Covid-19 has changed the working landscape in sectors worldwide, most noticeably of all through its acceleration of digital transformation.
With such a newfound emphasis on tech and its abilities, come newfound requirements for different skills and backgrounds.
Liberty IT’s Senior Director of Emerging Business & Technology, Tony Marron, talks with Sync NI about some of the skills he believes will prove to be vital in a post-Covid landscape.
Data science
Liberty IT is the software house for global Fortune 100 company, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and is hiring for over 150 roles in Belfast and Dublin over the next year.
“It’s a big year of growth for us and one of areas we’re recruiting in more demand is applicants with a data-centric background,” said Tony.
“People who are more able to look at information and drive out insights, so data scientists as you’d expect.”
Nearly a year into many organisations now implementing remote working across their businesses, many are still adapting to different methods of flexible working and continue to evolve.
Thus, modelling the Covid-19 impact through data insights is key.
Data analysis must be reliable, timely and quick for employers to make effective, strategic decisions, and professionals with this skill set of accurately interpreting data in sometimes pressurised situations will be crucial and influential going forward.
Consultancy
Tony added that Liberty IT has “really focused on expanding their consultancy skillset over the last few years; people who are able to transcend the technical and business domains, and are able to bring stakeholders together and drive through execution on making progress on some of the problems we want to solve.”
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Consultancy involves having expert knowledge on a particular topic, but also having the confidence and social skills to make that expertise tangible.
Creativity
“The third skill area that we’re really looking for is creativity - a person that is experienced in exploration and driving the customer experience,” continued Tony.
“I’ve worked in IT for over 20 years and a lot of the time, you’re asked to solve problems where you have a fairly good idea of what the need is.
“The phase we’re in now is leveraging data, consultancy and creativity to uncover the real problem statement.
“That takes a very different type of thinking and a different type of person to operate in this environment. We call this the exploration phase of our projects and we built up a lot of expertise over the last few years in particular in what exploration of a problem actually involves.”
“First and foremost, we need people that are obsessed with the problem, they’re not obsessed with the solution. I know that sounds a bit corny but it’s actually really important. You need experts in their domain, that are immersed in the deep expertise of a particular technology, be that AI, Machine Learning, Serverless etc.
We are looking for talented people who are driven by problem statements, who are very comfortable in adapting and growing, or learning a new capability.”
Customer empathy
Having professionals with technical acumen is an obvious importance, regardless of the coronavirus crisis’ impact on the world. However, an employee’s soft skills may play a bigger part now more than ever as teams and clients need to be led through digital change and remote working.
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Tony emphasised this point: “We talk to our partners in Liberty Mutual a lot about customer experience and that is really important, especially in the exploration phase because you can quickly find yourself solving the wrong problems. So, we’re increasingly looking for people with that design mindset, people who are able to very quickly figure out what exactly is the right problem to solve?”
Automation experience
Two thirds of business leaders used automation to respond to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a 2020 report from Deloitte on robotic and intelligent automation.
Further research last month by supply chain specialists, Balloon One, suggested that automation is ‘crucial’ to improving the UK’s productivity levels (in which it lags compared to 19 other nations).
This focus on automation is only set to increase, and Tony added that Liberty IT is starting to bring in those people that are “very accustomed to automation.”
“We continue to broaden and diversify our incredible talent. We’re seeing such a breath of experience coming into our organisation, across multiple industries and job functions, bringing their unique experiences to Liberty IT and our customers. It continues to be an incredibly exciting time to work in IT,” Tony said.
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Find out more about Liberty IT and its current job offerings here and on Sync NI’s Jobs board.
