EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
HOW CAN ENTERPRISES TACKLE THE SKILLS SHORTAGE ?
By Mark Bowen , Editor of Intelligent CIO APAC .
The skills shortage in the IT industry shows no sign of improving . In fact , there may be grounds for pessimism .
The reasons for the problem are complicated but I was told anonymously by an industry insider who has worked in IT for many decades that the question might need to be turned on its head in order to move towards some sort of answer .
He stressed concerns about how such people feel the need to move on as they often get stuck on projects they constructed and end up spending endless days working on maintenance . The inevitable consequence of this is that they feel the need to move on so they can update their skills .
Worryingly , he told me , that many companies prefer to hire contractors to work on the more progressive projects , rather than stretching the capabilities of their in-house team .
He suggested that first of all I consider why highlyskilled technicians working in the industry aren ’ t staying in their positions .
If we widen the remit slightly we can consider why young talented and intelligent students might not be attracted into the industry after they leave university .
No doubt word gets around among graduates that IT changes very quickly with the pace of change more rapid than in many other sectors .
They are also probably switched on to the fact that working in IT can involve tedious tasks , requiring an abundance of patience , checking and tweaking code .
But such work is also high-risk as one mistake can have a disastrous impact on a whole project . Such a high-degree of responsibility may not be to everyone ’ s liking .
We asked three industry experts for their opinions on the subject . Here are their responses .
32 INTELLIGENTCIO APAC www . intelligentcio . com