Salesforce to train 400 Kiwis with Mission Ready and TupuToa
Salesforce has announced its commitment to train 400 New Zealanders in Salesforce skills through its support of Mission Ready and an expansion of its relationship with TupuToa.
The announcement was made at Salesforce's 'The Digital Imperative in Aotearoa New Zealand' event hosted in partnership with the Trans-Tasman Business Circle.
The event also featured an address from Hon David Clark, minister for the digital economy and communications, covering his priorities in the portfolio.
Hamish Miles, country leader for Salesforce New Zealand, says, "Salesforce's recent Global Digital Skills Index clearly showed that we are in a digital skills crisis and the gap is widening. While the demand for digital skills is high, the supply of people with these skills is lagging.
The Index revealed New Zealand's Workplace Digital Skills Readiness Index score is 28; this is compared with the highest-scoring country, India (63), Australia and the UK (21) and the US (36).
The research also found 82% of Kiwis said they are not equipped for the future of work, and 80% are planning to learn new skills in the future yet only 20% are very actively involved in workplace digital skills training programmes today.
Miles says, "As an industry, we need to do more to ensure that pathways to digital skills are accessible for all New Zealanders. We don't have all the answers and have a long way to go, but working together is the only way to make progress.
"That's why we've teamed up with TupuToa and Mission Ready to help us on this journey, and we couldn't be prouder to work alongside these two incredible organisations.
TupuToa chief executive Anne Fitisemanu says, "Our vision is to grow Māori and Pacific leaders for a greater Aotearoa, and we do that in a range of ways to support the development and advancement of our people.
"The Salesforce Admin Programme will help develop new skills and open up new career pathways, particularly in the tech sector, where we need to grow diversity. We are also excited about the ripple effect of possibilities that education, skills and training provides not just for individual learners, but also for entire whānau and wider communities.
Mission Ready is an Auckland-based career development agency focusing on helping people to develop their careers. It was set up to bridge the growing skills shortage by challenging the way the tech workforce is prepared, and has created its accelerator training model in collaboration with industry employers.
As part of this programme, learners will be trained in professional skills including agile and design thinking, and will gain three industry recognised certifications as well as industry experience on live projects.
Mission Ready co-founder, Diana Sharma, says she is proud to be part of the solution, combating the tech skills shortage by tailoring Mission Ready's Accelerator course to help candidates transition into tech careers.
Sharma says, "Our model appealed to Salesforce because of its short turn-around time, our social impact focus on inclusion and diversity, as well as our access to candidates who are motivated to change careers into the technology sector.
"Mission Ready's trained more than 300 candidates in the last three years with a large percentage transitioning from careers and backgrounds in teaching, business operations, performing arts, nursing and COVID-19-impacted industries like hospitality and tourism.
According to IDC, Salesforce and its ecosystem of partners in New Zealand will create 26,000 new jobs and NZ$9.7B billion in new business revenues by 2026.
