'Retain IT talent by offering challenging opportunities'

BANGALORE: While attrition of IT personnel is more or less accepted as a fact of life in most enterprises-be it IT or non-IT,

lessening the impact of the turnover on IT projects in the company is something that could cause endless nightmares to CIOs.

The CIOL Enterprise Connect held in Bangalore focused on this crucial issue, at a panel discussion titled

"Retaining IT talent: The impact on Enterprise projects."

Panelist TVS Motors' Venkat Iyer opined that it is important for companies

to try and retain IT talent by giving them challenging job responsibilities.

Atul Gupta, Head-Information technology, Shaw Wallace Breweries Limited

concurred saying "While attrition is a reality, taking preventive and

precautionary measures is important. Employees also expect a pat on their back

by expanding their job role."

It was not because of the job content or salary that people moved jobs but

due to the number of growth opportunities available, he added.

Echoing his view, Sridhar S, CIO said that IT staff could be encouraged by

presenting the big picture of opportunities available. He also felt that in

companies, which have presence across the country and globe, can encourage

exchange programs for their employees, inter team exchanges and constantly

evolving new methods will sustain interest among the employees.

Stressing that turnover occurs not just in the IT departments but also non-it

divisions like marketing and sales, Vijayan, GM, IT, DTDC Ltd, said, "The

outflow in IT is more because people in this field are more loyal to the

profession than the company." He also said CIOs need to make sure training

programs and have proper backups to cushion the turnover of IT staff. He noted

that the company needs to make the employees understand that in an IT company,

he is restricted to be a part of the bigger playing team while in an user

industry, he gets to manage important projects in an user industry.

A point that was agreed upon by almost all panel members is that the CIO also

needs to play the role of creative HR people to retain talent. "This is

because it's the CIO who loses out the most when IT people leave the

company," said Iyer. He also reiterated the importance of convincing the

management of non-IT companies that core employees need to be taken care of.

Vijayan also stressed that companies in the same sector need to share domain

knowledge. "Infact," he remarked in a lighter vein that, "even IT

companies are looking at domain expertise and are now poaching user industry

employees".

 Infact, he revealed that outsourcing of IT talent is now big time

revenue source for many companies and has also created enough of challenges and

opportunities for the employees to stay back. Companies like BPCL, L&T, Tata

Steel have all are offering their IT resource pool to be shared among the peers.

Yet, there are quite a few companies who are not comfortable with the idea and

are fighting shy of outsourcing concept. In this regard, Iyer cited the example

the automobile sector in India, which is very active in the area of sharing

knowledge and helping the companies in not 'Reinventing the wheel' all over

again.'

Added Iyer, "The automobile sector meets to discuss IT problems that

need to be solved. This kind of information sharing is happening slowly and

companies are realizing that this is still a grey area that needs to be worked

out."

 The panel felt that while collaboration is essential, it needs to be

monitored carefully. Information flow between the CIOs will help to get feedback

on the vendors, products and experience and one can find out truth about the

implementations.