4 Ways Consultants Help Clients Close the Skills Gap

… tailored to the business’ specific requirements.

To put this in context, consider a technology like Kubernetes. Anyone could get a certificate in Kubernetes administration and come away with the basic skills required to define K8s deployments and manage access controls.

But translating those skills to the Kubernetes environment that your business runs is an entirely different affair. Your company may have special security requirements that affect the way your team needs to manage secrets (meaning passwords, access keys and other sensitive credentials) within Kubernetes, for example. Or, you may have a pre-existing observability stack that needs to integrate with Kubernetes, in which case generic K8s admin skills aren’t necessarily enough to ensure that engineers know how to manage Kubernetes as one part of your unique IT estate.

Reproduce, extend and build upon new skills. Experienced consultants don’t only teach employees new skills. They also document everything they do during the consulting program, so employees are left with the blueprints they need to reproduce or expand upon the systems and processes that consultants helped to put into place.

Consultants don’t just help employees learn a specific set of new skills. They leave them with the foundational knowledge necessary for continuous learning and ongoing creation.

Consultants Are Like Personal Trainers

If you like analogies, you can think of the role of consultants in skills transfer this way: Effective consultants are like personal trainers who help experienced athletes perform even better. Consultants don’t run the race for you; instead, they teach you how to run faster, and they leave you with the foundation you need to gain even more speed and agility over time.

Understanding the role of consultants in skills transfer is critical. Some companies make the mistake of assuming the purpose of hiring a consultant is to defer the need for employees to learn skills on their own by having consultants provide the skills.

That approach is akin to shooting yourself in the foot because the best consultants don’t just solve problems for you. They solve problems with you and ensure that your team gains the knowledge necessary to keep solving problems after the consulting relationship concludes.

Cameron Hatten is executive vice president at Asperitas Consulting. You may follow him on LinkedIn or @Asperitascloud on Twitter.