Technical talent development is based on DEI, upskilling and teamwork

Monica Caldas knows a thing or two about creative approaches to developing technical talent—and their importance.

Caldas is currently deputy CIO of global insurance company Liberty Mutual Insurance, headquartered in Boston. She will become the company’s CIO in January 2023 when current CIO James McGlennon retires. Caldas looks forward to continuing the global insurer’s digital transformation and harnessing the creativity these projects require. But the CIO role also gives her an even larger platform to drive and advocate for new approaches to developing tech talent.

As a person who identifies as both female and Hispanic, Caldas is in the distinct minority as an IT executive and technologist mostly white and male-dominated technology industry. Many personal factors have supported Caldas’ success, including courage and a results-oriented mindset. But Liberty Mutual’s support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and, before that, its former employer General Electric’s support were also crucial. Caldas, for her part, is passionate about DEI and creative approaches to talent development.

Here, Caldas offers advice on how IT professionals can seek training opportunities, what measures managers can take to address the technical skills shortage, and how change management can support the success of IT projects.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear a more in-depth interview with Caldas, click on the video.

Why do today’s IT leaders need to expand their skills beyond technical skills? Think about soft skills?

Monica Caldas: Today, IT leaders need to be comfortable in a variety of roles: from the technical side – and the ability to comment on technology stacks and architecture and data decisions – to the ability to sometimes wear another role at the same time. You need to understand the relationship between the technology solution and the business problem you are solving. You need to work with all different stakeholders and at different levels of the organization.

How should IT professionals think about balancing technical skills and soft skills?

Caldas: The deciding factor is technical skills. That’s always how you start. You build up from there.

How can IT professionals – especially from non-dominant groups – approach leadership and change management in a way that better develops their most important soft skills?

Caldas: When it comes to leadership, focus on: How do you perform as a peer? How do you work together? How do you have difficult conversations in a meaningful and constructive way? And can you do that so you can get the best out of everyone at the table? You can improve these leadership skills anywhere.

Affinity groups [such as women in tech resource groups] are also great places to develop those muscles. And maybe you feel like these are safer places because you’re not tied to a specific person [work] Result. They give more space to develop [soft skills]. When I was at GE, I leveraged women in technology circles and other allies. We had a buddy system to say, ‘This is how I want to show up.’ How do you see me? How does that actually come across?’

Figure out what parts of your competency you need to focus on, and then find different ways and channels to do it. Have allies and a system that gives you real-time feedback.

For change management: Transformation is on everyone’s agenda. What people sometimes miss is an understanding of the environment they are in and how ready the unit or team is for the change.

I like to say that massive transformations are like heart surgery. Before putting the patient on the table for surgery, you need to make sure that he is healthy enough to withstand this change.

And while leadership and change management are among the most important soft skills people should focus on developing, presentation and communication skills are embedded within them.

Can you share more about how awareness of change management impacts the success of technology projects?

We need to reach out to communities and take action to make a greater contribution [tech talent] Bank.

Caldas: We need to educate everyone at the table to recognize where the team is at as a whole and what they need to do to maintain progress. Sometimes you have to accelerate because market conditions require it and your customers need something new. But you have to understand how ready people are and decide how to get them from A to B.

If you miss this [readiness] Signals you may fail even if you have the right technology.

Given the skills shortage in the IT sector, how can managers develop more talent?

Caldas: Even when I started my career 20 years ago, there wasn’t enough technical talent. It’s only gotten worse.

We are not training enough technical talent. So start there: How do you continue to work with universities and communities to create the bench? [of the next generation of tech talent] and motivate groups that are not traditionally interested in technology? We need to reach out to communities and take action to create a larger technology pool – not just for diverse talent, but also more broadly.

There is also internal talent development. For example, we already have an incredible group of people in our organization in technology at Liberty, and we often talk about creating the space and time for them to train in new technologies. Another part of IT talent development is for leaders to help and empower employees to upskill and upskill.

The third way to develop tech talent is to look for new ways to upskill tech that didn’t exist before. Take data science as an example: it has always been important in insurance, but in other industries it has not been as important as it is today. So if you are very good at programming, you may now have a different opportunity to advance your career than you originally imagined when you started your career in technology.

So [IT leaders should] Talk to people about different ways employees can develop and add value. Then you need to connect all the dots with what’s important to that person and meet them where they are and where they want to go, rather than just having a traditional model. It’s about truly personalizing this learning and development experience while always being responsive to the needs of the company and our customers.