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View All NewsIT departments have gaps when it comes to preparing for millennials
Companies whose IT infrastructures don’t support the needs of millennials — people born between 1980 and 2000 — could find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to hiring new talent, according to research released by Randstad and IDG Research Services, which surveyed IT managers across a range of US company sizes and industries. Although many IT departments say they are preparing for the shift, there are major gaps, according to the report.
“I think we have a quiet crisis developing,” said Rob Hubley, delivery director with a special focus on mobility and applications at Randstad Technologies. “There is a gap between what IT can provide and what users want. And I don’t think it’s being discussed on a regular basis.”
More than 70% of survey respondents say the millennial shift has affected them to some extent. Two-thirds say they either already have (24%) or are formulating (43%) a strategy to address the needs of these employees from an IT perspective. One-third admit they are not yet addressing workforce changes in any formal way.
The shift is happening at different paces at different companies, depending upon the industry, how many millennials they’ve hired, and the rate at which their boomers are retiring, according to the report.
“A lot of our customers are aware of this, but I don’t think many are adequately prepared for it,” said Alisia Genzler, executive VP at Randstad Technologies. “It will be a work in progress as millennials become a larger part of the workforce.”
The survey also found IT managers realize they have neither the staff nor all the skill sets they need to support the millennial shift. Less than one-third reported that they were very or extremely confident in either area. To address the problem, most organizations expect to use service providers to some extent.
The growing use of contractors, combined with millennials’ tendency to hop from job to job so they can work on the latest and greatest technologies, makes external providers a great source of millennial talent, the report found. Often, young IT professionals with the types of skills that are in short supply, such as security and mobile app development, prefer the short-term assignments that external staffing firms can provide, according to Genzler.
“We are seeing that type of talent base want to go contract to contract rather than taking full-time jobs, especially among the millennials,” said Genzler. “It’s part of the millennial personality. They want to develop the latest cool mobile app and then to move on to the next cool thing. They don’t want to stick around in a full-time capacity to maintain it or enhance applications.”
The online survey was conducted by IDG Research Services from Oct. 31 to Nov. 11, 2014, with 134 respondents who held specific IT job titles in organizations with more than 1,000 employees.