Why digital accessibility is vital for a diverse and resilient tech industry

Increas­ing diver­si­ty in tech is one of the biggest oppor­tu­ni­ties we have to solve the glob­al skills chal­lenge. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. Research has shown that com­pa­nies that invest in equal­i­ty – such as diver­si­ty pro­grams and equal pay – and lead with these val­ues, have a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage over those who do not. 

That’s why at Sales­force we believe we have a role to play in attract­ing diverse tal­ent into our ecosys­tem, by reduc­ing bar­ri­ers and cre­at­ing more oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple from all walks of life to dis­cov­er that tech can be a gate­way into so many jobs. Along with our part­ners, we are prepar­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, espe­cial­ly young peo­ple from under­rep­re­sent­ed and under­served com­mu­ni­ties, with the edu­ca­tion, skills, and access to oppor­tu­ni­ties to suc­ceed. 

We launched the Trail­head plat­form to democ­ra­tise dig­i­tal learn­ing, tak­ing par­tic­i­pants from a low lev­el of tech­ni­cal knowl­edge to a Sales­force role in as lit­tle as six months. Ini­tial­ly used by our own inter­nal employ­ees of over 50,000 glob­al­ly, the free online learn­ing plat­form now has over 3.5 mil­lion users around the world. Just 2% of the jobs cre­at­ed from qual­i­fi­ca­tions that peo­ple achieve from Trail­head, whether that is in engi­neer­ing, design or mar­ket­ing are employed direct­ly by Sales­force, with 98% gain­ing employ­ment in our cus­tomers and part­ner ecosys­tem. 

We see lots of inspir­ing sto­ries from those who are using Trail­head; many suc­cess­ful­ly carv­ing out careers in the tech indus­try. I recent­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it one of our part­ners, LDN Appren­tices, who had come togeth­er in per­son. I got to see, first-hand, 30 appren­tices who had been learn­ing vir­tu­al­ly for 17 months. I was encour­aged to see such ener­gy, qual­i­ty and diverse tal­ent in the room.

We also have a won­der­ful part­ner in the UK called Super­mums, who focus specif­i­cal­ly on help­ing mums and dads return to work after parental leave by upskilling and retrain­ing in Sales­force. They also sup­port par­ents to find flex­i­ble, well-paid roles that fit around fam­i­ly life.

Recent­ly we’ve been work­ing with organ­i­sa­tions that help us tap into tal­ent for whom flex­i­bil­i­ty is a pri­or­i­ty. For exam­ple, Croud, a mar­ket­ing agency that has a glob­al net­work of 2,400 high­ly qual­i­fied dig­i­tal experts who work “on-demand” in a gig econ­o­my envi­ron­ment. It’s a suit­able choice for work­ing par­ents, part-time work­ers, and dig­i­tal nomads alike. 

Trail­head has the abil­i­ty to build the con­fi­dence of indi­vid­u­als hav­ing been away from work, while acknowl­edg­ing the life and pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence they’ve already achieved. We also work close­ly with ex vet­er­ans leav­ing the Armed Forces, through Sales­force Mil­i­tary. Tak­ing time out of the work­force, or time spent in a dif­fer­ent career shouldn’t be a bar­ri­er to enter­ing the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try. Trail­head isn’t just for tech­ni­cal skills either, it also offers life skills con­tent – from equal­i­ty to cul­ture, sto­ry­telling to coach­ing, impact­ful lead­er­ship to big pic­ture think­ing. 

​There can be a lack of under­stand­ing of just how acces­si­ble dig­i­tal skills can be. Sales­force tech­nol­o­gy isn’t just for the dig­i­tal­ly edu­cat­ed, you don’t need in-depth tech­nol­o­gy skills to use it. There are career oppor­tu­ni­ties for every­one.

COVID-19 has accel­er­at­ed the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of all aspects of soci­ety and one thing has become clear. The world has changed and we’re not going back. From now on, remote work will just be work. E‑commerce will just be com­merce. Video meet­ings will just be meet­ings. Every com­pa­ny has to be able to work, sell, ser­vice, mar­ket, col­lab­o­rate and analyse data from any­where. As busi­ness and work­ing mod­els change, dig­i­tal skills have come into much sharp­er focus for organ­i­sa­tions need­ing to adapt and build resilience. 

As the UK econ­o­my looks to post-pan­dem­ic recov­ery, the chang­ing nature of jobs pos­es chal­lenges for work­ers in every indus­try. Accord­ing to research in part­ner­ship with IDC, one in six peo­ple have low or no dig­i­tal skills. By 2030, nine out of 10 will need to learn new skills to do their jobs, at a cost of £1.3bn a year. The accel­er­at­ed need for dig­i­tal is hav­ing a major impact on the jobs we do now and the skills we need for the future of work.

Com­pa­nies around the world have had to fun­da­men­tal­ly rethink their oper­at­ing mod­els in response to COVID-19 and Sales­force is no dif­fer­ent. Our own facil­i­ties and office man­age­ment teams, who were pure­ly office based, had to tran­si­tion to being at home. When they did, they focussed on explor­ing Trail­head. We now have col­leagues who have since stepped into new roles across the busi­ness, such as in mar­ket­ing – all as a result of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tions they achieved over the lock­downs. The oppor­tu­ni­ties exist for all com­pa­nies, and the ones that will emerge stronger are the ones that embrace change and don’t sim­ply snap back to the way things were done before.

Sales­force believes that busi­ness has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to upskill the cur­rent and future work­force to make sure that peo­ple don’t get left behind. Peo­ple are look­ing to com­pa­nies to play a lead­ing role in prepar­ing the work­force for the future. Every­one needs to be giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the new dig­i­tal econ­o­my. It’s about under­stand­ing the miss­ing skills need­ed for the future of work and address­ing the train­ing and reskilling imper­a­tive.

We believe oth­er organ­i­sa­tions can do that just as seam­less­ly. We have a large num­ber of cus­tomers who have been look­ing at this chal­lenge and ask­ing how they con­vert an oper­a­tions role into a tech­nol­o­gy role. What tra­di­tion­al­ly would have hap­pened would have been a redun­dan­cy pro­gramme. Now, with plat­forms like Trail­head, a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of those peo­ple can make the jour­ney from one role to anoth­er. Com­pa­nies can not only save huge amounts in terms of recruit­ment, but they gain from peo­ple’s knowl­edge of the com­pa­ny and their loy­al­ty. Lead­ing com­pa­nies are start­ing to think more dif­fer­ent­ly about organ­i­sa­tion­al change, so the first thing that comes to mind is not redun­dan­cy, it’s reskilling. 

Whether it’s build­ing path­ways for diverse tal­ent, or arm­ing peo­ple with the tools to reskill for the next phase of their careers, what we aim to do with Trail­head is take away the rea­son lots of peo­ple feel they can’t learn – lack of access.

To find out how Sales­force is pow­er­ing the work­force of tomor­row, vis­it trailhead.salesforce.com.