According to CWJobs 94% of tech employers believe there is an industry wide shortage of Technology talent.
Combine this with the “Great Resignation” where changing working conditions due to COVID-19, existing employees are looking to leave their jobs or move for higher pay and benefits.
The struggle to get the best Technology talent, and keep existing staff has never been so fierce.
As an employer recruiting and retaining the best staff is a constant challenge amongst the day to day struggle of a growing business.
These are the 5 biggest problems you will find yourself facing when it comes to Technology recruitment
1. Are you paying enough?
With talent in short supply, the salaries that candidates can ask for, and your staff can earn is rising.
Whether you are advertising a role, sourcing new staff or hoping to keep the best members of your team it’s crucial to offer the right salary for the job.
It’s important to pay fairly, with candidates facing a rising cost of living, knowing there is a shortage of talent in the market and being actively approached by other companies for the same role.
We see many of our clients proactively increasing employee salaries before they receive a counter offer from a competing firm.
2. The Contractor Costs of IR35
Increasingly employers are turning to contractors when they have projects on tight deadlines and cannot afford the long lead times to get a permanent position filled.
New IR35 regulations in terms of contractor’s costs for paying tax means that day rates have increased. Read more about this from Hiscox here.
For roles that are deemed inside IR35, you should consider adding 10-15% on top of the standard day rates to make sure that a contractor is not losing money by coming to work for you.
3. Are the Benefits you Offer Good Enough?
Working from home poses its own set of challenges, and companies that address these head one will be a step ahead of others, by:
Offering less commuting time.
Giving their staff more freedom.
Allowing flexibility around families and child care.
Providing opportunities to choose when and where staff work.
With more people working from home, come the concerns for staff mental health and also blurring the lines even more between work and home.
Employers that offer a strong package of benefits, and a clear difference in terms of allowing flexibility, supporting their staff while meeting their business goals will be able to offer a more attractive opportunity to new talent, even if they cannot command the salaries someone might get paid at larger companies.
Increasingly people are valuing work/life balance as much as higher salaries if they can afford it.
4. Are You Welcoming Women?
Though diversity in the Technology workplace is improving, only 26% of the workforce are women.
Women continue to still be under-represented in many technology companies.
And face many challenges according to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Centre:
50% of women said they had experienced gender discrimination at work
The numbers were even higher for women with a postgraduate degree (62%), working in computer jobs (74%) or in male-dominated workplaces (78%).
Male-dominated workplaces pay less attention to gender diversity (43%) and cause women to feel a need to prove themselves all or some of the time (79%), according to Pew’s 2017 research.
5. What 40% of Candidates really care about…
Back in 2019, Fast Company reported that in a survey of over 1,000 young professionals working at US companies that 40% of them chose the company primarily due to their sustainability goals.
Young people and new talent care about the environment and what your company is doing to help wider society.
This increasingly goes beyond a target to go “carbon neutral” or to “recycle more.
Want the 5 Strategies to Solve these Problems and a Salary Report for the 32 Most In Demand Roles in Tech.
