The Talent War is still in full effect, and many organizations are spending a ridiculous amount of resources on simply finding and retaining skilled new workers. Thankfully, there is a new economy arising that benefits both employers and employees.
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It’s not news, that due to the lack of people available with the proper technical skills, companies are forced to offer increasingly more compelling compensation packages in order to attract new employees. Because of this, in a study done by the Wakefield Research and IT consulting firm Appirio (a study which surveyed 200 IT executives and 200 IT staff members at companies in the US and UK), companies overwhelmingly agree that recruiting IT talent is a top challenge at their company, with 90% agreeing that it is a challenge and only 10% saying that it’s not. In fact, the C-Suite estimates that over a third of their HR budget is being use solely on recruiting and retaining new technical talent.
Despite the amount of money being thrown at recruiting and retaining this new talent, it is estimated that many of their top IT talent is being approached multiple times every month, and that 25% of their company’s IT staff turns over each year.
This unfortunate trend of constant upheaval is costly in more ways than one. Not only is much of the HR department’s budget being spent on finding and retaining new talent, but the constant instability has an effect on the productivity of the enterprise as well. Respondents of the survey admit that at least 25% of projects are dropped entirely, a fact due mainly to staffing limitations.
So, how are organizations attempting to address this costly issue?
Crowdsourcing.
In order to fill holes in their staff, many organizations are turning towards the growing pool of “gig” and freelance workers. This pool of gig and freelance workers is referred to as the “Gig Economy” and allows workers to choose the projects that they work on. In fact, 83% of the C-Suite respondents admit to believing that the economy is slowly shifting towards gig based work over full-time employees. This “crowdsourced” model is a solution that benefits employers as well as the workers.
With all of the money that is spent on fighting the ‘talent war’, crowdsourcing has become a great new approach to addressing the issue. Unfortunately many in the C-suite feel that gig workers are less reliable and knowledgeable than the traditional full time employees and are overwhelmingly concerned that they will lose their talent to this new economy.
However, the gig economy doesn’t have to be threatening. There is a huge opportunity for both businesses and employees. CIOs have an opportunity to tap into a scalable workforce that will help them meet their staffing needs while reducing costs. And employees are given an opportunity to select projects that appeal to them as well as have the ability to set their own hours, making the work life balance more achievable.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult for some of these C-suite leaders to adapt to this new way of thinking and relinquish the sense of control they have over their own workforce. In order to bridge the skill gap, it may be necessary to understand that the Gig-Economy is a great way to bring in the needed skills and talent when it’s needed.
If your company is having trouble finding and recruiting new and skilled IT talent, HT Partners can help. While the gig economy is becoming a great way to find new talent, the infrastructure isn’t quite all there yet and it can still be difficult to find the perfect fit. HT Partners, with your input and feedback and our extensive experience, can help to find skilled workers to fill your workforce.