How Do You Close the Talent Gap in Tech, Effectively?

Unresolved talent gaps can prove to be an expensive problem for businesses in the long-term. There are different kinds of talent gaps that business and HR leaders in the tech marketplace need to factor in, in today’s time, from a lack of requisite employee skills to managing or assigning teams to meet current operational needs and business goals.

A talent gap can occur due to various factors and it is not always easy to identify and close these lags. But when HR leaders and department heads work more closely together to establish talent management goals and to identify where problems are being faced and why including an assessment of required skills, it can help businesses focus better on finding and hiring the right candidates.

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Why does the tech marketplace need to pay more attention to talent gaps?

Talent gaps can cost the economy and businesses losses worth trillions of dollars. The tech marketplace is constantly evolving with new capabilities and features changing how businesses rely on technology and people to achieve goals. This in itself creates a bigger space between a company’s current level of talent and skills vis a vis requisites from the market, to stay on top of competition.

An earlier Korn Ferry study had once showcased how businesses will face a huge talent gap of more than 85 million people by 2030 if left unchecked.

Some of the most successful business leaders focus on constant training, retraining and upskilling of staff to meet these shortages and to help their team stay ahead of the game. For organisations to have a robust training and development policy, business leaders themselves need to be adept at the latest technologies and advancements.

But this is not the only way that HR and business leaders can focus on developing core staff skills, it is also crucial to factor in business goals and roadmaps as well as employee career goals, training people for tasks they may not want to do in future can again turn out to be a cost disadvantage.

Here are few effective ways through which business and HR leaders can shorten talent gaps more effectively:

Regular Talent Gap Assessments

Regular assessments to help compare short-term business needs with skills gaps and competencies is crucial today, even more so in a largely remote working world. HR leaders can use comprehensive talent assessment platforms to liaise with department heads and put in place stronger talent assessment policies (at least once every few months) to review current employee skill shortage and to help plan for future hiring needs.

A comprehensive and regular talent gap assessment can help portray to business and HR leaders where the team stands in respect to future company goals, while also highlighting areas where skills need to be improved.

Revisiting your Overall Tech Recruitment Process

Without a proper talent gap assessment, business and HR leaders will not be able to define a strong talent acquisition process. HR leaders usually work on hiring candidates based on certain role and job descriptions. This is not enough to ensure that a growing team’s talent acquisition process is based on what the business really needs,

Hiring candidates based on a set of keywords or strengths is not enough to fool-proof future hiring and talent gaps. This is where it becomes important to understand not just the immediate talent needs of the business but also the gaps that are most likely to cause disruptions in future.

This is the point where HR leaders need to learn how to balance the notion of hiring people with the ‘’right’’ qualifications versus the organization’s actual need.

HR and Business Leaders should have Multiple Sources of Talent

The talent marketplace cannot be restricted to one platform or source anymore, given the number of job boards and hiring platforms and networks today, business and HR leaders have to learn how to be more adept at sourcing candidates from multiple sources based on key functions and role / skill requirements. This will help ensure a steady pool of high quality candidates.

For today’s recruiters, networking with candidates throughout the fiscal year is also an important criteria and this demands that HR and business leaders know where to stay active and engage future candidates – amid the various platforms and networks available today, there are also focused ones (Eg. GitHub) that help tech recruiters source specific kinds of talent that meet today’s tech hiring challenges.

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Internal Team Mobility and Contingent Talent

This is a point that is especially relevant to the tech marketplace today, there could be times when a sudden project comes up that actually requires very specific skills and a business may not have the right capabilities in their in-house team.

To shorten these contingent talent gaps, business and HR leaders can choose to hire specific talent based on contractual agreements or they can dive into their other offices to see if members from other worldwide offices can support the specifics of new projects.

With the growth of HR platforms to help HR teams not only hire better candidates but also manage their overall recruitment process more effectively, it is now the time for HR leaders to take things to the next level by ensuring certain talent gaps are managed more effectively to ensure better business outcomes.