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Developing New IT Talent Management Capabilities

By

Heather A. Smith James D. McKeen

The IT Forum … Is a focus group of senior IT managers from a variety of different industries convened regularly by the authors to address key management issues in IT. This report highlights a recent discussion.

– See back page for details of the IT Forum and other reports.

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Introduction There is no doubt there is a widespread talent management crisis in IT. Study after study has

shown that lack of access to the right skills and resources is the number one barrier to IT

success (Berry & Gabris 2016, IDG 2017, Mok & Berry 2016, Coleman 2016). This shortage is

not only ongoing but is also increasing in importance (Carnahan & Somaya 2016). As one

researcher stated, "The war for talent is intensifying for IT organizations and many

organizations are challenged to find good people" (Mandiwalla 2017). Another noted,

"organizations are in a dogfight to attract IT talent." (Hewitt 2012).

In spite of a broad acknowledgement of this situation, surprisingly, most organizations are

doing very little about it (Hunter & Coleman 2016). Signs of this include a reported gap

between the desire to recruit and the actual capabilities to attract and acquire qualified people

(CIO 2016), problems with retention (Carnahan & Somaya 2016), lack of talent management

innovation (Hunter & Coleman 2016), and lack of diversity in IT leadership (IDG 2017).

Although most IT executives expect that the skills and knowledge their organizations will need

over the next ten years will have little resemblance to those in their organizations today, only a

small number feel they are adequately preparing for them (Morello 2017, Poitevin 2017, Mok

&Berry 2017). Few companies have a robust talent acquisition pipeline (CIO 2016) and only

some are addressing the need to overhaul their work force (Morello 2016).

There are many reasons why IT talent management has become more challenging for

organizations but it is generally accepted that the move to digital business and the changes

and uncertainties involved in this transformation are driving the urgency (Morello 2017, Wiblen

et al. 2010). Digital business changes the stakes for organizations, compresses windows of

opportunity, and introduces new social, political and behavioral norms among individuals.

Talent management under these circumstances is highly complex because of the incomplete,

contradictory, and changing requirements involved. In turn, this is prompting a deeper look at

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the skills people in IT will need in the future and the HR practices, processes, and tools

involved in developing, acquiring, or retaining them (Morello 2017).

This paper looks at the current state of talent management in organizations and discusses ways

to improve talent management capabilities in IT. It first looks at current IT talent management

practices and then at the scope of the challenge involved in improving them. Following this it

looks at the three components of improving capabilities in talent management: strategy;

behaviors and structures; and technology, and concludes with practical recommendations for IT

managers for getting started.

What is Wrong with IT Talent Management Today? Members of the focus group rated their ability to acquire new talent and retrain it at 4.5/10

with a range of 1-8. Those that felt their talent management practices were largely positive

noted that they had a group dedicated to HR IT and that their processes were nimble and

simple. "Once we've found someone we like, it doesn't take too long to get them on board,"

said the manager of this company. "IT is in charge of the hiring and we have good

compensation and a pension. But we still need better channels into top end resources." Those

who were frustrated with talent management focused on HR issues. "It's hard to hire good

people," said a manager. "There are too many constraints and the process takes too long. It's

killing us!"

In most cases, IT's biggest complaint is that HR doesn't understand IT's needs. "HR rules just

don't work for IT staff. They can barely spell IT!" complained one manager. "The HR process

can be dreadful for IT," said another. "HR for IT is not of high value. We need to shift our

thinking about it."

At its worst, HR is highly bureaucratic and fails to recognize the specific needs of IT. As a result,

the average length of time needed to fill a STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering and

mathematics) position has risen from 43 days to 76 days in recent years (Craig 2015). "We

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have too many people involved and too many levels of approval," said a manager. "Every

contract has to be signed by the Head of Legal and the CEO. By the time we're ready to hire a

person it's likely they already have another job." In addition to the complexities of the hiring

process, focus group members pointed out other systemic problems with HR that affect talent

management. "Our company doesn't understand IT compensation and market rates so our

compensation is always behind, " said a manager. "We don't have a mature process. At

present, we're just ensuring we have bodies to fill chairs," said another. "We're still just hiring

for specific technical skill sets. We need to look at more horizontal skills," said a third." "HR

hires for hard skills but not attitude and the soft skills we now need," said a fourth.

Generally, in talent management, IT and HR share the hiring process, while IT is responsible for

specific retention practices apart from broad organizational factors such as pension, share

options, and bonuses. Once hired, people often get pigeon-holed in a specific role. "We just

pay attention to specific, granular skills. We need more cross-training but it's an uphill battle,"

said a member. "There's a reluctance to lose skills in order to develop people." Retention is

rarely actively managed. Some recognize that their work environment and culture have a role

to play. "Our people are generally demotivated," said a manager, "We all have trouble

retaining certain roles," said another. "But a lot of our retention issues depend on the broader

economic cycle." "We need to have clearer expectations of our staff and what we expect from

them. "Secondments to other areas help broaden people's skills – especially for high potential

people – but it's still really hard to make them happen," said another. When people do leave,

exit interviews appear to be of little value. "We never learn," sighed a manager.

In general, the group concluded that no one in the organization really owns talent

management. "Everyone knows their own piece and doesn't care about the others," a

manager explained. "We need to look at end-to-end HR but there's no organizational

willingness to do this because they don't see the value." Even in the company where there was

a good relationship with HR and a dedicated HR IT team, the manager noted, "Many of our

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Figure 1. Two Factors Affecting Employee Satisfaction and

Motivation

processes are sub-optimized and there's no incentive to move faster. What we really need is a

process architecture." One organization had recently hired a Chief Talent Officer but to date

there had been little visible impact on talent management processes.

Even though most leaders agree that talent is a real differentiator, they simply don't commit

the energy and resources to back up this belief (Dachenhaus 2016, Kane et al. 2016). There is a

lack of meaningful attention to developing a strategic and integrated people plan because

personnel and workforce are the issues that managers dislike most about their job (Berry &

Gabris 2016). There is also a lack of clear understanding of the value of formal workforce

planning and of the expertise to develop and execute a people strategy. As a result, most

organizations reduce it to a headcount budgeting exercise and a set of transactional processes

(Martin 2006). These largely reactive approaches are ineffective in today's environment.

Members also noted the lack of diversity in IT as stemming from inadequate acquisition and

development strategies.

Furthermore, although most organizations aim to address the well-known "hygiene factors"

that prevent employee dissatisfaction, few have active programs to promote the "motivator

factors" that create high

satisfaction and strong

commitment to their work

(Herzberg 1964, Berry &

Gabris 2016, Bailey &

Madden 2016) (see Figure

1). The focus group noted

the importance to IT

professionals of having

meaningful, challenging,

and rewarding work and of

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feeling valued. "In many cases, we have failed to manage our existing talent and are not always

using them to the fullest extent," said a manager. "People want to grow and need good work

and providing this takes effort."

The Talent Management Challenge A company's ability to execute on its business strategy and respond rapidly to changes is

directly related to the quality of its workforce (Berry & Gabris 2016, IDG 2017). This means

being able to access and deploy the right sets of skills, behaviors, and competencies on an as

needed basis. In today's digital workplace, effective talent management is becoming an

organizational goal rather than an HR niche (Phillips 2008).

Within IT, there is a serious supply and demand imbalance for emerging skills and also a need

to shepherd existing staff from the specialized technical mindsets of the 20th century to the

hybrid business-IT profiles required for digital business in the 21st century (Morello 2017). In

the new world of IT, soft skills are increasing becoming at least as important as technical skills.

With specific technology skills migrating throughout organizations, companies are looking for

IT staff to provide a transformative vision, be forward thinkers, support change, and offer other

leadership and collaborative skills to the business (Kane et al. 2016). Appendix A lists just some

of the new skills that researchers are predicting IT staff will need.

Building new talent management capabilities is therefore a complex challenge (Berry & Gabris

2016, IDG 2017) and addressing it will require numerous systemic changes. As Figure 2 shows,

new capabilities arise out of the iterative and ongoing interaction of three factors:

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1. New Strategies. Organizations

need to think more strategically about

talent management in a number of

ways. IT workforce transformation must

be elevated to the level of business

impact and risk with broader

recognition of its impact on an

organization's overall competitive

status, growth, and profits (Craig 2015,

Kumar & Pansari 2015). Key

stakeholders must also be engaged to

think differently and more creatively

about it. And leaders will need a much

deeper understanding of their existing skills and competencies and their company's future

course to be able to do this.

2. New Behaviors and Structures. IT structure and culture must be redesigned/influenced to

more fully reinforce the needs of a digital workforce. IT organizations are quite often

structured into silos reflecting the needs of a workforce with more traditional IT skills (Berry

& Mok 2015). Developing digital capabilities means that activities, people, culture, and

structure must all be in sync across both internal and external organizational boundaries

and more closely aligned with company strategy (Poitevin 2017, Kane et al. 2016). And

these must be more agile and responsive to changing demand.

3. New Technologies. These must be used in ways that support this alignment and strategy

and to speed up processes. Today's talent management solutions appear to be of limited

value in helping managers understand all aspects of the talent pipeline and make decisions

about it (Phillips 2008). Improved solutions are needed to provide key information and

Figure 2. How New Organizational Capabilities

Develop

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insights to leaders about talent management issues, better integrate the work of IT leaders

and HR, and enable a more holistic management of talent.

The remainder of this paper looks more deeply at these three components of developing new

IT talent management capabilities.

Develop a Talent Management Strategy Going through the process of developing a talent management strategy forces business

leaders to understand how to effectively leverage their workforce and access external talent

pools to drive business value. It supplements regular HR activities with a plan that identifies

areas in which change is needed and prioritizes investments to identify needed competencies

and improve an IT function's capabilities through acquisition, development, and retention

(Berry & Gabris 2016). A talent management strategy has three major objectives (Hewitt 2012):

1. Strategic workforce planning. Any strategy must start with a clear vision of the

organization's future and the competencies it needs to achieve its goals (Mok & Berry

2016). Thus digital business strategic planning is closely linked with IT strategic workforce

planning. It is important to understand which types of expertise will help the organization

build competitive advantage. Because CIOs, HR, and other leaders tend to use different

terminologies, it is essential to focus on common orientation points, such as the

organization's mission, values, and strategic objectives which will then clarify the best

approaches to building the workforce (Morello 2017).

Organizations need to know where their current expertise is located and to recognize that

each area of IT may need different competencies (Berry & Mok 2015). In addition to looking

at the technical skills needed, they must also understand the "soft", business, and

behavioral skills of their employees and then use this information to determine how these

current skills could be used in new contexts (Mok & Berry 2016). Once these are

understood, other talent management components of a talent management strategy can

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be developed to address gaps such as: talent sourcing and acquisition, development and

retention, and decision support and metrics (Dachenhaus 2016).

2. Branding and talent acquisition. Organizations and IT functions have a "talent brand" said

the focus group. This is an expression of their culture, values and beliefs, the lifestyle that

goes with employment, and the nature of the work and is somewhat different from a

company's overall brand (Berry & Gabris 2106, Hunter & Coleman 2016). It is important to

understand a company's talent brand before beginning to recruit talent – especially top

talent – because a good fit between brand and the potential employee answers the

question: Do I want to work there? Brand is also a factor in talent retention because it

affects fit between the company and its employees (Kumar & Pansari 2015). The group

noted there are several social media sites that will give a company a remarkably accurate

description of their talent brand.

Once a talent brand is understood, the next step is to understand the profile (not just

technical skills) of the IT talent a company is looking for. This must consider not only

employees' tactical skills but also cultural fit such as values, soft skills, work-life balance

considerations, professionalism, and type of work. Research shows that although 73% of

new hires have the necessary knowledge and skills, only 35% are considered to be an

organizational asset (Craig 2015). Job analysis is one of the most neglected aspects of

hiring, as it ensures candidates are well-aligned with a position. This has been shown to

eliminate future turnover and ultimately result in higher organizational productivity. The

goal is to focus on mutual interest between the company's needs and those of a potential

employee to ensure fit between the two. In this sense recruiting is more akin the job of a

matchmaker (Dachenhaus 2016).

With both brand and profile understood, a recruiting strategy can then develop innovative

brand messages and target a variety of channels to appeal to the types of talent a company

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wants to attract. Talent acquisition strategies should be holistic and consider a variety of

approaches for attracting talent. Companies must recognize that traditional approaches to

recruitment should be supplemented with a variety of non-traditional ones, such as

searches on social media, of recent applications, or alumni networks. Strategies that focus

on corporate culture and unique and exciting work have also become important ways to

attract top talent (Carnahan & Somaya 2016). It is important to be aware that women

perceive specific brand messages and language differently than men and that the language

of a job posting may fail to reach this key demographic (Florentine 2017, Kumar & Pansari

2015). Similarly, companies should not ignore internal candidates. Publicizing openings

internally is a good way to identify internal competencies and promote a brand that

encourages employee development (Phillips 2008). Finally, referrals should be part of any

talent acquisition strategy – both from existing employees and from new hires – as these

are often the best ways to find candidates.

3. IT employee development and retention. These strategies establish a career path

development framework that is aligned with IT competencies of the future workforce.

Overcoming the talent gap of today means companies must develop their own talent as

well as revamping talent acquisition strategies (Kane et al. 2016). Organizations should start

by recognizing that current employees may have a diverse skill set that is not completely

understood and which could be valuable if developed. They should also assess the efficacy

of their current employee engagement strategies (Kumar & Pansari 2015). Strategies aimed

at creating new and meaningful opportunities for existing employees will increase both

satisfaction, employee loyalty and retention (IDG 2017).

“Employee-centric” organizations offer regular training, career advancement opportunities,

assistance with achieving a good work-life balance, and empower employees to make

decisions. Connecting people with the information and opportunities they need to succeed,

focusing on their development, and creating strong teams also puts employees in charge of

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talent branding which will pay off in more positive brand awareness (Hunter & Coleman 2016).

Mentoring, extracurricular activities, and other initiatives to extend and deepen relationships

with employees also boost employee satisfaction (Kumar & Pansari 2015). Organizations should

also seek to promote diversity in their teams, both to counter unconscious bias and also

because such teams have been shown to promote greater innovation and productivity (IDG

2017). Each of these efforts requires intentional and focused efforts on the part of management

to design, execute, and monitor.

Create New Talent Management Behaviors and Structures New talent management strategies are notoriously challenging to execute because they

require comprehensive and multi-functional changes in an organization's practices, culture, and

behaviors. The group identified six areas where behaviors and structures will likely need to

change:

1. Recruitment and onboarding processes. Process fairness, including transparency,

communication, and timeliness, has been shown to be a critical factor in why candidates

accept or reject a job offer (Mandiwalla 2017). "It takes way too long to fill our high

demand positions," said a member. Transparency about what the job entails is essential.

This is not only key to talent acquisition efforts but also for retention. Most candidates who

leave a job within the first year do so because of poor job or cultural fit (Byford et al. 2017).

Complexity is also an issue. "Take some time to apply for a job on your website,"

recommended a manager. "If it takes more than three minutes, it's too complicated."

Once hired, a person needs to be integrated to become a fully functioning member of the

team. Few companies provide meaningful support during this stage even though effective

integration can reduce the time needed to reach full performance by 30% (Byford et al.

2017). The biggest stumbling blocks in this area are lack of understanding of organizational

politics and culture and poor cultural fit. A recent survey of IT leaders showed that many

wished they had had mentoring in these areas when they first joined their firms (APC 2018).

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Coaching, mentoring, and formal training are the biggest gaps organizations have in

integrating new members (Mok & Berry 2016) and few of the focus group companies had

good processes in these areas.

2. Internal development. IT career development is the number one retention vehicle for IT

professionals (Dachenhaus 2016). Companies therefore need formal career development

programs with defined career paths and competency levels, funding for training, managers

who can coach and mentor, and informal development opportunities, said the focus group.

The most important on-the-job development practices include the opportunity to work on

high-stakes, high visibility jobs, or innovative projects. Formal classroom training is also

valued (Hamori et al. 2015).

With rapid changes disrupting their workforces, CIOs and IT leaders must become more

willing to reskill their existing employees as opposed to hiring new ones (Berry & Mok

2015). One company with a major commitment to retraining is AT&T. It strives to give every

interested employee the chance to change with the organization. It started by

documenting existing skills gaps and formulating future role profiles, and then simplified

job titles to foster the development of interchangeable skills, for example, 17 roles have

evolved into the job of 'software engineer'. It has also created a series of curated course

bundles and a new model of career paths that supports lateral development and both

ascending and descending career moves (Donovan & Benko 2016).

3. Culture and structural changes. Companies typically realize only 63% of the potential value

of their business strategies and inadequate human capital practices play a big role in this

lost value (Martin 2006). Traditionally, companies have had a low appetite for risk,

functioned with a hierarchical leadership structure, and work was performed in silos. With

digital business, leaders must foster experimentation, aim for speed, embrace risk, create

distributed leadership structures, and encourage collaboration. Making such changes

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means that leaders must be intentional with culture, rethink traditional models of working,

invest in their talent at all levels, bolster risk-taking and collaboration, and provide

employees with the resources and opportunities they need to improve their digital skills.

When senior leaders actively develop these traits, they are more likely to retain their talent

and attract more people to their organization (Kane et al. 2016).

Flatter organizational structures organized around agility tend to create more productive,

effective, engaged employees (Mok & Berry 2016). Other experimental structures include:

communities of practice, scrums, self-directed teams, virtual centres of excellence, micro-

work, crowdsourcing, hackathons, internal startups, digital acceleration teams, and

expertise ecosystems (Morello 2016). A significant change among focus group

organizations is the elimination or modification of traditional performance evaluations in

favor of more immediate and consistent feedback in the form of conversations about

improving performance and professional development.

4. Non-financial factors. Although compensation is important, much research now shows that

there are many other factors that will attract and retain talent as well, such as:

• Innovation (Moser et al. 2015, Hunter & Coleman 2016)

• Workspace (Hunter & Coleman 2016)

• A chance to work on interesting projects (Florentine 2017)

• Employee experience (Mok & Berry 2016)

• Availability of technology (Mok & Berry 2016)

• Lifestyle perks such as remote work, flextime, and benefits (Moser et al. 2015)

• A creative, inspiring, fun corporate culture (Florentine 2017)

• Opportunities for personal growth and to make a contribution to the success of the

organization (Florentine 2017).

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5. Meaningful work. One of the most important areas of talent management is the creation of

meaningful work. "People want to grow and need good work that focuses on the why,"

said a manager. "We need to look at how we distribute work assignments and give credit

for work performed." Another added, "The tone is set from the top." This underlines the

personal nature of meaningfulness, which relates to doing a job well and being recognized

and appreciated by others (Bailey & Madden 2016). Meaningful work is at the top of

Maslow's hierarchy of needs and addresses an individual's opportunity to self-actualize. IT

professionals expect their employers to offer work that is not routine, makes a difference in

people's lives, and which they find challenging. When available, this highly motivational

type of work leads to improved performance, commitment, and satisfaction (Hunter &

Coleman 2016, Ransbotham et al. 2015).

Interestingly, although employees must discover meaningfulness for themselves,

organizations and leaders can inattentively promote meaninglessness through the

environment they create and how they treat their staff. Some of the key ways they can do

this include: disconnecting people from their values – often seen in the tension between

the organizational focus on the bottom line and the individual's focus on the quality or

professionalism of work; taking employees for granted and failing to recognize their work;

giving people pointless work such as occurs when priorities change; treating people

unfairly; and overriding people's better judgment (Bailey & Madden 2016).

6. Continual revaluation. "We struggle to make progress in some areas," said a manager, "so

we measure and track everything." Although measurement is the best way to identify

problems and improve, the focus group companies in general agreed that they don't do a

good job of measuring how well they're doing in talent management. As a result, most

don't know their turnover rates, how long positions remain unfilled, or how many jobs are

filled internally. Similarly, none deeply analyze the results of exit interviews that can, if

designed properly, uncover HR issues, employees' perceptions of work, working

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conditions, organizational culture, and leadership styles (Spain & Groysberg 2016). And

only one organization tracks gender and diversity in IT.

Focus group members recommended documenting and evaluating every process involved

in talent management from acquisition, to development and retention, to termination. "We

need to understand every step and what is involved in it," one said. Getting feedback from

employees should be seen as a strategic opportunity as well, although it is difficult to get

honest answers without using third parties, the group noted. One way to do this is to solicit

ideas from people for improving the organization, framing it as encouraging innovation

(Spain & Groysberg 2016).

Apply Technology Appropriately Although there have been HR systems for several decades, few companies have invested

significant amounts in them because HR has never been seen as strategic. Today, this is

beginning to change both because the cost-benefit profile is changing due to more

inexpensive, cloud-based systems, and because of the needs and expectations of employers

and potential employees. But despite the existence of more available solutions, experience has

taught us that merely throwing technology at such a complex problem will not be effective and

indeed, earlier versions of talent management platforms have been significantly lacking

(Poitevin 2017). Technology can be a significant component of developing a more robust talent

management capability if it is used appropriately. There are several ways technology can help:

1. Simplifying transactions. Talent management is a complex mix of transactional and

relational elements. Technology can be used to keep the multitude of transactional

components involved in acquiring, managing, and retaining talent simple and easy to use,

leaving the relational ones appropriately to humans. Ideally, transactions should be user-

friendly, short, able to be completed at the convenience of the individual, and timed

appropriately (Dachenhaus 2016). However, all too often companies utilize technology to

make things more convenient for their organizational structures and processes rather than

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their present or future staff. Companies should consider how HR transactions can be used

to build a positive brand from the point of first contact and at all points in a person's

employment.

2. Supporting processes. At present, talent management solutions are not well-integrated but

do provide some effective point solutions (Poitevin 2017). They can be used in a variety of

innovative ways for recruiting, such as finding potential candidates, improving the

candidate experience, and making the process more efficient. And AI is beginning to be

used to match jobs and candidates. Tools can also be used to improve understanding of

market dynamics, and support other talent management processes including: career

development, workforce planning, and job analysis.

3. Connecting the dots. Technology is the best means to collect the data involved in multiple

talent management processes, such as: workforce planning, talent acquisition, on boarding,

performance appraisal assessment, goal management, learning management, competency

management, career development, succession management and compensation

management (Freyermuth et al. 2017). As such it can assess an organization's talent

management maturity and make sense of the data involved (Buttita 2014). And because

talent management must serve a variety of stakeholders including: executives, HR

professionals, recruiters, current employees, and potential ones (Hunter & Coleman 2016),

software can support each type of work, provide important input to it, give real time

feedback on the success of various talent management initiatives, and offer different views

of the data as needed.

4. Collecting metrics. Metrics provide visibility on an organization's human capital and its

talent management capabilities. Technology can be used to produce these metrics and

also to perform analytics to understand root causes of problems, said the focus group. "We

put these metrics in a dashboard for our management so they can see how we're doing

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with our talent management initiatives and how effectively our HR processes are working,"

said a manager.

5. Providing specialized tools. Finally, technology can be used to support individual career

development. AT&T has developed a number of specialized tools to help individuals assess

their performance, competencies, business experience, and credentials and to generate a

personalized talent and development profile (Donovan & Benko 2016). It has built other

tools that analyze hiring trends within the company and provide profiles of different jobs

with simulations of realistic job-related situations for interested internal candidates. The

company's tools also help employees identify their skill gaps and facilitate online retraining.

In turn, with the data it collects, it can monitor gaps, the use of these tools, and successful

placements of retrained employees.

Recommendations for Managers Improving an organization's talent management capabilities is clearly a long-term, complex

proposition but the focus group had some specific recommendations for how to start:

1. Take leadership of the issue. Talent management is a responsibility no-one wants so this is

an opportunity for IT leaders to step up and lead through influence. Start by identifying the

key stakeholders involved, including senior business and HR managers, working to educate

them about the value of having a human capital management plan to accomplish overall

business strategy, and aiming to build support for a collaborative effort to improve the

organization's talent management capabilities.

2. Consider the bigger picture. Understand your talent brand. Go online to see what people

are saying about what it's like to work in your organization. Identify the channels through

which you currently recruit and consider ways to incorporate internal skills better,

encourage referrals, and address non-traditional recruitment. Evaluate your employee

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development and retention strategies from an employee point of view and consider how

these could be improved.

3. Look outside the box. Almost none of the focus group were hiring at an internship or entry

level, although most were considering it. Members noted that hiring students for work

terms helps both companies and students get mutually comfortable and ensures job fit.

One company is also hiring disabled people. In both cases, members stressed the

importance of training both managers and team members in their specific needs. Some

members also participate in international case competitions and sponsor hackathons with

the winners getting jobs. In addition, evaluate your job postings to eliminate unconscious

bias so as to not screen out female candidates with masculine words (Shearman 2013).

4. Build versatilists. The IT world has long-debated whether it is best to hire and develop

technical specialists or encourage more generalist skills. With many IT skills moving to

business areas, this is a grey area that's getting bigger, said the focus group. Now that IT

skills changing more rapidly, leaders are seeking to acquire and develop more agile

capabilities that have broad application in various roles and which can be recombined in a

number of ways to provide greater business value. "We definitely need people with more

holistic views who are able to adapt their roles in different situations." said a manager.

5. Pay more attention to job fit. "Job fit is more important than skill set," said a manager. "We

need to find ways to assess fit before hiring, such as having applicants work with peers."

Poor job fit can be responsible for up to 80% of employee turnover and a large proportion

of the costs involved in recruiting (Craig 2015). Articulating your organizational values

clearly to candidates and expressly considering fit when hiring are thus two ways of

improving your retention rate.

6. Outsource for specific technical skills. Clarify whether or not your organization will need

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specific technical skills in the longer term and how closely these need to be integrated. If

not necessary long-term, or if there is a critical need, outsourcing is the best solution.

7. Start measuring. Only one of the focus group companies had a comprehensive program of

measurement for talent management, citing the well-known maxim, "If you don't measure

it, you can't improve it." It is also true that if something isn't being measured, no one is

paying attention to it. Measurement is therefore an integral part of taking leadership in

talent management.

Conclusion The IT workforce is changing and will need new and different skills in the future. In the

meantime, the demand for talented IT workers has never been greater. There is no panacea for

this dilemma and IT managers will not be able to resolve all components of this themselves.

However, they can take more proactive leadership of this issue, addressing what components

they can, and seeking to educate and influence key stakeholders in other areas. This paper has

shown that talent management is a complex capability that must be approached strategically

and from a variety of perspectives. Lower order, piecemeal approaches will not be effective.

Nor is this a problem at which technology can (or should) be thrown. Instead, it is time to

recognize the long-term strategic value of having a talented, skilled, IT workforce that will help

companies transform themselves for the digital age and design a holistic approach to

developing new talent management capabilities.

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Concept The purpose is to bring senior IT managers together to examine topics that are of critical concern to them and their organizations. Via the Forum, members share experiences, learn from their peers, establish valuable networks, and develop practical strategies for creating, implementing, and managing IT solutions.

Recent Papers § Innovation with Technology § Emerging Technology Management § Developing a Data Strategy § Developing a Cloud Strategy § IT in 2020 § Transforming to Dev-Ops § Developing Thought Leaders in IT

§ IT’s Role in a Culture of Experimentation § Managing Disruption in IT § Balancing Information Security and

Enablement § Artificial Intelligence § Moving Towards an API Economy

Participating Organizations § Bell Canada § BMO Financial Group § Canadian Tire § CIBC § Empire Financial Group § LCBO

§ OLG § Ontario Teachers Pension Plan § Ontario Universities’ Application

Centre § Reliance Home Comfort § Sun Life

Membership Membership in the IT Forum is by invitation only. The annual fee is $3,000. Please direct inquiries to Dr. James McKeen at jmckeen@business.queensu.ca.