How to retain talented IT manpower?

Success demands dynamism. That's why all successful teams have dynamic leaders. A leader with vision and fortitude to propel the team through turbulent times. But what good is a leader without an equally dynamic and responsive group of people. All this is utopian to even think of in modern-day enterprises, pressed as they are with changing business dynamics, technology and the ever compressing global community.

Today, leave alone dynamicism, even retaining an efficient, stable IT team in an organization is a key issue for CIOs. Due to high attrition in IT, retaining talented manpower for projects is becoming a major cause of headaches for CIOs. So, what are the reasons for this volatility? Money is certainly not the primary reason, 'cause most organizations, in spite of paying employees according to current industry standards, are still facing similar issues.

And this concern is shared by CIOs across all verticals. In this story we try to find out answers to this and understand all issues related to manpower management. We shall also focus on how we can find and retain the right manpower for IT infrastructure team management? What's more we shall also discuss measures organizations are taking to reduce manpower attrition. A point that comes strongly across is that apart from good salaries, you need to explore innovative schemes to keep employees on board. So, what measures can one take to combat/ease the stress in an IT team that often works at odd hours, under severe work pressure?

What are the measures you can take to ensure work doesn't get disrupted, if a member of your IT team leaves?

To find answers to the above questions we conducted an online survey to understand what concerns key CIOs across the country had on this issue. In this story, we also throw some light on the best practices they follow to tackle this complex issue. In our survey, we segregated this issue into a series of concerns that covered various stages of this problem. Around 42% of the respondents confirmed that getting right IT manpower for the IT department is one of the toughest jobs while recruiting manpower for their IT department. When asked about the size of their IT teams, 34 % of the respondents said that they have 11 to 30 members in their IT team whereas another 25 % of the respondents had a strength of 50+ people working in their IT teams, and only 11 % claimed that they have IT teams of less than 10 people. By and large most of the IT teams are maintained in-house, but due to the scarcity of skilled IT manpower, CIOs are now looking forward to outsourcing IT infrastructure management. According to the survey, 57% respondents still rely on in-house IT teams while 26% of the respondents said that they maintain in house and outsourced teams in equal proportions. Interestingly, only 11 % of the respondents said that they have completely outsourced their IT infrastructure management.

Hurdles in recruiting IT manpower

Recruiting professionals in the IT department is not an easy task for a CIO. Around 45 % of respondents said that paying competitive salaries is their biggest hurdle while 28% said that lack of quality manpower is the biggest hurdle. Only 5% blamed top management for their woes, reasons varying from an insufficient HR department to time consuming procedures in getting requisite sanctions. We found that most organizations need IT professionals who have multi-tasking skills with desired experience on the latest technologies. However, such kind of manpower is rarely found.

Catch 'em young

With rising business costs most organizations prefer recruiting fresh manpower from colleges. This way they avoid paying exorbitant salaries to experienced professionals. Moreover, freshers can be easily moulded into roles that an organization wants them to play. We found that 34 % of our respondents recruit fresh candidates from campus interviews and the remaining 66 % said that they do not prefer hiring fresh talent.

Attrition

The attrition rate of IT manpower is the highest in BPOs. This is mainly because people working in BPOs in technical positions have very limited growth. These people are generally recruited to give technical assistance to their clients through voice or Web based processes. On the other hand, verticals such as manufacturing, education, BFSI and IT have lower attrition rates. Around 37 % of the respondents said that they have only 10% attrition rate while another 22% acknowledged that attrition rate in their companies is around 20%. On the other hand 8% of respondents said that they have an attrition rate of 40% annually, most of these belong to BPO companies. Clearly, BPOs are worst hit by attrition. As regards retrenchment, only 8% of respondents admitted that they have in past asked their IT people to leave while a mammoth 91 % of respondents have never asked for retrenchment so far, which is quite a healthy figure. To reduce manpower attrition, organizations have started taking corrective measures at their end. Around 94% of respondents have started giving additional responsibility, training, resized salary structure, created challenging job assignments with new technologies, tried job rotation, provided flexible working hours and periodic performance based incentives to their IT manpower. Only 5 % of respondents said that they haven't taken any measures yet to control attrition rate.

Manpower retention issues

Retaining experienced manpower in organizations is another key issue before CIOs, while managing their IT teams. A key concern is poaching. Competitors always try to poach on talented manpower by doling out better salaries and benefits. Secondly, work pressure and odd hour deadlines for IT teams are also increasing day by day leading to depression and mental stress. All this drives individuals to the edge, and finally they call it a day. Another key issue is the level of job satisfaction as after a project implementation is over, people feel that the job is not challenging enough. Some are frustrated to the extent that they cease to see any growth or opportunity for them. Around 45 % of respondents raised alarms that retaining existing IT manpower is the second most serious issue while 34% said that it's the most serious issue for them. About 70% of respondents said that better salaries offered by competing companies take away their talented manpower while only 5% respondents said that work pressure is the key reason for quitting. Only 14% respondents gave reasons like unsuitable postings and adjustment in work culture for their employees quitting jobs.

Overall, employees being offered higher salaries by competitors is the primary concern for all.

Measures to combat stress

To reduce stress from the IT team, about 48% of the respondents adopted flexible timings for their IT teams while another 20% took IT teams for outings. Only 2% respondents said that they offer recreational activities like indoor games, gyms, coffee houses, etc. A good 25% use innovative ideas such as removing monotony from work, nominating employees for conferences, keeping them motivated through trainings and encouraging employees to use recreational and sports facilities available on campus. Strangely, none of the respondents opted for the concept of working from home as a stress buster. This concept might be gaining ground in western countries, but is not so popular in India.

A few organizations might have started it for their employees but in the survey we didn't get any record for that.

Creating backups

For some organizations, IT functions are extremely critical. Therefore, CIOs can't afford to lose a single member from their team even for a single day. However, if people leave, can they ensure that this would not hamper their services in any manner? Do they have any backup plans? As expected, all of the respondents claimed that they have devised various kinds of backup plans to keep there IT operations running. We interacted with some of the CIOs and found that they follow protocols that bind employees to the organization in such a way that it doesn't hamper IT operations even if a person wants to leave. Listed below are some of the precautions you could take to prevent disruption of IT functions in case an employee quits from the IT team:

1. Make provision for sufficient notice period in the appointment letter to ensure a smooth transition of assignments to peers and managers and well documented project execution and management processes.

2. Before an employee leaves, a proper hand over to the next in-charge is required, with both of them working together for at least a week. Always keep a stand-by arrangement for key tasks.

3. A perfect documentation of the responsibilities and work, done by the outgoing employee, should be asked for. Some organizations follow a strict notice period policy (1-3 months notice is required before a person leaves).

4. Nowadays, team concept is gaining popularity, wherein jobs are handled by a team of 2-3 persons. This creates automatic backups and when a new person joins he can easily be trained by older employees. In addition, every new endeavor is documented after implementation, which also supports the new joinee. Job rotation amongst team members is another important concept and creates a knowledge base to ensure that a CIO is not dependent on individuals.

Training manpower

These days enterprises from all verticals spend considerable amount of budget on training activities to build motivation amongst the IT team. Around 37% of respondents said that they have a separate budget for training and should spend around Rs 2 to 5 lakh.

Another 14% spend Rs 11 to 20 lakh while only 8% spend more than Rs 20 lakh. Interestingly, 20 % of respondents said that they don't have any separate budget for manpower training while 11% respondents acknowledged that they spend less than a lakh on training their IT manpower. In addition, 20% respondents admitted to conducting team building exercises either every month or six months or at least once a year. Only 11% respondents said that they don't conduct such exercises. Such an analysis shows that employers are pumping huge sums of money for training and team building exercises in order to increase employee motivation and productivity.

HR departments use innovative ways to motivate their IT teams, for eg, conducting regular meetings of IT members across the organization and arranging get togethers/outings. However, all this depends purely on the requirements that are put forth by CIOs during review meetings.