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Skills shortage
Imthishan Giado speaks to the region's top CIOs to find out how they ensure that the skills of their employees are up to scratch - and what to do when they are found wanting.
Thus far, 2009 has proved to be a year of reflection for regional enterprises. Where once companies were driven by a nearly endless supply of projects and budgets that were rubberstamp formalities towards acquiring the hottest technology, today firms see a different landscape.
While there are still projects happening, many CIOs are taking the opportunity of the slower pace of development to re-examine the staff in their departments to find out if they are keeping up with market requirements, need to be retrained, or in the worst cases, need to be laid off. For some, it's the first real chance they've had to do so in years, outside the regular cycle of appraisals.
What many find, however, is that their departments lack the skills they need to move their organisations forward - and as always, fresh talent, both experienced and otherwise is thin on the ground. Ahmed Al Mulla, vice president of IT at Dubai Aluminium (Dubal), confirms the presence of a regional skills deficit.
"I definitely think there is a skills shortage today - there's no question about it. A lot of people talk about the financial crisis - yes, there are some vendor-type resources available in the market, but it's not the type that you are looking for. Even if you get something because of the market situation, it will not last for a long time, because the market's going to come back," he warns.
The absence of a skilled professionals, it turns out, is doubly painful for IT managers. On one hand, it's extremely hard to find someone with the exact right skils, so many are forced to build them in-house. When they do this successfully, most of these individuals then look for high-paying vendor jobs, which are only too happy to headhunt employees from customers.
Ghassan Sadallah, head of academic computing at the University of Sharjah, confirms that training employees is constantly an inescapable reality, but there are ways to prevent them becoming "too skilled" - and then likely to look for other employment.
"It is really a very important decision to upgrade their people according to their requirements. I think it will cost less, people will be more confident and it is easy to manipulate their skills according to the requirements. Unfortunately in many cases, these upgraded people will start to look for higher positions according to their skills. The trick is to manipulate their skills in an indirect way to be incomplete. You try to keep them here. You give them knowledge or upgrades to their skills but in a way that fits your own needs only," he reveals.
But for some vertical industries, there are no options available at all to poach from the market or other vendors. In these cases, CIOs must build teams in-house using existing resources. Muhammad Javeed, director of IT Services at Qatar University, relates his experiences with building such a division.
"Higher education is a little bit different than the corporate or other SME businesses. The skillsets in higher education require a totally different approach, different certifications and so on. We totally build up our own team - I have got a team of more than 70 people across the university. There is a huge lack of expertise but we've been trying to build it up. I built up this department from scratch to 75 people over the last four years. I inherited about five to ten people but they were all useless," he recalls.
The pros and cons of building an IT department internally versus "buying-in" skills externally are obvious. On one hand, you can build a trusted IT team with exactly the skills you need - but it will take several years and there's no guarantee that these individuals will stay on afterwards. On the other hand, splashing out budget on the best staff on the market ensures that your firm has the latest skills and plenty of experience out of the gate - but risks alienating older staffers and sparking an exodus, while still not guaranteeing that your staff will stay to continue building systems.
So if there really is a skills shortage, the million dollar question then becomes - what skills are really in demand?
Al Mulla has some ideas on the subject: "The most demanded skills are architectural - people who know the ins and outs of IT, technology and applications. The other type is someone who understands the mapping business processes with IT. So really, you're talking about one kind of application development. The third type is good project management skills."
Ahmed Al Mulla, vice president of IT at Dubai Aluminium, describes his hiring practices: "We don't have a specific ratio, but on average we hire about four to five fresh graduates every year. We also have a nationalisation plan so we hire nationals mostly.
Some of them leave us after a while. In terms of experience, it depends on project. I would say probably, we hire about four to five experienced people every year. You might have additional requirements, but you also have one or two people leaving you for whatever reason, retirement or so on. The ratio is about 1:1 basically."
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Comments 1-4 of 4
Posted by m adnan, Sydney, Australia on 11 November 2009 at 04:12 UAE time
I agree to everyone's comments here. "The forces of supply and demand determine these prices -- and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. "(post by Suzie Gillies) - also want to add to this, that employers need to consider their work force to be an asset for the company...and not provide them with limited training and education so they can not find better jobs (as suggested by the article) , instead if an employee was well tranied by the company and Well PAID!! would not find the reason to leave...clearly there is a lack of human resource management and policies if companies are finding that once they train their staff they leave for better jobs....if companies had a proper growth plan both for the company and the employees future and both these growth plans were in sync ...then there should be no reason why staff leave after training....
Posted by Pauline, Dubai, UAE on 28 September 2009 at 19:18 UAE time
I could'nt have said it better than the way suzy Gillie has. You spoke the words right out of my mouth. Pay the price and you get the workers you're looking for.
Posted by B Madani, Washington DC, USA on 28 September 2009 at 14:01 UAE time
I think the lady from New Yorks response is essentially true. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!
Posted by suzy Gillie, New York, USA on 27 September 2009 at 21:28 UAE time
When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "skills shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.
Employers speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.
If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you'll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
Re: Shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.
There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices -- and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.
Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the "going price" has been held below the market-clearing price.