Any good employer knows that the secret to their success is not their product or service, but their people. Finding the right people and ensuring you get the best of them, however, can be a challenge. As such, CompTIA geared its recent UK Channel Community Meeting in Birmingham entirely around IT skills.
During the event, a series of experts revealed methods to address the challenges of managing ‘human capital’. From planning for career progression at the interview stage, to introducing transparency on employee salaries, companies are changing their business culture to stand out in a competitive recruitment market and create the optimal environment for a productive, ambitious and happy technology workforce.
Presentations at the event such as ‘Creating A Continuous Training Culture’ and ‘Creating A Culture That Attracts And Retains Top Talent’ outlined the techniques being deployed by some of Britain’s leading employers to help attendees indentify ways of finding and developing talent. These include:
University-business collaboration
Many businesses are working directly with Universities to develop new talent. Some offer University work placements, which enable them to build an early connection with the student and help train them in industry-relevant skills. Others revealed how they are partnering with Universities and Government to make degree course content more closely aligned to industry and to create pioneering work-based degrees.
Mentoring to nurture talent
Some pioneering companies are positioning themselves as online mentors for gifted students to capture and train talent at an early stage. This helps them find and nurture their own talent, establish an early connection with the best graduates and achieve ‘brand loyalty’.
The Academy Model
Some industry innovators are moving away from traditional University qualifications and phasing out graduate schemes, which can narrow the recruitment net. Instead, they are replacing them with all-encompassing ‘academies’, open to people from an array of backgrounds as broad as retail and marketing. By diversifying the recruitment pool, these companies are opening up new, and previously untapped streams of talent, and not relying on academia alone to provide the skills they need.
Plotting a Path to Success
Many companies are using advanced methods to build ‘succession planning’ into the recruitment process; hiring people not just for the existing vacancy but for their managerial potential. They also tailor training and resources to give each employee a clear path to promotion from the outset, building motivation, outlining the necessary steps ahead, and ensuring they begin their upward trajectory from the beginning.
Creating transparency
Whilst unconventional, some organisations now proactively reveal the salaries for different tiers of the company to each employee. By highlighting what they can do to reach a higher salary band employers can improve motivation, giving each employee a visible path to improvement and a goal at the end.
The IT skills gap remains an issue, and competition for the best talent can be fierce. Throughout the conference, attendees were shown ways that they can work independently, or in collaboration with other businesses, government or academia to attract and nurture great IT talent and as a result, boost Britain’s technology skills base.
Learn more at our Best of UK Channel Community webinar on 29 July at 4pm UK (GMT+1).
Register here.
To register for CompTIA’s EMEA event in central London in October, visit: https://www.comptia.org/events/view/comptia-emea-member-partner-conference2015
