How to retain IT talent amid the great resignation

With the great res­ig­na­tion well under way and the IT sec­tor already fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant skills short­ages, recruit­ing and retain­ing staff has, arguably, nev­er been more impor­tant. CIOs must think more deeply than ever about how they can attract the tal­ent required to deliv­er the IT infra­struc­ture and inno­va­tion that will improve their firms’ bot­tom lines. 

Salary remains the most impor­tant ele­ment of any deci­sion on which job to accept, con­firms James Hal­la­han, direc­tor of Hays Tech­nol­o­gy in the UK and Ire­land. Accord­ing to its Hays Salary & Recruit­ing Trends 2022 guide, 57% of tech pro­fes­sion­als expect to move jobs this year. The top rea­son for doing so, cit­ed by 34%, was to obtain bet­ter pay and ben­e­fits. Both fig­ures are high­er than the aver­age for all UK employ­ees. 

But Hal­la­han warns that CIOs shouldn’t make salary their focus in attract­ing appli­cants. IT pro­fes­sion­als are also seek­ing roles with clear poten­tial for career devel­op­ment. 

“Your employ­er val­ue propo­si­tion is the key to retain­ing tal­ent, with oppor­tu­ni­ties that promise a reward­ing future in the organ­i­sa­tion,” he stress­es.

Shiv­ku­mar Gopalan, CIO of soft­ware firm Unit4, reports that the youngest can­di­dates have dif­fer­ent expec­ta­tions about career devel­op­ment from those of their pre­de­ces­sors. “The gen­er­a­tion enter­ing the work­force now are dig­i­tal natives, com­fort­able with all forms of tech­nol­o­gy,” he says. 

This means a career in IT is no longer just about devel­op­ing spe­cial­ist tech­ni­cal skills. Can­di­dates want to devel­op a broad­er knowl­edge of how an enter­prise works and of IT’s role in dri­ving a busi­ness for­ward. 

“If CIOs want to attract these can­di­dates, they must demon­strate that they can offer immer­sive expe­ri­ences that enable employ­ees to col­lab­o­rate with a wide range of expert col­leagues – drawn not only from IT, but from all parts of the busi­ness,” Gopalan says.

The broad­er pack­age is also impor­tant, accord­ing to Sarah Ben­nett, CIO of Mer­ca­tor IT Solu­tions. “The basic salary needs to sit well in the mar­ket, but it needs to be topped up with a good pen­sion, access to health­care pro­grammes and an all-encom­pass­ing ben­e­fit scheme, includ­ing sub­sidised gym mem­ber­ship, retail dis­counts and cin­e­ma tick­ets – all things that improve lifestyle,” she says. “Hol­i­day enti­tle­ment should also be com­pet­i­tive and, pos­si­bly, increase after a cer­tain length of ser­vice.”

IT pro­fes­sion­als expect to be allowed to work flex­i­bly, includ­ing a degree of remote work­ing. Har­vey Nash’s Dig­i­tal Lead­er­ship Report 2021 has found that two-thirds of dig­i­tal lead­ers expect most of their team mem­bers to work two to three days a week from home.

Robert Ruther­ford, CEO of QuoStar, who over­sees the IT consultancy’s recruit­ment, believes that it’s impor­tant to give peo­ple the chance to work flex­i­bly or to alter their pack­age to fit their pre­ferred work­ing style. Because an employee’s needs and focus can fluc­tu­ate through­out their career, employ­ers must be will­ing to adapt and work around these changes, he says. 

But Ruther­ford adds that not all employ­ees will place a high val­ue on flex­i­bil­i­ty, which is why it’s worth tar­get­ing dif­fer­ent groups with dif­fer­ent strate­gies. “It can pay div­i­dends to focus on offer­ing dif­fer­ent com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages – and even to split-test recruit­ment adver­tis­ing to appeal to can­di­dates with vary­ing pref­er­ences,” he sug­gests.

Com­pa­ny cul­ture is anoth­er area that comes under scruti­ny. This is where IT teams have a chance to devel­op cut­ting-edge propo­si­tions that will appeal to their poten­tial recruits. Hele­na Nim­mo, CIO of Enda­va, says com­pa­nies can har­ness IT to dif­fer­en­ti­ate their offer­ing. She cites Google as an exam­ple, high­light­ing how it recent­ly adapt­ed its office envi­ron­ment to meet the demands of a hybrid work­ing mod­el by incor­po­rat­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion spaces and inclu­sive meet­ing rooms. 

“A pri­or­i­ty for CIOs should be to think about how to cre­ate a vir­tu­al expe­ri­ence that mim­ics the phys­i­cal,” Nim­mo says, sug­gest­ing meth­ods such as “intu­itive con­nec­tiv­i­ty capa­bil­i­ties that bridge the gap between rapid­ly advanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy and real-world appli­ca­tions”.

The impor­tance of cul­ture extends to an employer’s broad­er val­ues too. Issues such as sus­tain­abil­i­ty and respon­si­ble busi­ness are becom­ing a high­er pri­or­i­ty for the next gen­er­a­tion of IT pro­fes­sion­als. Mark Mamone, group CIO of dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty firm GBG, reports that he is “increas­ing­ly see­ing this on an equal foot­ing with the finan­cial pack­age” among can­di­dates. 

Mamone believes that CIOs must think about the wider world, what prospec­tive employ­ees care about and how the organ­i­sa­tion can engage with them. Com­pa­nies must estab­lish robust poli­cies on envi­ron­men­tal and social issues, as well as sound cor­po­rate gov­er­nance in areas such as diver­si­ty and inclu­sion, the green agen­da and char­i­ta­ble giv­ing. GBG gives employ­ees time off to sup­port local com­mu­ni­ty projects, for instance. 

Ben­nett sug­gests that CIOs should focus more of their efforts on keep­ing their exist­ing team mem­bers, nur­tur­ing them and prepar­ing them to assume more tech­ni­cal and/or senior roles with­in the com­pa­ny. “They may lack cer­tain skills, but these can often be taught,” she says. “What they bring to the table is knowl­edge of the busi­ness and its client base, which should nev­er be under­es­ti­mat­ed. The abil­i­ty to demon­strate that the busi­ness looks after its employ­ees and tries to upskill them will also help to attract new peo­ple.”

Oth­er options include tar­get­ing spe­cif­ic groups of can­di­dates, such as return­ing par­ents and old­er work­ers, but such approach­es are unlike­ly to be any­thing more than a stop-gap mea­sure, accord­ing to Ruther­ford, who says: “While there has recent­ly been anoth­er push to hire from these pools, there is not enough resource to fill the roles that CIOs are recruit­ing for.”

The sim­ple truth is that employ­ers must devel­op a well-con­sid­ered strat­e­gy to attract, devel­op and retain peo­ple that will prove effec­tive over the longer term and give them a com­pet­i­tive edge in the war for IT tal­ent. “This will prob­a­bly take a few years to get up to speed,” Ruther­ford warns. “It will entail approach­es such as build­ing inter­nal acad­e­mies or ‘tal­ent fun­nels’ too, but all this will be nec­es­sary if com­pa­nies are to achieve sus­tain­able suc­cess.”