- A lack of tech talent could cost organizations up to $5.5 trillion in delays, quality issues, and revenue loss for more than 90% of organizations worldwide by 2026.
- Hiring tech talent in real time creates more agile organizations with the ability to respond to needs and quickly address issues.
- Technology is rapidly changing, and your current workforce may already possess skills needed to keep up.
Top tech talent is needed in organizations—now.
Over the next decade, the number of tech jobs needed will increase by 1.1 million. Research suggests that tech skills have a half-life of 2.5 years, and the talent shortage is forcing organizations to address current issues rather than focus on harnessing the skills necessary for future success.
Add in that most organizations don’t know where to find tech workers, how to attract them, or how to activate them, and it creates a business environment where strategy, efficiency, and performance are at stake.
So, how do you solve this problem before it becomes a crisis?
Nathaniel Paynter, principal, Tech Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte Consulting LLP, recently joined Jason Cerrato, VP, Talent-centered Transformation at Eightfold, to discuss the need for a tech talent transformation and how to unite IT and HR to gain a competitive advantage.
Here are the top takeaways from their discussion.
Related content: Watch the webinar “Tech talent transformation: Uniting IT and HR for competitive advantage” on demand now.
1. The tech talent challenge is intensifying
More organizations are betting on technology to solve challenges and deliver on business goals without having the proper infrastructure to support these needs—and it comes at a high cost.
According to IDC and Deloitte research:
- Not having tech talent in place could cost $5.5 trillion in delays, quality issues, and revenue loss for more than 90% of organizations worldwide by 2026.
- 46% of leaders say that the limited skills and capacity of tech function hinder value delivery within their organization.
- And only 13% of employers say they can hire and retain the tech talent they need.
“The tech workforce has a hypercritical component to being able to deliver on that ambition for companies,” Paynter said. “That’s why when I look at this, I get excited about how we can help to unlock that value and deliver on those commitments in a really dynamic space where we’re going to see more tech jobs created. We’re going to see more tech jobs in demand, and the tech jobs that we have are going to continue to shift because the half-life of skills is going to change.”
Additionally, the qualified tech talent currently out there has their choice of jobs, with 70% reporting multiple job offers when they took their most recent role. The tech workforce is expected to grow at double the rate of the U.S. workforce in the next decade.
And with that growth, we’ll also see volatility, companies that have overhired to the revenue they’ve generated and companies that are increasing their tech priorities. We can predict waves of change.
Related content: How are CIOs finding the skilled tech talent they need for the future? Read our guide to finding high-quality hires in tech.
2. Hire tech talent when you need it
Most organizations build an annual plan with an allotted number of IT or related jobs they’ll hire for in the next fiscal year. Paynter says there is a better way to do this.
Embracing real-time hiring allows organizations to meet their tech needs as they arise and as portfolios are planned, ensuring they can secure top talent when it’s most needed. This approach not only addresses immediate needs but also sets the stage for long-term success.
“This constant evolution of, ‘Where are we going to spend our resources? Where are we going to put our money? Where are we going to put our people?’ can be a daunting task, but it’s also an awesome opportunity for us to be looking at how we deploy people, how we redeploy people, how we continue to pivot skills in roles that aren’t always going to be static. There’s a lot of flexibility, and it’s fascinating because I think that’s what the IT workforce is really looking for.”
This approach to workforce planning works in three ways:
- It makes workforce planning more effective.
- It gives a better planning model for global organizations.
- It enforces that tech talent is crucial to business priorities.
“We see financial services organizations that are at tens of thousands employees and tech organizations with tech worker populations significantly higher than that,” Paynter said. “If you can create a 10% increase in productivity, which Harvard Business Review says you need for an effective workforce, think about the number of people that unlocks. That’s a return on investing in planning effectively.”
A look at how a traditional role, like product design manager, breaks down into skills that can be applied to new roles, titles, or projects.
3. Uncover hidden skills in your current workforce
Hiring additional talent will be necessary, but what about your current workforce?
Organizations should create opportunities for employees to self-identify hidden skills they may not use currently while also cultivating an environment where they can grow their tech abilities to address skills gaps.
“What this allows organizations to do is start to have a more dynamic understanding of how to address organizational needs and to be more agile,” Cerrato said. “You can have the visibility to look at your organization based on the skills and the work at hand, which potentially is different from how we’ve looked at this in the past, and then you can start to say, ‘Of the talent I have, how does that align to what the organization is asking for?’ And as it aligns … that could result in a job or something that just takes the form of work.
“We’re able to achieve that because now we know who’s on our team in a more comprehensive way,” he continued. “And we’re tapping into what may have been previously untapped capability or untapped capacity on our team to now accomplish that work.”
Technology is advancing so rapidly that skills are becoming obsolete at an increasing rate, making static, unchanging jobs impractical. Organizations should embrace a skills-based approach to roles and hiring to meet the needs of this change.
Those that will likely succeed and win the battle for top tech talent also invest in human capabilities and experience-based learning.
“Recently in a survey, we asked what were the most critical skills across the board that were going to drive your tech organization,” Paynter said. “Things like problem-solving and business case development rose to the top. The only tech skill that was on the list was data and analytics. It doesn’t mean those tech skills are less important. It just means that you need workers in tech that can also bridge that gap and solve that connection with the business.”
4. Cast a wider net for finding talent
The majority of executives, 87%, said they consider their workforces to include gig and long-term workers as part of their talent ecosystems.
They’re casting a broader net in new ways to find the talent needed to meet business goals.
“I’ve worked for a lot of organizations who feel like if they’re not bringing in their own internal workforce, using an external workforce is kind of like a second tier,” Paynter said. “I think there’s a major shift in the mindset and thought process on how we use external workforces to our advantage, not as a way to fill a gap.”
It’s an approach needed to continue finding tech talent to:
- Make hiring cost-effective while allowing for flexibility in deploying that talent to projects.
- Help organizations use the technical expertise of a vendor to facilitate better hiring practices.
- And successfully integrate external talent into technical work environments.
Related content: Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends report captures what Boundaryless HR is, including why human sustainability is important and how microcultures play a role in retention across organizations.
5. Experience and culture are key to higher retention
Finally, consider your organization’s culture and how you create employee experiences that retain talent, including:
- Creating microcultures, which should start from recruitment and be unique to tech workers within your organization.
- Tailoring career paths to provide growth opportunities for specialized or highly technical work.
- Strengthening employees’ relationships with peers can be a critical factor in whether a worker remains in a role.
“We see some pretty dynamic microcultures within tech,” Paynter said. “We see tech workers that want to work with tech workers. We see engineers that want to do advanced engineering, and we see engineers that are not as advanced that want to hang out with the engineers that are doing advanced engineering. We see those who are in enabling services and platforms that want to figure out how to build a better relationship with their functional leaders.
“There are these different microcultures that we can lean on,” he continued. “And this focus on them becomes an amazing opportunity for companies to think about what they can do to retain people and keep them motivated.”
6. Transformation is no longer event-driven
Change may be a constant in business, but transformation is no longer an event-driven action. It’s fundamental to achieving the desired results.
As tech talent becomes increasingly critical to that success, forward-thinking leaders are necessary to help ensure that transformations achieve their goals.
Leaders ready to take on this challenge are:
- Embracing the opportunity to grow and adapt to continuous change.
- Partnering with tech vendors to help hire and retain strong talent.
- Incorporating a continuous workforce planning process to achieve business goals.
- Activating managers to shape microcultures and facilitate transformation.
The power of a successful tech talent transformation can empower an organization to properly plan for the future while cultivating the right workforce, ready to capitalize on new opportunities and navigate ever-changing market dynamics.
Watch the webinar “Tech talent transformation: Uniting IT and HR for competitive advantage” on demand now.