Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Mbula Schoen, senior director analyst at Gartner.
A looming tech skills gaps continues to threaten organizations’ ability to achieve their near-term objectives.
The HR function of an organization generally drives their talent strategy, but the dynamics of a tight IT talent market require direct CIO participation to shape IT talent strategies.
A recent Gartner survey has found that 79% of CIOs and senior IT leaders plan to increase their IT staff levels this year to support organizational growth objectives. Widespread demand for IT talent makes it difficult to hire qualified workers as competition and compensation remains high.
Because of this, it’s critical to first understand the toughest technology roles and skills to recruit, then develop an IT-specific employment value proposition that will attract this sought-after talent. A strong value proposition contributes to building a positive IT brand specific to the tech talent market.
Finding a meaningful value proposition
CIOs should develop an IT employment value proposition that aligns with what IT candidates value. Partnering with HR is key to developing talent strategies, but leaning too heavily on the organization’s talent plans may be too generic to appeal to key technology talent segments.
To curtail this, value propositions can no longer be static.
CIOs must lead efforts to craft IT employment value propositions. Feedback loops and sustained dialogue with employees are essential for these propositions to genuinely resonate.
CIOs should partner with other leaders across the enterprise to communicate and deliver the proposition consistently inside and outside the organization. This helps to position the IT organization as an attractive place to work and grow and create a positive perception among potential candidates.
Expanding IT talent
The IT workforce is short of skills to meet tomorrow’s business needs. Another survey has found only 15% of IT leaders say their current IT workforce is prepared to meet their enterprise’s future skills requirements. CIOs have reported major talent gaps in some of the most-critical technologies needed for business success.
If left unmanaged, skills constraints will continue to plague organizations — especially their IT departments — as they strive to support new business initiatives and technology innovation while maintaining and modernizing legacy systems. This is essential in order to improve processes, customer service and employee productivity.
There are many approaches to expanding the IT talent pipeline; however most CIOs plan to upskill and reskill current employees to close the talent gap in 2024. CIOs can no longer rely on a single approach to ensure that IT has relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives.
CIOs must look for force multipliers, such as business technologists, who reside outside IT and can fulfill the promise of their digital business transformation agendas. This will require partnering with HR to design practical, fit-for-purpose learning opportunities and embed these opportunities in employees’ workflows.
Prepare for workforce substitution
Organizations are expecting varying levels of task and workforce substitution by generative AI during the next three years. Although varying levels of AI substitution in the workforce is expected, adopting generative AI is expected to have variable, yet high levels of impact on demand for skills during the next three years.
CIOs will need to develop, hire and integrate a new generation of employees with data science and analytics skills to successfully deploy AI capabilities in their enterprises.
Because CIOs lead IT talent strategy decision-making, organizations that invest in data engineering, data science tools and related skills development opportunities are the most attractive places to work for high-potential technology employees.
To reduce the severity of the skills gap, CIOs should shift from relying solely on hiring to an IT talent strategy that includes upskilling. Address difficulties in recruiting and hiring qualified IT talent by focusing on what IT candidates want by revamping the IT employment value proposition to fulfill staffing-level goals.
