Companies struggling to attract tech talent amid historic demand may have bigger problems than lagging innovation goals. With overworked IT departments, day-to-day operations may be in peril.
A talent crunch has affected just about every part of business operations, but especially managing end-user hardware. Unemployment for tech workers was 1.8% in June, half the national unemployment average of 3.6%, according to CompTIA data.
Companies can overcome the shortage by being purposeful about the type of hardware they buy, simplifying equipment provisioning, and, where appropriate, hiring help to ensure workers focus on key tasks — not answering help tickets.
“They can be much more strategic in nature as opposed to trying to keep the lights on and do all the operations style things,” said Paul Ozanich, managing director at Core BTS.
Everside Health, which operates more than 375 health clinics across the U.S, followed this strategy and rethought its IT playbook in the last two years to match a changing workforce.
Changes included opening up IT positions to anyone, not just those based in their Denver and Charlotte hubs or willing to move there, said Sampath Narayanan, Everside Health CIO.
The company also went from using one hardware vendor to two, partly to have more flexibility, but also because working with two vendors instead of one, especially during a continuing chip shortage, made shortages less likely.
That way, the company wouldn’t be forced to miss a deadline “because we didn’t have a laptop,” he said.
With supply chain in mind, Everside Health also started stocking up on laptops, so they had a three month supply on hand instead of buying when they needed one, to hedge against supply chain issues.
Companies can also improve the process of deploying a new laptop, said Ozanich, and “try to reduce the overall effort a remote worker needs to use it.” That might mean simplifying multifactor authentication so “once you get logged into one system, you’re able to use that token for multiple pieces of software as opposed to managing 20 to 50 passwords.”
Hire vendors to handle more routine IT tasks
Staff-strapped companies can outsource a range of IT tasks, which saves time on trying to compete with other firms for tech talent, while keeping hardware maintenance and management flowing.
It might be the only solution as those vendors can typically pay higher salaries than a small to medium company can afford to pay in-house IT staff.
“It’s harder for a single company … to have the same salary as a professional IT services company,” said Peter Tsai, head of technology insights at Spiceworks Ziff Davis.
Enterprises can also opt for the hardware as a service model, where another company handles maintenance and repairs for employee hardware, said Tsai. That means another company with that expertise can focus on handling resources and maintenance, leaving IT staff to focus on other core projects.
That’s especially important when it comes to security concerns, where employers are “buying consumer grade networking gear. They’re not going through a commercial firewall like it would be in the office,” he said. “A lot of companies are turning to security providers so they can outsource some of their work to secure their end user devices to better make sure that their devices are locked down properly.”
Relying on outside vendors is a trend that may continue too. In July, OhioHealth announced it was laying off 637 employees, 567 of them in IT. Instead, the healthcare system hired Accenture to manage IT services, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Everside Health hired a vendor to help with basic tech support, so employees can email or call from anywhere, and typically have a problem solved in 15 to 30 minutes, Narayanan said.
“They’re the ones who are manning the phones and following level one tickets.” That means his tech staff can focus on more complex issues and tasks rather than helping employees with what are usually the same basic problems, over and over again.
