134,000 reasons that Mainframe Skills are Flourishing!

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In 2016, in a landmark collaboration with Interskill Learning, IBM awarded an IBM digital skills badge to a mainframer for completing an online curriculum of mainframe skills training. Little did anyone know the impact this beginning would have on global mainframe workforce skills.

Today, after 7 years, IBM has just awarded its 134,000^th IBM digital badge for Interskill’s online mainframe skills training! The impact of this on the global mainframe computing industry is staggering!

Mainframe Skills Impact

Each of these IBM digital badges awarded by IBM is for, on average, 12 hours of online Interskill mainframe training. So that’s cumulatively 1.6 million hours of rigorous mainframe training completed by the global mainframe workforce! For those of you who still think in terms of classroom days, it’s equivalent to the training content of over 400,000 days of instructor-led mainframe classroom training.

And as well as the impact of the training completed and the mainframe skills learned, these digital credentials also benchmark industry mainframe skills, and objectively measure verifiable and endorsed IBM skills standards which has a powerful impact on both mainframe workforce and industry efficacy.

It’s 134,000 proofs that mainframe organizations are committed to training their mainframe workforces, and mainframers are empowering their own mainframe careers!

Mainframe Workforce Impact

The impact of 134,000 IBM digital badges for mainframe skills training goes far beyond mainframe skills! Consider all the additional benefits that digital badges themselves deliver to mainframe professionals, organizations, and the industry!

Each and every mainframer earning an IBM digital badge will experience some degree of happiness, satisfaction, confidence, self-belief and empowerment, all improving productivity, engagement and mainframe workforce eNPS! The recognition mainframers receive from earning each IBM badge has long term, positive, organizational and industry impact.

Studies show that IBM badges massively increase training success metrics like course registrations, course completions and overall learning outcomes. Once personnel have earned one badge, they want to earn more, which drives training and promotes a culture of learning at an organization! As learning in the corporate sector has become more informal, the employee’s motivation to drive their own development has become pivotal to their performance, and to the performance of the mainframe organization as a whole.

IBM digital skills badges posted on LinkedIn and other social media also widely advertise the attractiveness and availability of mainframe computing careers, bringing students and graduates and other IT professionals into the mainframe workforce!

134,000 Reasons to Celebrate!

Kudos to IBM and to Interskill for this remarkable partnership, helping to lift the vibrancy and efficacy of the mainframe workforce and the mainframe industry, at scale!  #WeAreMainframe