Dive Brief:
- Half of IT spend over the next year will be devoted to people and processes rather than technology, according to 1,000 senior IT leaders surveyed for a report released Wednesday by Salesforce’s MuleSoft.
- Enhancing the employee experience and improving job satisfaction are priorities for chief technologists. Four in five of the IT leaders surveyed said their organization is investing to improve employee wellbeing, and 85% agreed that upgrading employee-facing technology is critical to future success.
- “Digital transformation is ultimately about providing better, more seamless customer experiences,” said Matt McLarty, global field CTO and VP of the Digital Transformation Office at MuleSoft. “But the same applies to employee experiences.”
Dive Insight:
The role of the IT leader is evolving to accommodate changes in business strategy. With modernization high on the business agenda, recruiting, retaining and developing a robust tech workforce isn’t just an HR concern — it’s a top-line priority for enterprise IT leaders.
A deep and, to date, recession-proof demand for IT workers, coupled with a comparably shallow pool of available tech talent, has many companies straining to fill open tech positions. The knowledge gaps that accompany workforce attrition complicate an already difficult hiring situation.
Nearly all IT leaders surveyed by MuleSoft — 99% in the U.S., 97% globally — said the Great Resignation has created skills gaps in their companies, specifically in the areas of IT architecture, cloud and infrastructure management, and network and systems integration.
Companies are addressing these problems in a number of ways, according to the report. Nearly 60% of organizations are automating tasks and processes, while 53% use technologies that let non-technical employees meet their own needs.
Many organizations are broadening their recruitment efforts. Four in five IT leaders surveyed said they widened recruitment criteria and were looking to non-traditional talent sources, including veterans and career changers.
“The hardest problems are never technology problems,” McLarty said.
Solutions to the current talent crunch may not be entirely technical, but they do fall largely to chief technologists.
“If all roads lead back to a specialized group of developers who are at risk of the attrition we’re seeing, then you need to diversify, which means getting more people involved,” said McLarty.
