Fixing the IT skills deficit

Human resources executives and their IT counterparts are under the impression that finding the workers they need, featuring the right computer-related skills, is nothing short of a headache.

In fact, two recent surveys — one from Robert Half Associates and the other from the Society for Information Management — rank finding skilled IT professionnals as their most pressing issue. There’s no way around it, IT recruitment needs a fix.

It’s pretty common to hear IT execs blame universities for not producing a stream of IT graduates who are prepared to function in the business world. It’s no secret that executives like to focus on their projects and often end up treating (even skilled) IT talent as a mere commodity… which is NOT the way to deal with the current IT skill crisis.

There may exist countless solutions for resolving the apparent IT skills shortage but since we all need answers fast, here’s a no non-sense solution (Ah! The “S” word!) which is straightforward enough for all C-level folks to understand and it’s implementable in three easy steps:

1. No matter how badly the economy affects your firm, increase training for your current IT employees;
2. When recruiting from outside your company, be willing to interview capable IT pros, even when their skills aren’t 100% perfect match for the position;
3. Bite the bullet and provide new hires with technical training.

Getting the IT skills you need is all about broadening your talent searches but also, it’s about creating the skilled workforce your company needs — waiting for a university do to te job for you might cost less (read: zero) but it’ll probably do very little to fix your IT skills problem.

Keep in mind that this strategy assumes that you plan to keep your IT employees for a long stretch of time while ideally emphasizing career development and true committment to employees. Companies that follow this approach are more likely to have adequate IT staffing levels and lower turnover rates.

In a perfect world, the “Recruitment & Retention” strategies would always include training because, among other things, with a highly trained and competent IT workforce, even the CEO ends up having (much) more money in the bank!

Tags: it skills, it employees, it staffing, tech workers, skilled workforce, business it, skills shortage