Attracting and retaining IT/Digital talent

Attracting and retaining talent is a constant challenge for companies. But if we look specifically at the IT/Digital sector, the problem is a lack of talent on the job market. What’s more, candidates for new positions have demands and expectations that in some sense companies haven’t seen before. Added to this is high turnover in these roles. These are all distinguishing features of the Italian landscape today. But is this just a new phase of push-and-pull between job supply and demand, or is there some element of discontinuity at play? 

We all know that there are structural problems in our country: the declining birthrate, a years-long trend; a dearth of STEM skills; lag time at high schools and universities in developing courses of study that align with what companies have come to expect; and a mismatch between labor supply and demand. Can businesses intervene in the sphere of IT/Digital skills to tackle the problem in the short to medium term? If so, how? These questions are the topic of deep, meaningful debate - as we saw in a recent discussion forum at SDA.  

“There are cycles and recycles in the IT job market,” said Davide Gindro, CIDO of the SOL Group, “but what’s new is that smartworking has opened up the competition between supply and demand to foreign countries too.” When working full time from home is possible, IT/Digital specialists naturally set their sights on the international market as well, where companies offer better pay. But along with this, what emerges is the expectation to get back to basics, such as working in dynamic in-person teams, travelling, and having time for social interaction in the office.  

“More than smartworking, the issue is work-life balance; it’s broader, cross-generational,” observes Debora Guma, CIO of the Longhi Group. Guaranteeing a healthy work-life balance, in part through company wellbeing initiatives, is essential. But to attract talent, organizations also have to offer challenges, autonomy and real opportunities for growth, not hierarchies or bureaucratic constraints. The organizational model and the corporate climate play leading roles in the “attraction story” that a company can tell and in day-to-day working life. Creating a dynamic environment offering continual challenges and interesting projects involving digital innovation, and asking everyone to get onboard: this is one approach to attracting talent, of course – but naturally without neglecting the need for gradual growth, which means experience is still invaluable.  

Another key aspect is that people expect greater autonomy on the job, especially younger generations. As Valeria Ficili, HR manager at Sisal, points out: “It’s not uncommon to see a person leave a so-called ‘permanent position’ for more autonomous professional work as a freelancer.” Offering a career path seems to be a positive way to attract candidates in the recruiting phase. But beware of the promises you make: young people in general are determined to make a career for themselves and do it as fast as they can. What’s more, today it’s easy for young IT/Digital specialists to find someone who can offer them something better on the job market, but it’s not always possible to guarantee vertical or horizontal careers in managerial or technical areas.  

While there is no doubt that hard skills are lacking, there is a shortage of soft skills too. In fact, to perform IT/Digital roles well, these are becoming indispensable. Young people often take a "work experimentation" approach to acquire know-how and gain new experiences, and this fuels turnover. Responding promptly to the needs of IT/Digital people is becoming increasingly complicated. In fact, Virginia Ghisani, partner of Key2people, had this to say: “We have had to revise our contracts with customers in terms of our commitment to close positions by a set deadline. We’re getting rejection rates from candidates as high as 70%!” Job interviews today focus only minimally on hard or soft skills, and instead deep-dive into motivations, aspirations, the value system and the methods for performing the job in question, beyond the relative content. More and more often, human resources strategies, initiatives and investments are calibrated on two clusters of profiles: those who can generate value in the long term, and those the organization can leverage for a short-term trade-off. 

Most young people want their work to be recognized and valued, to be sure. Those who don’t feel appreciated can turn to social networks for new job prospects, where they can quickly and easily access a showcase of companies and positions on offer. Short-term employment has become physiological, and managers must factor that in on a daily basis. “One lever we use is to select new graduates and interns, and to set up a robust onboarding plan to support them, prioritizing their understanding of the company context and above all IT,” says Fabio Mutti, CIO of Esselunga. This approach works by building an employee-company bond, which becomes an essential retention factor and guarantees greater work continuity. 

As far as IT human resources, the situation we’ve described above is challenging and uncertain. This seems to be engendering greater awareness among IT/Digital managers regarding their IT sourcing decisions (the mix of insourcing and outsourcing activities, services, resources and skills), and the option of decentralizing IT resources and activities in corporate management. This would make IT autonomous and accountable on digital projects and performance.  What’s more, seeing as wage cages and contract constraints have no place in the current context, where there is a mismatch between job supply and demand, it’s more critical than ever for HR management and IT/Digital management to partner up. Speaking to this point, Michela Bambara, CIO of the Epta Refrigeration Group, says, “If we want to attract new IT/Digital talent, we also have to come up with salary packages that are adjusted to the new way to work and new ways to produce results and achieve performance in the company.”  

Many young people and brilliant new graduates seem to be attracted to startups with entrepreneurial roles that push the envelope on technological innovation, instead of taking permanent positions working under a boss. One way to contend with this, albeit not easily implemented, might be to create interfunctional units or teams in the company that work on digital innovation (ideas, PoC of innovative use cases, experimentation, digital projects), breaking away from routines, like startups do. Obviously, it’s not exactly the same, but there would be similar creative, dynamic, challenging inspiration to bring new ideas to life using agile work methods, and try & fail; these teams would gradually carve out the financial and human resources they need from inside the company. During the recruitment phase for IT/Digital candidates, this environment and work method would be a promise, but if that promise is broken, it would quickly lead to bitter disappointment and a high risk of turnover. 

Another approach could be to set up a dedicated IT business within the group, in other words, the IT/Digital function would become its own company. This would have a number of advantages, such as the chance to create a powerful identity in the IT/Digital team, and to set up people management systems and ad hoc employment contracts for IT/Digital managers and specialists which would be more motivating for them and more aligned with the results they produce. An addition key aspect of retention is how to "lock down" key figures (not necessarily the youngest or the new hires, where offering basics can make a big difference). As with all professions, the brand and geographical location of the company also continue to carry weight in attracting and retaining IT/Digital talent. Finally, if it encompasses the work of IT/Digital, the HR function can also be a reliable ally of the IT/Digital function and an effective interface with the IT job market, either recruiting talent directly or resorting to mediation by specialized head hunters. 

To sum up, there is no single solution or simple recipe: the mix of ideas and tools is varied that companies can use to attract and retain qualified IT/Digital specialists. But generally speaking, learning how to deal with physiological turnover of IT/Digital talent will be an invaluable skill for companies that make digital innovation a real competitive lever to defend, evolve, and use to measure business performance.