At present, many organizations of different sizes are facing a scarcity of qualified IT talent in the market. Especially in this post-pandemic era, IT talent shortage has become a prominent issue. According to ESG/ISSA report, 70% of information technology professionals have revealed that IT skills shortages have negatively impacted their organization. Companies are under tremendous pressure to find the right talent and, next, to retain those employees.
IT Talent Shortage
The IT field is an ever-evolving ground – continuously emerging technologies are making it difficult for organizations to keep their IT staff up-to-date with every new technology. So, the IT talent shortage or skill gap issues have become a permanent headache for organizations. There is no definite boundary – the crisis is everywhere, across compute infrastructure and platform services, digital workplace, IT automation, network, security, storage, etc.
This ongoing IT talent shortage drives organizations toward hiring remote workforces. This can help bridge the talent gap, but, again, it increases security concerns for organizations.
According to a Gartner survey, a significant number of IT leaders are pushed towards adopting “multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud technologies to support better the movement of information between physical and virtual locations as their employees adopt new ways of working”. But that effort is also getting stuck due to the shortage of qualified IT professionals to facilitate these transformations.
While recruiting the right talent is a big deal, retaining them long is equally challenging for organizations. Due to talent scarcity, the right candidate is always in demand, and competitors can grab your IT staff with better compensation.
In such a tight IT job market, losing your pre-existing IT resource could be devastating to an organization. Therefore, companies have to be concerned about their employee satisfaction as well.
How To Address IT Talent Shortage
Step 1: Identify Your Organization’s Objectives
First, you need to identify your business goals and growth plans in the near future. Based on your finding, you can make an idea of the exact need for IT resources and list down the required talents and skills. You also need to find the areas of the business you lack knowledge or resources. A thorough analysis of your needs to drive your organization toward its business goals is essential.
Step 2: Identify Which Tech Skills Support Your Business Goals
After you understand your business’s objectives, you can list the needed IT skills in your department to meet those goals. So, you can easily compare what you have to what you need to achieve your desired success. It will help you to get the exact picture of skill gaps and look for the right IT professionals for your organization.
Apart from core technical skills, you also need to focus on other essential support services that you need to achieve the ultimate goal, such as IT infrastructure maintenance and round-the-clock monitoring.
If you are planning to take the help of a managed IT services firm, you can get all the needed support, including tech support, infrastructure support, professional advice, risk analysis, etc., from them. MSPs can easily fulfil the need for IT professionals to meet the skill gaps.
Step 3: Find Your Current IT Strengths
Before looking for new recruitments or third-party support services, you must understand what skills are already in place. It will help you do precise planning regarding new recruitments.
Many SMBs need professional support to make decisions regarding their business, like strategy, research and development. Partnering with an MSP can help you with every necessary support regarding business development.
Step 4: Identify Your Skills Gaps
If you are downsizing your IT department, you need external IT support for core jobs, infrastructure maintenance, and everyday technology needs. So, first, you have to identify your need for tech skills by conducting a skills gap analysis of your organization. Then you have to look for suitable IT service partners to close the gap without interrupting essential needs.
Step 5: Prepare Your Action Plan
After identifying your IT skills gap, you have to prepare a plan to close that gap. Most companies commonly invest in training programs to upskill their existing staff or hire skilled staff per present needs. But for SMBs, especially those who are downsized, new recruitment and upskilling are too expensive.
Finding a reliable managed service partner can be a more suitable option in such cases. This way, SMBs can get qualified IT specialists without investing too much time and money. With an appropriate managed IT service provider, you can reduce expenses, get appropriate IT support and required skill sets, implement better security measures, and gain peace of mind.
Why From In-House To Third Party
Recruiting and retaining an in-house IT department involve both time and money. You need to find the right person for your company, train them, provide them with decent compensation, up-skill them time-to-time, and so on—all these needs your precious time and money. Plus, there is always a chance of leaving that asset.
To avoid such perpetual headaches, many organizations have found that opting for a managed services provider (MSP) is a reasonable and beneficial option over hiring in-house. A reliable MSP with experience across multiple platforms and suitable human resources can be helpful for organizations to meet every IT needs.
MSPs invest in keeping their technical teams up-to-date. You can get IT support in multiple aspects, such as support to adopt cutting-edge technologies, manage your IT infrastructure and network, executive support, etc. Partnering with an MSP can reduce overall IT costs compared to doing things in-house.
Conclusion
Partnering with MSPs can be your ultimate IT solution. Along with providing IT talent support, MSP also helps businesses to reduce risk through monitoring and managing environments, system upgrades, and so on. MSPs also apply cybersecurity best practices, proactively identify gaps in your infrastructure, and also address the vulnerabilities. Therefore, partnering with an MSP is a wise choice over recruiting in-house IT staff — a cost-efficient and effective solution to meet the IT talent shortage in your organization.
