The Challenge Of Retaining And Attracting Talent

The IT budgets of Indian companies are one of the fastest growing in the world, 13.2% against the world average of 3.3%. However challenges like resource constraint (especially personnel with the required skill sets), creating innovative services to respond to consumer demands and the CEO-CIO disconnect will have to be addressed by Indian CIOs. These major concerns were discussed at the curtain raiser to the Gartner India CIO summit, 2008.

Partha Iyengar, head of research - India, Gartner explained, “There is no dearth of quantity of workforce in India.” Companies are looking for candidates with the right skill set and the real challenge lies in getting and retaining them. “Three to four years ago, CIO’s had to interview about five candidates for one post in the IT department, this ratio has now jumped to 15:1,” he added.

Opportunity definitely lies in the off-shoring environment. Companies are venturing into a variety of off- shoring projects that demand a versatile workforce.

The question that arises now is how does one attract the talent pool and retain the existing workforce. This is the billion-dollar question companies are mulling over. Rather than hiring only those with an engineering degree, companies should also consider those with a major in B.SC. “This is like targeting two birds with a single arrow.” They will add value to the company’s talent pool and with their soft skills, they will also prove handy to train the existing talent pool, as well as in facilitating retention of talent at the organisation.

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Citing a reference of the employee retrenchment at TCS after an annual productivity check, Iyengar said companies should also organise training programmes for employees especially for the technical staff.