New ServiceNow Program Aims To Train 1 Million By 2024

‘A lot of people are hungry to enter the digital business. Customers and partners are yearning to fill open positions. This is an opportunity gap. RiseUp with ServiceNow is us saying, how can we provide the opportunity to fill that gap for anyone looking to be a part of the digital workforce,’ says Catherine Lang, ServiceNow’s senior vice president of global education.

ServiceNow is looking to address the shortage of skilled and certified personnel related to its workflow platform with a new initiative that draws on support from its partners to train and certify one million people by 2024.

The initiative, called RiseUp with ServiceNow, is a global program aimed to provide ServiceNow, its customers, and its channel partners with the right talent to help expand use of the ServiceNow platform in the face of a global shortage of people with digital transformation IT skills, said Catherine Lang, senior vice president of global education for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

The IT industry, and the ServiceNow ecosystem, is standing in an interesting time and an interesting paradox, Lang told CRN.

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“A lot of people are hungry to enter the digital business,” she said. “Customers and partners are yearning to fill open positions. This is an opportunity gap. RiseUp with ServiceNow is us saying, how can we provide the opportunity to fill that gap for anyone looking to be a part of the digital workforce.”

RiseUp with ServiceNow is the culmination of work that ServiceNow has been doing for years to help people learn about and work with the company’s technology, Lang said.

“RiseUp is our inflection point to say now we are bringing everything together with our community to accelerate peoples’ ability to become part of the ServiceNow ecosystem,” she said. “It’s also a way to connect individuals to what customers need, and for our partners to grow their services teams to build their aspirations.”

RiseUp with ServiceNow is aimed at individuals who want to build a career with customer looking to get the talent they need and partners who are looking to build up their practices, Lang said. To do so, the company is expanding its partnerships with companies who have had a long history as authorized training partners, as well as with other organizations that can help with the training, she said.

One of those partners is Volteo Digital, a Chandler, Ariz.-based elite-level ServiceNow channel partner which is already on its way to shortly graduating 50 ServiceNow professionals.

Ryan Gallagher, Volteo Digital’s chief operating officer, said his company, which has been doing implementation of ServiceNow and training of its people on the ServiceNow platform since 2013, in June opened a center of excellence in Guadalajara, Mexico where it has been training two cohorts of students for careers in the ServiceNow ecosystem.

The first cohort is expected to graduate late this year, followed in late January by the second cohort, Gallagher told CRN.

“We will replicate that program in the U.S. in 2023,” he said. “We started in Mexico as it gave us a different way to reach the talent pool. Talent is short in the U.S. But we’re getting access to top talent in Mexico. And they will be available to help us in the U.S. as well.”

ServiceNow has been working some time to train digital professionals at scale, and leaned on Volteo Digital to help, Gallagher said.

“And we realized this will help our services while increasing the diversity of the talent pool and giving us a chance to lean in on our ServiceNow relationship,” he said. “We also get to be a part of enabling the talent pool and not just to grow it. It’s an accelerator for us. We’re grateful to have this partnership with ServiceNow, and happy to have a front seat in heling solve the talent shortage.”

The vast majority of ServiceNow’s elite-level partners have training capabilities, and premier-level partners are starting to build then as well, Lang said.

“Our elite partners are taking the point of view that they need to build their own academies to build the talent they need,” she said. “They are making sure their skillsets and methodologies are based on what they need. Customers are more and more hungry for expertise and skills. So partners are expanding to meet those needs.”

Not every partner will be building expertise for their own needs, Lang said.

“If it’s a RiseUp partner, it will likely be focused on building skills in people who go to that partner or its customers,” she said. “Elite partners are likely building capabilities for their own companies. But there are exceptions with a couple partners looking to build talent for the ServiceNow ecosystem as a whole.”