A recent global survey has revealed that insufficiently IT skilled staff is one of the biggest challenges that organizations are facing. This is true of IT companies that are selling hardware and software solutions, as well as enterprises users. In fact, compared to a similar survey done two years back, it emerges that the skill availability has become a bigger problem in 2007.

While this was an international survey that was done in 23 countries, solution providers are actually facing the skilled manpower crunch too, across India. And the problem is only going to become worse, as per manpower experts and consultants. According to them, Indian IT manpower availability for small outfits will be hit by big brand players in India, and some emerging and hot IT destinations such as the Middle East.

What is needed is therefore by solution providers (SPs) is some innovative thinking. One very successful model has been to hire manpower from small towns and cities. Lots of engineering and technical institutes are located in these places, churning out good, though not very polished aspirants. Some SPs are going to these campuses for recruitment as well as summer trainings. And they are by and large happy with their performance.

Multi-skilling is another trick that is working. This means that field sales force is trained in some technical jobs like assembling boxes, or receptionists being taught how to offer phone-based tech-support. This is known to have given a fairly high level of job satisfaction to employees too, as they find this a value addition in their career prospect.

There would be quite a few other successful ways to hold and motivate employees, which will be experimented and discovered in days to come. Human resource experts believe that most newcomers are interested in learning for growth, and do not mind taking challenging roles. But the important point is that first the managers and bosses will need to bring this in their mindset.

ibrahim ahmad
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in

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