As across every industry in technology, the skills shortage within Unified Communication continues to present huge challenges to channel partners.
A growing problem is that skills around legacy products are already rapidly diminishing. At the same time, companies are fighting to retain employees in the new era of remote work. Many feel they can’t compete with the higher salaries on offer from competitors from other parts of the UK.
“It’s expensive to get new people up-to-date with particular sets of skills. Companies are starting to worry about where their workforce is going to come from to continue to maintain their products,” said Ian Rowan, Senior Channel Manager at UCaaS vendor Wildix UK.
After speaking with partners, Wildix is looking to tackle the problem of the skills shortage of telecoms engineers within the channel.
The company is now offering to transfer skills and certification obtained on a selection of vendors directly to Wildix and also upskill people on government-approved apprenticeship schemes.
Any trained engineer from either an existing or new partner with a valid certification on Mitel, Avaya, Panasonic or Siemens can now participate in Wildix W-FE training scheme free of charge. This is the core Wildix engineering certification, which takes two days to complete. Once completed, engineers have an option to complete the W-FEX advanced certification via the vendor’s eLearning portal.
Speaking about the channel incentive, Rowan said: “This offer is about ensuring those vital skills that our channel needs are available now to our partners and also that in the future this skill base does not reduce as the traditional skill base of telecoms engineers ages. Without these basic product skills our channel does not move forward and technical training costs are always an unwelcome overhead from partners.
“Typically the cost of transitioning skills from one product to another runs into thousands. Not only the direct cost of the training, for which we would normally charge at £1500, but also hotels and travel expenses along with the indirect cost of that engineer not being able to work for several days. This offer hopefully removes this as a roadblock”
Rowan said partners can transfer their skills from existing legacy solutions to “state of the art solutions that help them address the existing customer needs.”
Offer extends to apprentice engineers
The same offer of full certified training is available to apprentice engineers, showing Wildix support towards the government’s move towards helping young people in employment obtaining the required on the job skills.
“We’ll train anybody that’s on a recognised government apprenticeship scheme for free,” said Rowan. “We are hitting the market from both ends and trying to ensure the channel has those skills that it needs.”
Rowan also pointed to Wildix’s recent inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS providers. Gartner highlighted that Wildix utilises a 100% indirect/channel-based go-to-market approach, eliminating potential conflict with partners.
“This offer also shows how Wildix as an organisation is 100% committed to the channel and helping ensure the success of our partners,” he added.
Rowan urged anyone who has issues with recruiting staff with the required skills set to get in touch with Wildix.
