10 In-Demand Skills Your Employees Need in April 2018

Jennifer Juo

Content Marketing Team Lead at Udemy for Business

According to the Manpower Group, nearly 2/3 of businesses rely on training internal talent to address skills gaps rather than hiring new talent. To meet this pressing need for in-demand learning and development, Udemy for Business consistently adds ~100 new courses each month. We’ve also added a new product feature that enables L&D leaders to extend learning across an organization by allowing team leads and managers to take more ownership of their own team’s development needs.

Here’s a look at some of the new courses that will help employees stay up to date on emerging technologies and the latest soft skills.

1. Workplace Culture

Patty McCord served as the Chief Talent Officer of Netflix for 14 years and is widely recognized for helping create the Netflix Culture Deck. Since it was first posted on the web, the Culture Deck has been viewed more than 15 million times, and Sheryl Sandberg has said that it “may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.”

In her brand new Udemy course, Build a Culture of Freedom & Responsibility, Patty builds on principles from the Culture Deck and teaches how to create high performing teams, practice radical honesty in the workplace, build leadership skills and more. This course is targeted towards managers, team leaders, and executives who want to create a dynamic and effective company culture.

It acquaints you with the real deal of an organization, what’s needed to get the job done rather than defining policies and rules. — Student Review

2. Flutter & Dart

Flutter, the new cross-platform mobile development framework created by Google in 2017, has revolutionized the way we build mobile apps. Now, developers don’t have to learn Objective-C or Swift to build iOS apps and Java or Kotlin to build Android apps — it can all be done in one codebase through Flutter. Running at 60 frames per second, user interfaces created with Flutter also perform far better than those created with other cross-platform development frameworks. And, developers who leverage Flutter love it.

With U.S. users now spending 5 hours per day on their mobile devices, it’s critical for developers to be able to quickly build and update their apps. To help solve for this, Flutter & Dart – The Complete Flutter App Development Course is the world’s first comprehensive online resource for learning how to leverage Flutter to build iOS and Android apps with over 20 hours of on-demand video and supplemental resources.

“High-quality content. Explained brilliantly, without any fluff. Highly recommended for Flutter newbies all over.” — Student Review

3. Change Management

Employees often struggle to apply new knowledge on the job. It takes 2 months on average before a new behavior becomes automatic, according to research by Phillippa Lally at the University College in London. With employees applying only 1/3 of what they learn on the job, being able to change behavior is essential to driving performance.

Taught by MicroLearn, a provider of high quality, bite-sized video content, Change Management is an engaging and compact course on Udemy for Business that covers the fundamentals of challenging the status quo and how to accept and adapt to change. This course is ideal for anyone looking to change habits and behavior in the workplace.

To learn more on this topic, check out our L&D Behavior Change Toolkit: 5 Ways to Change Behavior at Work featuring Lyft and Udemy.

4. Apache Kafka

In our era of big data, your IT infrastructure may be taxed by the influx of data from a wide variety of sources. On top of that, customers demand to see their data in “real time” without any lag time, so your servers need to process and display data quickly.

Apache Kafka is a new technology that enables companies to create real-time data feeds. It’s used by companies like Uber, Twitter, Airbnb, Yelp, and over 30% of today’s Fortune 500 companies. (For more information, see 4 Key Benefits of Apache Kafka for Real-Time Data)

Udemy for Business provides a number of great online resources to learn Apache Kafka, including:

Through these courses, your developers will learn how to scale, onboard more data, complete more projects, and react to events in real time.

“Excellent course. Well designed and very well taught. It was short (for me it was perfect) yet covers all the important subjects and real-world examples which is enough to implement the first project.”— Student Review

5. AWS with Python

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies, and governments, on a paid subscription basis. They provide a set of tools (“APIs”) to allow the purchasing and maintenance of these servers to be controlled by programs written in many languages, including Python.

AWS Machine Learning, AI, SageMaker – With Python a brand new course on Udemy for Business, is a hands-on learning resource designed to make you an expert on AWS Machine Learning so that you can convert ideas into highly scalable products in a matter of days. With 12.5 hours of on-demand video, this course is ideal for anyone interested in machine learning and data science and those looking for hands-on experience preparing for AWS Certification. The instructor, Chandra Lingam, is an expert in AWS who spent 15 years at Intel developing and managing systems that handled hundreds of terabytes of worldwide factory data.

“I enjoyed Chandra Lingam’s AWS Machine Learning course a lot, as it was built on theoretical knowledge with real-life examples which made it easy to follow along. By the end of the course, I got comfortable with using the AWS ML platform to build predictive models both for my hobby and my day job. This is a well-structured course, with usable outcomes and learnings, would recommend anyone who wants to jump into ML and build software with it ASAP.”— Student Review

6. GDPR

Businesses around the world are rapidly preparing for the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Enforced on May 25, 2018 GDPR will affect all businesses and how they process the personal data of EU citizens.

GDPR – In a Nutshell is taught by David Chapman who holds a Ph.D. in information security and is the co-founder of CHL, a small company providing online information security and programming skills training. The course provides a foundational understanding of GDPR and the various data protection principles companies need to know.

“Awesome course! A great introduction to GDPR providing basic foundational knowledge to build upon. The instructor is very clear and presents information in a professional, user-friendly manner and illustrates how it can be implemented in the real world at a basic level.”— Student Review

7. New Manager Training

Training new managers is essential to business success, yet so often overlooked or done inadequately. With more millennials moving into leadership positions, it’s more important than ever to provide proper access to learning for individual contributors moving into management positions for the first time.

CCL Boost: Flip Your Script For New Leader Success is an online course on Udemy for Business that equips new managers with the leadership skills, confidence, and support needed to effectively transition into a management role. Based on the research and real-world experience of researcher William Gentry, Ph.D., this course provides six tactics that new managers can use while on the job to attain immediate success in their new role.

“[The instructor] is thoughtful and presents his material very well. The different perspectives on real-world topics were helpful and insightful.”— Student Review

8. TensorFlow

TensorFlow is a primary tool used for machine and deep learning. Originally developed by researchers and engineers working on the Google Brain Team within Google’s Machine Intelligence organization for the purposes of conducting machine learning and deep neural networks research, the system is general enough to be applicable in a wide variety of other domains as well. It is used by major companies all over the world, including Airbnb, ebay, Dropbox, Snapchat, Twitter, Uber, SAP, Qualcomm, IBM, Intel, and of course, Google!

The Complete Guide to TensorFlow for Deep Learning with Python covers it all — from theory to practical application, with 96 lectures comprising of 14 hours of on-demand video. With over 500,000 students across his courses on Udemy, bestselling tech instructor Jose Portilla has designed this course for Python developers eager to create artificial neural networks for deep learning.

9. Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that leverages unconventional methods to break unwanted habits and limiting beliefs, build confidence and communicate with others in a more empowered, persuasive way. NLP is extremely popular in the self-help, therapy, sports, education, coaching, performance and corporate worlds.

Udemy for Business offers NLP Master Practitioner Certification (Advanced to Expert), a course ideal for business leaders, influencers, managers, and professionals who want to transform the way they think and interact and communicate with others. The course features an industry-leading 24 hours of on-demand video and covers actionable principles and practices used by professional NLP experts all around the world. Instructor Kain Ramsay is an international bestseller and has taught over 120,000 students on Udemy.

“Simply put … this course is a well thought out program chalked full with a wealth of insightful info delivered in a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand fashion. In addition, the resources are valuable to follow along, save, and you also have the ability to use several as your own.”— Student Review

10. Robotics & Automation

Much in the same way that physical robots have revolutionized the manufacturing industry, software robots are now capable of having a similar impact in the white-collar business world. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) simply means using modern process automation tools to quickly and reliably replicate how human beings perform routine daily office work on Microsoft Excel & Word documents, web applications, CRMs, desktop apps, APIs, databases, and Citrix terminals. (For more information, see Automation Skills Your Workforce Needs Today.)

To take advantage of these innovative new automation tools, Udemy for Business offers a brand new course on Robotic Process Automation Overview. This course provides an implementation plan you can use as a guideline to introduce automation into your company. The instructor, Bryan Lamb, has been a tech leader for over 20 years at companies like Apple Computer, Yahoo, and Experian and specializes in automation, software development, entrepreneurship, and creative services.

“This is a very good course to get started with [Robotic Process Automation] RPA. The instructor has provided a very good explanation about what RPA is, its need, its scope, tools available in the market and industry trends.”— Student Review