Regardless of industry, all companies are becoming tech companies – the innovative spirit and entrepreneurial culture of tech startups have become near-universal ideals. Organizations of all sizes aspire to create and emulate a tech-savvy, forward-thinking, disruptive innovation culture in their own workplaces. However, too often, well-intentioned leadership teams end up creating greater confusion when trying to integrate a startup mentality or an entrepreneurial culture – if executives aren’t careful, they might just cause employees to feel bogged down with additional tech jargon and poorly understood initiatives that do not deliver the anticipated results.

 

 

If an organization wants to become truly tech-savvy, more like an entrepreneurial startup, more like fast-growing tech hubs like Silicon Valley – they need to start by learning the language. No, I don’t mean code – I mean the actual English language that tech companies and tech professionals use to talk about their tools of trade. Learning how to speak in this technical language and understand its basic, core principals will ensure a company is more fluent in tech, rather than disrupted by it.

Learning this language can be viewed as an opportunity for HR professionals to add value at the leading edge of the organization. If an organization can show why this is so important, they can help drive the agenda for employee education, spark innovation in onboarding, leadership development, and many other aspects of talent management.

Here are a few reasons why companies – and their HR professionals – need to spearhead programs that teach the language of IT:

Being Tech-Savvy is a Competitive Advantage

Times have certainly changed in the way that the broader business culture thinks about information technology. Organizations are starving for tech talent – to the point they are offering significant signing bonuses, generous salaries, and all of those famously indulgent workplace perks that have been made so famous by Silicon Valley’s big name companies.

In today’s competitive environment, forward-looking businesses want their workforce to understand critical tech concepts and skills. After all, if a company cannot speak the language of tech – if employees don’t understand the latest tech buzzwords, tech trends, and tech-related thought leadership – they are sending a powerful signal to the market. And that signal is: We don’t know what we’re doing, and we probably will be out of business soon!

Want Top Tech Talent? Speak Their Language!

At the same time, attracting and retaining top technical talent is increasingly difficult – there is a shortage of workers for many key skill sets in software development, systems administration, information security, data analytics, and many other career fields. If your organization wants to attract and retain the best tech talent, the top brass needs to make sure the overall organization can speak their language.

This is an imperative for organizations of all sizes – whether a large enterprise with multiple tech departments and functions, or a small business with one IT staffer. After all, the tech team needs to be able to communicate and build effective working relationships with the rest of the company– and if tech professionals feel isolated or misunderstood, they will be more likely to get frustrated and leave.

If tech pros feel like they can’t talk shop with their counterpoints in other divisions, or if they feel unchallenged – like they’re constantly the smartest people in the room, like they’re always being bombarded with boring questions and repetitive errors by other employees – they might feel stifled and start searching for better opportunities at other organizations that truly get the function and value.

Better Communication, Bigger Productivity   

Adding education for targeted employees provides a competitive advantage to both the employee as well as company. There are many creative ways to package this kind of learning as part of employee development programs – and it can actually be rewarding!

For example, a “learn to code” day where employees from non-tech functions learn how to write some simple software code or develop a simple app as a team. Or maybe ”Coding or Tech Jeopardy” as an interactive teambuilding game where people demonstrate their knowledge of information technology terms, buzzwords and jargon. You could create educational materials like “Tech Word of the Day” as part of HR communications – introduce some key concepts to the organization and get people more familiar with the buzzwords. (A great resource for this is the Sideways Dictionary – a free product from Alphabet and the Washington Post that explains various tech jargon in plain everyday language and colorful metaphors.)

In too many organizations, tech tends to get spoken of with awestruck tones – as if it’s a whole other culture within the company with its own intimidating language and mysterious rituals. But treating tech like an unknowable entity really isn’t fair – to that department or to the rest of the organization. It’s important to bridge the gaps and develop a better sense of mutual understanding between tech focused employees and the rest of the organization. By learning to speak the language, an organization can achieve better collaboration, communication, productivity – all while improving recruitment and retention numbers.

Author Bio

Michael Choi is the CEO of Coding Dojo, a company that helps people start careers in tech by learning how to code and becoming a software developer in as little as 14 weeks, with onsite and online coding bootcamps.  Visit www.codingdojo.com Connect Michael Choi Follow @CodingDojoDotCo

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