IT Talent is Difficult to Find, Train, and Retain
IT teams are constantly struggling with finding and retaining talent. I can’t tell you how many people reach out to us asking for help with their application estate because the person responsible for maintaining legacy applications has moved on from the company and no one knows how to handle it.
No one can learn to become expert with large complex products overnight, or even a matter of weeks. Employees become highly skilled through years of experience. When those years of experience are lost. There is no way for the organization to maintain productivity and efficiency.
Forbes estimates losing a worker with a salary of $75,000 could cost between $225,000 to $300,000 to replace. The cost is even greater if the team is already understaffed.
All this points to the need for IT teams – who are already strapped for resources – to implement solutions and processes to simplify IT for administrators of any tenure.
Stop Implementing IT Solutions That Require Years to Master
When procuring software and solutions, it is important to assess the value the product brings, but also important the learning curve required for inexperienced people to use the product with confidence. Should your IT team lead leave tomorrow, you need to ensure your team can maintain business continuity?
On the last video of this series, the implications of artificial intelligence in our industry, including layoffs. Intuit recently announced plans to lay off 1,800 employees in favor of hiring AI-related roles. A study highlight by the Harvard Business Review states: a layoff affecting 1% of the workforce led to a 31% increase in the rate of voluntary turnover.
No matter what the plan or health of your organization is now, you must proactively mitigate significant skills gaps that will be created by turnover. With this in mind, the optimal products may not be the most widely adopted in the industry.
I have worked in organizations where products, such as device management and software distribution, were chosen based on the number of skilled workers that listed the product as a skill on LinkedIn. This inherently places quantity over quality.
The turnover in the positions aligned to those solutions were higher, as it turned out individuals with exposure to the solutions did not actually have expertise with all the necessary features and capabilities required to run our org. In many cases, they used these solutions in ways that were unique to their organization, meaning they had to relearn the solution within the context of our business.
You can see why this bias toward large, complex product suites presents a major risk. Organizations can protect themselves and their employees by streamlining their current processes and adapting their procurement process. When procuring software and solutions, it is important to assess the value the product brings, but it is also important to assess the learning curve required for inexperienced people to use the product with confidence.
Conclusion
IT leaders must account for losing talented employees and plan for the possibility of future redundancies. With an increasingly limited talent pool in an industry always tasked with “doing more with less,” it is critical to proactively mitigate skills gaps created by turnover with enterprise-grade solutions that are accessible to IT professionals of any tenure.
Not only will you reduce losses in productivity and money lost caused by turnover, but you’ll inevitably create a better work life for those expected to pick up the work of those who have departed.
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