Hiring IT Staff Headaches and Solutions

If hiring IT staff feels like an uphill battle right now, you are not alone. The Wall Street Journal recently confirmed, there simply are not enough qualified applicants to fill those jobs.  Finding people with cloud services experience is especially tough. 

Here are a few reasons for this dearth in qualified applicants:

• Because of the shift from in-office to work-from-anywhere, more companies are realizing they need to migrate to the cloud and therefore need cloud and security experts to help them navigate and manage these changes.
• Many people, baby boomers in particular, are in the “retirement zone” and opting to take early retirement rather than trudging along in their present jobs.  Gen X’ers are not far behind. 
• The older workers (over 55) who have the experience and skills to fill these technical jobs have decided “life is too short,” so they choose to bail out of these jobs and jump into a completely different, less stressful industry,  or one in which they can manage their own time. Many start their own business.
• With the slow recession of baby boomers and Generation Xers from the labor force, millennials and Gen Z (18 to 41 years old) are becoming the majority of eligible candidates though they may lack experience and training. 
• With that kind of voluntary attrition, what is left in the job pool is not enough applicants with the necessary training, experience and credentials to fill the need.
• Add to all of that the fact that those individuals with quality IT who are left  are often lured away by higher paying jobs, better benefits or more perks elsewhere.  
• Small and medium-sized businesses simply cannot successfully compete with giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google and other less gigantic companies. They are actively recruiting and hiring tech staff by offering applicants incentives that you simply cannot afford or do not want to offer.

Solutions for IT Hiring Challenges

Here are three steps you can take when struggling to hire new IT staff:

• Retain your current talent. Assess your current IT talent while you offer them opportunities to expand their education and skills. Let them know you recognize their talent and that their voices are being heard. Most importantly, keep up with the current salary trends. If others are raising IT wages, you will have to do the same.
• Consider “new-collar workers” when hiring new talent. New-collar workers are applicants who achieved their technical and soft skills through nontraditional education paths: high school technical education and on-the-job apprenticeships and internships, vocational schools, software boot camps or technical certification programs.
• Partner with a managed service provider (MSP) to help solve your staffing problems either by becoming part of your IT team or by supporting your team with additional skills.

Hiring a Managed Service Provider

Outsourcing part or all your IT needs to an MSP is a turnkey solution to your IT hiring problems; one that usually costs less than an in-house staff. Look for a managed service provider that will handle everything from security to software, monitoring the smallest details with setup and management. 

Even If you already have a good (but possibly overwhelmed) internal IT department, an MSP can help. Internal teams sometimes lack the bandwidth to keep up with the latest technologies or the experience in every specialized area of IT services you need. Your MSP can supplement your existing team, lending expertise, or just another pair of hands, when needed. It does not have to be all MSP or none. Have them show you an IT services plan that is tailored to  your needs and that will free you from your IT headaches. Not sure what to look for? Download our Managed IT Checklist to help you choose IT support for your business.

Then contact us or book a meeting for a free no-obligation consultation. Even if you decide not to use us or another MSP, you’ll come away from the consultation with several good ideas for your business.