ConxusNEO, RITE seek help in assessing area IT needs

Workforce development groups ConxusNEO in Akron and RITE in Cleveland are hoping to get their arms around the region’s information technology workforce needs so they can be better met, and the groups are asking for help.

ConxusNEO president Sue Lacy said she’s soliciting a couple of thousand chief information officers and other highly placed IT professionals in Lorain, Cuyahoga, Summit, Medina, Stark and Portage counties. She’s hoping at least 400 of them will participate in a new survey, which is fairly comprehensive with about 30 questions.

“It’s intended to identify in very concrete terms the current IT needs of industry, and it also asks them to project into the future as to what companies see in terms of future talent needs,” Lacy said.

ConxusNEO will work with RITE, which specializes in IT workforce issues, to help distribute the survey, and analyze its results. The two organizations say what they learn should help inform local colleges and other sources of training as to where they can most effectively focus their efforts.

The two organizations and the others they work with need to know not only about shortages in the current workforce, but what sorts of IT professionals will be needed in the years ahead, said RITE executive director Courtney DeOreo.

“That old adage about ‘where the puck is going’ is very true here,” DeOreo said.

For instance, there are new, disruptive technologies on the horizon, she said, and educators and job-seekers need to know if they should prepare for them in Northeast Ohio.

“Take for instance blockchain or these other disruptive technologies. We don’t have a good sense for what the implications are for the workforce in the region,” DeOreo said.

So, she and Lacy want to know whether employers are working or plan to work in such areas, or whether they plan to work with mobile technology, cybersecurity or a host of other types of technology.

Lacy said she’ll collect surveys for about the next four to six weeks. She will spend much of the summer tabulating and analyzing the results with RITE. She hopes the results, which she said would be shared with the public, will start to help educators later this year.

“I suspect by late summer we’ll compile the results and we’ll begin to have informational sessions in early fall,” Lacy said.

The survey can be accessed online here.

Read original article here.

Shingler, Dan. (2020, May 13) ConxusNEO, RITE seek help in assessing area IT needs. Crain’s Cleveland Business.  Retrieved from https://www.crainscleveland.com/education/conxusneo-rite-seek-help-assessing-area-it-needs