Top IT professionals are more attracted to companies with a strong culture of innovation and just a competitive remuneration package, according to a new report from Robert Half Technology.
IT Innovation: Harnessing technology to attract skilled IT talent finds that the majority of CIOs (81%) in the UK believe that technology professionals are attracted to companies which can demonstrate a strong culture of innovation. However, 96 percent say they find it challenging to find skilled IT staff.
The link between a company which fosters innovation and successful IT hiring may be well understood, but the report shows that UK companies don’t rate themselves at the top of the innovation scale. On a scale of one to five where one is ‘not innovative’ and five is ‘highly innovative’, the report found an average score of 3.36. Larger companies were more likely to score themselves lower at 3.32 and smaller companies higher at 3.55.
From the senior It executives who took part in the report, 94 percent believe technology will play an important role in business growth in the year ahead. The areas technology is deemed the most influential in aiding business growth are customer transactional experience (45%), and driving process or employee efficiency (32%).
Businesses are working to achieve this through cloud adoption (34%), virtualisation (29%), business analytics and intelligence (31%), and mobile solutions and application development (both 24%).
Neil Owen, director, Robert Half Technology, says:
“To make the most of these opportunities, you need the best people with the best ideas. That means demonstrating to technology candidates that you can offer a challenging, innovative environment.
“Due to the increasing demand for specialist professionals in these areas outweighing supply, businesses need a competitive edge to attract IT talent. Although competitive remuneration is still an important component, businesses need a strong employer brand as skilled professionals are often deciding between multiple options. Being perceived as an innovative company has become essential for UK companies to attract, recruit and retain strong IT candidates.”
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
