The digital transformation of companies around the world is leading to an increase in the demand for skilled workers. Therefore, companies face not only the challenge of finding technology talent, but also the challenge of retaining it.
As an IT Talent report points out, the number of hiring technology profiles increased by 55% in 2022 compared to the previous year. This data indicates that companies are increasingly aware of the importance of having an expert team in information and communication technologies and ICT to increase their competitiveness and productivity.
Already in 2019, more than 40% of IT professionals were hired by non-tech companies, according to the Harvard Business Review. Therefore, these profiles are no longer the exclusive request of technology companies.
The imbalance between the supply and demand of technological professionals
The technological transformation of all types of companies and organizations is faster than the creation of digital talent, because there are not enough professionals to fill so many vacancies. According to the Digital Talent Overview 2022 report, which collects data on the gap in technology professionals in 2021, the demand for digital talent has increased by 43%. However, in the last year the offer of professionals on the market was only 11%.
Given this situation, according to the National Institute of Statistics, 47% of companies had problems filling ICT positions in 2021. Another study carried out by the Spanish Association DigitalES has estimated that there are around 120,000 unfilled jobs in the technology sector, specifically in the first months of 2022.
Why is there a shortage of tech talent?
Companies fail to find tech talent for a number of reasons, one of which is primarily its scarcity. This affects not only technology companies, but also companies in other sectors that are trying to implement digital transformation in their production systems.
The problem lies in the traditional education system, which is always ready to keep up with the technological advances and digital skills required by institutions. The 2020 World Economic Forum has already advanced some theories in this regard, for example, that 50% of all workers will have to recycle by 2025.
On the other hand, large multinationals are monopolizing much of the digital talent globally. Amazon, for its part, has become the second largest employer in the United States, since it published more than 40,000 job offers aimed at corporate and technology positions in 2021 alone, and 10,000 in other countries, and by the end of that year, Meta plans to create about 10,000 jobs in the European Union in five years. he announced his intention.
Apart from excessive demand, another reason why companies do not retain digital talent in Spain is that there are some salary improvements in other European countries such as Germany, France, England or Ireland.
How to compete for tech talent?
Improving working conditions, implementing employee benefit programs, investing in updated training plans or turning to attraction levers are some of the recommendations to find, capture and retain the attention of digital talent.
Having a strong and attractive corporate culture
A strong corporate culture is a huge advantage in a competitive environment. Corporate culture includes the implicit values of how a company operates, affecting the work environment, crisis management, leadership and internal communication.
Companies must focus on developing a strong and positive corporate culture, and then build a dynamic reputation with credible values. Most tech candidates look for real corporate values from the first stage of accepting a job offer.
Developing recruitment strategies
Companies need to allocate resources to discover the best methods of finding digital talent. In this sense, social networks have become an essential tool for the recruitment of technology professionals, as LinkedIn has become the main social network for this professional profile. Here, organizations must ensure that they maintain their brand image on this platform, use advanced search fields to filter by education, experience, languages, etc. and manage specific functions to contact and track the selection process.
Providing social benefit programs for employees
According to data from Willis Towers Watson’s latest analysis of the Global Benefits Attitudes Survey among employees in 23 countries, compensation, job security and flexibility are the social benefits IT professionals value most to stay in a company.
¡In addition, the establishment of social benefit programs helps to cover their needs and interests, the link of the worker increasing “emotional” to avoid “leaks” with other companies, reduce absenteeism, improve productivity and even attract the attention of new profiles.
