Retaining staff
Argent agrees. He says retaining IT staff used to be very different.
-It used to be all about options and it was all money focussed," he says. -But these days they tend to be more focussed on levels of autonomy. They see themselves as professionals and experts in their field so they like a certain amount of autonomy in directing activities. They like a lifestyle so they may want to work from 10 till six as opposed to nine to five, or they might want to work four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days."
Van Til says lifestyle is one of the reasons why Queensland, particularly Brisbane, has becoming so popular with IT workers. Housing and accommodation are cheaper than Melbourne and Sydney and workers can enjoy a -fabulous salary" with low cost of living and great weather.
She says not enough attention has been paid to the issue and particularly to the different requirements of baby boomers compared to Gen Xers.
-The retention hot buttons between the two are often quite different. Basically there are hard, soft and futuristic elements to any retention policy.
-When you talk about the hard feature you are referring to remuneration, performance management and so on; soft features are more to do with culture, values and immeasurable elements; while the futuristic elements are the perceptions of the longevity or the future of the project or system.
-When you are dealing with Generation Xers they often have a sort of 'me, me, I' syndrome and the solution you have to come up with to retain them is often futuristic and very one-to-one," van Til explains. -Conversely, baby boomers have a more mature profile and are looking for ongoing predicability and job security, so there is no one formula.
-Typically, e-business and multimedia professionals work long hours and do not spend much time at home. They are often awake and chatting to people in other countries when the rest of the population is asleep. As a whole, they do not eat well and are not concerned with health and fitness."
Offering the right incentives
Based on this, van Til believes offering employees traditional benefits, such as a gym membership, are not incentives. -However, offers such as lifestyle managers appeal to this segment of the population because they do not have time to do mundane tasks for themselves. They are primarily looking for elements that complement their lifestyle and want to learn while at work."
-Nowadays remuneration ranks third behind lifestyle and workplace stimulation," says van Til.
It is generally agreed that part of that stimulation has to be workplace training. Not only must employers be prepared to train the IT staff they have employed from outside, they are often going to have to train traditionally non-IT staff to operate their e-commerce operation once it is up and running. In fact, for SMEs in particular it is seen as the most commonsense approach, particularly as many IT workers have no business training.
-When it comes to e-commerce training," says IT&T Skills Hub executive director Brian Donovan, -we feel that people with existing business skills are the ones to concentrate on rather than try to turn those who have chosen a technical career paths into business managers. They tend to have chosen those paths because they prefer that rather than management.
-It is easier to give someone who has the business experience and acumen some technical training than to get a leopard to change its spots," he says.
A pox on this continued garbage of a "skills shortage". There are thousands of skilled I.T. people who used to live in Australia, who are now working elsewhere in the world. Why? Because the "managers" in Australia get the latest technology but REFUSE to train anybody, and expect fully skilled people to roll up to their door. People with experience, who'd take a couple of days to get on with the job, are refused by know-nothing "agents" who demand "must have". Result? an unemployed person, and a client screaming "skills shortage". And if you're over 40, you're a dinosaur, can't do this new stuff. Absolutely pathetic!
Explain to me why there is not a "skills shortage" in Europe, and why there are Australians working over here? Yes, I am one of them.
The sooner the recruitment "industry" is dispensed with, the sooner this lunacy will dissipate, and then maybe Australia will become an I.T. country, instead of the global idiot!
I despair.