There are few of us who could doubt that the predicted skills gap is well and truly upon us. The evidence is clear to anybody wanting to hire skilled employees, particularly in IT, engineering and other technical roles. I don’t want to rehash all the reasons why this has happened. Rather, I would like to contribute to the debate by offering the perspective of an IT manager who has to confront talent management as a real and unavoidable problem.
In my role as Software Development & Technology Manager for Infohrm, I am responsible for a small team of skilled software engineers. In recent years, I have found the recruitment process much more challenging than pretty much any time in the past. In my 30+ years in the industry, most of what I’ve seen is a perpetual treadmill of boom and bust. What’s happening now seems to defy that description.
Unapologetically, I set a high bar for individuals coming into our team. It’s fundamental to the success of the business that we recruit people with a high potential. This means that the available pool for recruitment is small and there’s little reason to believe that it’s going to get better any time soon.
So what are we doing about it? The approach we are currently taking is based on a graduate recruitment program. This has been working well for us and I attribute that to these factors:
- We have a core group of experienced software engineers who are willing and able to provide mentoring to new graduates.
- We factor into the recruitment count the possibility of losses before the next graduate intake can take place.
- We establish delivery schedules that accounts for the varying levels of experience amongst team members.
There are certain realities that you need to face if the bulk of your recruitment pipeline is embedded in graduate intake. You can’t expect it to work if you take the view that productivity is linearly aligned to headcount. Nor will it work unless you embrace a responsible attitude of fostering professional growth for the young people you are bringing into your work environment.
Tags: HCM, IT, Skills Shortage, software development
Hi Terry
I really like the approach of taking on graduates and then offering a high degree of training and mentoring to build their experience.
One think I like about the way you have implemented this model is the way you break down complex projects into discrete tasks and the allocation of meaningful work to build their capability, yet still offering enough stretch.
Tony
Hi Terry,
Interesting blog. I see from an article in todays media in Australia (www.news.com.au) that many others are expressing hiring and rention difficulties at higher rates than ever before. http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,23054780-5012426,00.html
In the article, titled ´Staff bidding wars begin´Hays Queensland director Darren Buchanan said the “war for talent” had been building in the Australian jobs market for several years.
“The head-hunting, the staff turnover, the retention difficulties have been more extreme in the last couple of years than they’ve ever been before,” he said.
“Every candidate now has two, three, four, five plus job offers on the table.
“So I think we’ll see a lot more companies this year thinking about how to not just get staff through the door, but keep them. And to do that … I think we’re going to see more pressure on salaries.”
I think salaries are just one component and think that development opportunities, career paths, mentoring, work-life balance,challenging work etc also need to be articulated to prospective employees.
Travis