One of the biggest challenges facing IT organizations today is hiring and retaining the right talent. The scarcity of IT skills in the general workforce coupled with the increasing competition to attract and hire that talent has many organizations worried.
According to Randstad, a global human resources and staffing solutions firm, and their 2016 Workplace Trends Report, of the 2,004 hiring managers and hiring decision makers they surveyed between November and December 2015, 55 percent say finding the talent they need is the biggest threat to meeting their revenue or business performance targets in 2016.
Bob Dickey, Group President of Technology and Engineering at Randstad U.S., says “These results validated for us what we already suspected — there’s absolutely a skills shortage, the war for talent is real, and it’s having a corresponding effect on ROI and productivity and on companies’ bottom line.”
Retention was sited by 50 percent of survey respondents, making it the third biggest workforce concern for 2016. 45 percent are concerned about the rising turnover rates.
While most employees leave for better pay and benefits, only 37 percent of IT decision makers surveyed reported increasing salary ranges in response.
Dickey believes the solution to retention issues is more complex than just pay. “Obviously pay and benefits are extremely important, in that it has the greatest direct effect in the short-term, but you can’t simply focus there. The companies that are solving the hiring and retention problems are using a multi-pronged approach that takes into account pay, benefits and culture, as well as their workforce demographics,” he says.
In regards to figuring out where to start, Dickey explained that “It starts by listening to what your employees want, and trying to address those needs as best you can. There are ways to invest in employees with professional growth and training, allowing them to pursue cross-functional roles and go outside their area of expertise in addition to the standard pay and benefits.”
