Tech talent the war rages on Viewpoint careers advice blog

Tech talent the war rages on In the book Average is Over, economist Tyler Cowen offers a wake-up call for all workers, including those in high-tech professions. While employment is increasing, so are skill shortages, especially in IT. Within the American labour market, he argues, the “hollowing out” of mid-level white-collar roles is creating a polarisation between low and high-skilled workers. The key drivers of this trend? Automation and cloud services. This creates opportunities for adaptable IT professionals, while presenting quite a challenge for employers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a leap in demand  for programmers in the US of 23 per cent between 2012 and 2022. In June 2014, a US survey by Dice of more than 700 technology-focused recruiters and managers indicated 70 per cent expected to hire more IT candidates in the short term, but 60 per cent noted difficulties filling roles for the salaries they were offering, indicating that the best candidates are to some extent already beginning to call the shots on pay. As ever, companies need to attract the best talent, but they should also bear in mind the need to attract and engage with more than just cash. That means adapting to the behaviours and expectations of post-industrial Millennials, who expect investment into new technologies and approaches, as well as a workplace encouraging flexibility, particularly around the use of the mobile technologies and social tools they have grown up with. Ready to recruit The challenge for enterprise? To be more open and connected, sharing information between departments and corporate geographies through intranets and cloud resources. Automattic, the company behind content management and blogging platform WordPress, as well as a host of cloud-based social content services, is at the extreme end of this trend. Its workforce is distributed around the world, working from home using online collaborative communications tools. Another emerging approach to secure the best IT talent is to bring IT itself to bear, through the use of social physics where big data on human behaviour influences corporate strategy. Xerox has been using this method for new hires and has seen a fall of 20 per cent in the staff attrition rate during its pilot period. It seems that, with skilled workers at a premium, and technology on hand, attracting, engaging and retaining talent is swiftly becoming a science, rather than an art. Future-proof learning New talent is in the pipeline, of course. In the US, P21 (the Partnership for 21st Century Skills) is pushing policies that focus on educational readiness for the digital economy and something similar is happening north of the border with Digital Canada 150. The Confederation of British Industry is also recommending that the UK Government give free IT tuition and expand the provision of IT within all levels of education. Government initiatives like e-skills UK are beginning to address this. Meanwhile, corporations are starting to take a hold of matters. IBM’s Academic Initiative is “building skills for a Smarter Planet” by providing in-house skills resources where employees can apply to mainframe and mobile-development applications. Employers are more attractive and retain more staff if they fully or part-fund these types of training events. While these initiatives are admirable, they will take some time to come into effect. In the meantime, governments need to make it easier for talented IT professionals to gain work visas and allow the burgeoning tech workforces from emerging economies to engage in opportunities worldwide. The war for future talent will be fierce, and digital is a major front. Allowing businesses to access the best talent should be top of every government’s list. Join our LinkedIn Group Join our LinkedIn Group to share your thoughts and stay up-to-date with the latest on business, employment and recruitment news in the IT industry. Join our Group