How to Transform Your Tech Talent Strategy

In a world where demand for IT talent outstrips supply and where adaptive skills are highly prized, companies need to be bolder and more deliberate in their workforce strategies, throw out their old assumptions about how to recruit and develop talent, and be guided by workforce data. 

Also, employers need to be aware that traditional approaches focused on filtering candidates, based on qualifications and experience, may not identify candidates who have the raw qualities they require.

The IT sector is growing fast but not fast enough to keep pace with digitization. This      mismatch often focuses on the most experienced and entry-level positions      and ignores the positions right in the middle, where professionals possess strong technical skills and business intuition; positions that, in turn, lack exposure to emerging technologies and a roadmap for future development.

By the third half of 2022, according to the latest ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Study (MEOS), 1 in 5 organizations worldwide are having trouble finding qualified technology talent. When asked why they were having difficulty filling these positions, 34 percent of hiring managers said there were not enough candidates with the right technical skills, 32 percent said they did not have enough relevant experience      and more than a quarter (27 percent) said they lacked the right soft skills.

Now that we know that skills are a very important factor in recruiting, we should keep in mind that the skills most appreciated by employers are front office and  customer-facing, operations and logistics, sales and marketing administration and administrative assistant and IT and data. In addition, the five hardest soft skills to find are reliability and discipline, resilience and adaptability, collaboration and teamwork, reasoning and problem-     solving and last but not least, leadership and social influence.

Organizations are trying to incorporate a systematic approach to reskilling. We know it is not easy but the good news is that new technologies offer opportunities for new learning styles, including self-directed and experience-based training that gives your workers a greater sense of ownership and control.

Traditional approaches focused on filtering candidates based on qualifications and experience may not identify candidates who have the raw qualities employers require, so hiring strategies that embrace greater gender and ethnic diversity will also be important in the search for IT talent.

Nearly one in three organizations (29 percent) globally plan to invest the same in AI technology, including machine learning, over the next year, but a third intend to invest more.

Nowadays, data analytics tools allow us to make better decisions and reduce the fatigue involved in recruiting. Hiring that uses technologies like data management and machine learning to analyze large pools of talent to identify candidates with the right skills, experience and mindset, can begin to eliminate biases and help us hire the best-fit candidates.

Seventy-six percent of organizations with more than 100 employees now rely on assessment tools, such as aptitude and personality tests, for external hiring. Using them to analyze applications can significantly reduce the cost and time to recruit. In addition, real-time data provides an ongoing opportunity to assess the success or otherwise of the change in approach, which can be adjusted accordingly.

We know that leading is not an easy thing to do, especially when we face such a big challenge as digitalization, which is why in a recent study by Experis (Manpower, 2022), we suggest some key points to lead with the confidence that is needed in these times:

• Assess individuals based on their potential, not past performance

• Align short, sharp and applied skills programs with changing market demand

• Revamp the role of IT generalists and improve their access to ongoing training and development

• Show how your culture and values guide your talent decision-making

• Be clear on your principles and how they translate to employee-centric policies and benefits

• Act, don’t just talk, on employee well-being

For talent leaders to adapt to — and win — this new labor reality, organizations increasingly expect employees to reinvent themselves, so leaders responsible for hiring tech talent know they must do the same. They also have the opportunity to leverage digital technologies to support their teams in a wide range of value-added activities —      everything from predictive analytics technologies that provide early warning of labor supply and demand issues to sentiment analysis that tracks employee engagement.

Seven out of 10 workers say that having leaders they can trust and follow is important to them, and 2 out of 3 want to work for organizations that share their values.

To make this whole new philosophy work, those hiring tech talent need to become more adept technologists, able to exploit advances in areas such as data science, and know how to drive organizational and cultural transformation in a world where two-thirds of corporate leaders now believe culture is preeminent.