FEATURE: TRAINING
exam. They teach high levels of
best practice, codes of conduct
and provide a much needed
standardised baseline of education
for the subject in hand, forming
the backbone of knowledge for
particular subject areas.
A programme which awards both
industry recognised qualifications
and official certifications is much
more valuable. Qualifications
can be mapped across the
world with clear and recognised
equivalences, while certification
ensures knowledge is kept up-to-
date via a re-certification process
every three years. This essential
education can be supplemented
and enhanced further with
additional specialist education,
knowledge, skills, mentoring and
competency and confidence
interventions to help progress
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individual careers throughout
the sector. Naturally education
and development does involve
investment but this spend does
need to be put into perspective.
Millions are spent on data centre
equipment, and some of that may
never be used – yet the people
who work in a data centre every
day are not considered with the
same importance.
It’s essential that organisations
understand that investment
in professional development is
hugely positive and beneficial to
the organisation and does provide
a return on investment.
A competent and confident team
reduces, and could mitigate business
risk, it also increases productivity
(employee contribution), helps
with staff retention and loyalty as
employees gain more satisfaction
from their job.
Brand value is also enhanced
(against the brand damage that
occurs when there is an outage)
and, with a reputation for ongoing
staff development, it can help
to attract new talent directly to
your organisation. After all, it’s
a big pond out there and if your
organisation can shine above the
rest, you have a greater chance of
catching the good ones.
Finally, think about the cost of
just one minute of a data centre
outage and how this money
could be used to educate and
develop people to significantly
reduce future outage risks. With
forward thinking and development
planning, the benefits far outweigh
the potential risks. ¡
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