soft skills for a workplace.
• Conflict resolution: Employees should develop conflict resolution skills to improve decision-making and foster productive working relationships.
• Empathy: A valuable soft skill required to maintain a positive workplace environment involves adaptable employees capable of taking ownership of issues and exhibiting empathy to coworkers and customers.
• Time management: No matter how much the workplace evolves in the future, time management is a vital skill. Time management skills are essential for both your current and future business.

Recommended Training Programs

Access to in-demand skills can be provided by online learning platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Pearson, Coursera, and others. These programs give access to software testing, machine learning, and AI courses, which can be an excellent starting point in closing the skills gap.

Additionally, Salesforce works with international educators to provide apprenticeship programs, workforce development programs, and an online learning platform, Trailhead, that can aid in developing crucial digital skills.

Copado’s Low-Code Automated Testing Solutions

Copado Robotic Testing is an end-to-end automated testing solution for Salesforce that can help bridge the Salesforce skills testing gaps in your current software delivery cycle. Our low-code automated testing solution enables your testing teams complete end-to-end testing and delivers better quality products, even at an enterprise scale.

You can gain the following advantages from using Copado Robotic Testing for Salesforce:

• Self-healing AI: Self-healing capabilities allow for seamless adaptation to code modifications and Salesforce updates, reducing maintenance requirements.

• Low-code scripting: Allows users without extensive coding experience to design test cases in minutes via command-based keywords (QWords) and visual recordings.

• Clonable robots: Clone robots tailored to your Salesforce instance for parallel testing.

• Cloud-native application testing: Create and run automated tests on any platform, cloud, browser, or mobile device.

• Parallel test scripts for Salesforce Classic and Lightning UI: Accelerate releases with concurrent test scripts for Classic, Lightning, and other versions of Salesforce.

• Test business-critical integrations: Prevent your Salesforce apps, including CPQ, nCino, Veeva, and Vlocity, from breaking at the worst possible time!

Copado Robotic Testing to Overcome The Skills Gap

Many organizations find it challenging to grow and advance due to a persistent shortage of workers with digital skills. These organizations should take advantage of all available training and reskilling opportunities to address the ongoing Salesforce skills shortage.

Copado Robotic Testing is a Salesforce testing solution that delivers high-quality results across any cloud, on-premise, or mobile platform. Our low-code testing solutions can help your testing teams dramatically improve their Salesforce testing and development processes.