Look closer to home for digital skills
Tech employers can help themselves by seeking to fill vacancies from their local area, and seeking out employees that they can train themselves.
The energy produced by the collective handwringing from both industry and government about the shortage of digital skills among the UK workforce could power a city. We all know that there are huge challenges facing UK tech in recruiting and retaining the skills needed to grow and compete. Salaries in areas such as data science, senior development and cloud have grown accordingly. This isn't sustainable (a fact underlined by some recent announcements) and smaller businesses, particularly those located outside of the main UK tech hubs, are struggling to attract talent.
But how many businesses can say that they have done everything that they can to seek out talent? In particular, how have they sought out talent that hasn't presented itself though one of the traditional routes?
Naomi Timperley of Tech North Advocates, a private sector led coalition of digital business leaders, education providers and community experts who champion the North of England as a world class tech hub, acknowledges the challenge facing tech employers but thinks that employers have to take some responsibility for seeking out the skills which are, if not on their doorstop, certainly not far away.
"Greater Manchester covers ten regions and has a population of nearly three million people. It's partly the responsibility of local businesses to go out and talk to people in those areas about the opportunities that they've got. You don't need the constant commute anymore that might have put off people from Wigan or Rochdale for example working in Manchester. People can work from home two or three days a week. Businesses also have to make sure that the schools, colleges and the universities are aware of the opportunities out there as well."
Look in your locale
The ability to seek out those with skills, or those with a tip top attitude and the potential to acquire those skills at a local level is often overlooked by employers who still, by their own admission, tend to fish in the same small pools. Ironically, this may have been exacerbated by post pandemic era remote working, as employers can now hire people who live hundreds of miles away based on home working contracts and the occasional day in the office. People living in Northern city hubs such as Manchester and Leeds and also more rural and coastal locations are being paid London level wages with significantly lower living costs. It's easy to see the attraction from their point of view but this wasn't quite how the "hybrid working for greater diversity," scenario was supposed to play out.
It's also hard to see how smaller, local firms based in areas which aren't awash with tech employers can compete with larger, much better resourced competitors which are based hundreds of miles away. However, Tony Lysak, CEO of consultancy and training provider The Software Institute has a distinct perspective. He explains why hiring locally is a better long-term strategy for growth - and cost.
"When you hire people that are geographically flexible, you're hiring in the same places and you're hiring the same person. A graduate that is happy to be deployed locally for a couple of years will likely have the attitude of ‘OK, I'll cut my teeth here and then I'll go to London, New York, Silicon Valley etc.'
"Our approach is hire in the locale. If you want to hire people that are very smart, but haven't had the opportunity, look locally. You can probably hire them at the right price and you'll get a better retention rate is because people may have not left that place, but now they've got a fantastic opportunity. Super highfliers might get poached or go elsewhere but, in most cases, you're going to get loyalty and longevity. Over time people put down roots, buy houses, start families.
"When you target locally, you cast the net wide, you get a bigger demographic to choose from. You assess ruthlessly, you keep the quality high, bring them in, train them and take them through."
Lysak makes a persuasive case that hiring locally, although it might initially seem harder, drastically reduces attrition rates in the longer term.
"When you look at the cost of recruitment and the costs of maintaining a great workforce and a great culture, it's much better to target a locale and build a team there and then recruit from within in that locale then build pockets all over the world or within a country or wherever. And that's how we build and target the people from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds."
Costs are a critical part of this discussion. Part of the reason that so many layoffs have been announced in recent months is spiralling salary costs in some organisations which, by their own admission over hired during the pandemic. Lysak comments:
"You can't move away from the supply and demand. People that are ok developers and ok consultants are getting paid at a disproportionate rate when you take inflation into account. I'm seeing people being overpaid out of desperation because employers need to gain skills and fill headcount and employers are chasing their own stats and metrics. Middle managers are panicking and making ridiculous offers to people who potentially aren't even up to the job."
Employers seeking digital skills should take care not to overlook the obvious.
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