It’s time to change the way you look at your current staff and rethink your hiring practices in order to find the required skill sets and contribute to staff retention.

If you are experiencing difficulties finding the skilled staff you need, something needs to be done. From our experience, we’ll confidently suggest that at least some of the people you need are already in your business … right there in your IT department. It’s not just about finding the staff you need and ensuring you keep your staff well trained so their skills are current enough to manage disruptive technologies, it’s also about keeping your employees once you’ve hired them and invested in them!

Every IT department is divided into two parts: essentially the Business As Usual (BAU) Team, made up of people with very specific technical skills who keep the business running, day-to-day; and the Projects Team, brimming with fresh ideas, adapting the old and adopting the new, aligning their efforts with business strategies and objectives. Our advice? If you’re having trouble finding the talent to hire for your Project team, look internally. Move your brightest break/fix technicians into the Projects Team, backfill their skills and replenish the BAU Team.

In fact, it’s time to treat your IT team as you do your on-premises infrastructure. For some roles – especially when you’re facing a skills shortage – it may be time to move to an as-a-Service model.

Avoid an IT skills shortage by promoting from within and leveraging external expertise as-a-Service (such as Expertise on Demand from Envisian) to design, implement and support technology transformation while providing options for career progression to your best and brightest technology stars. Put the skills you need in place, set up the organisation for future growth without losing company knowledge, while improving conditions for your IT staff and contributing positively to employee retention. Win – win – win – win – win!

Looking for more rationale around this advice? We’ve got more to share – it was just a bit too long for a blog post. Check out our complimentary advisory article for more detail: it-skills-shortage-whitepaper