66% of IT Leaders Want to Improve How They Assemble IT Teams

November 8, 2011

Tools

HANOVER, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- TEKsystems®, a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, human capital management expertise and IT services, today announced findings from its quarterly IT Executive Outlook survey, conducted in partnership with the Inavero Institute. Sixty-six percent of IT leaders indicate they would like to see improvement in their organization’s ability to quickly assemble high-quality IT teams of the right competencies.

The ability to build a high performing IT team is a matter of strategic importance and a task many companies face regularly. Nearly two-thirds (64%) report that their companies must frequently and quickly put together IT teams to address emerging trends and business demands. Additionally, to tackle IT and business challenges, 74% say that their organizations must be highly adept at comprising teams with the right skills quickly.

“With technologies continuously emerging and the demands on IT changing more frequently than most other business areas, it is vital for enterprises to be agile and efficient when assembling their IT teams. It is a required capability if a business wants to stay competitive in a fast-evolving marketplace,” says, TEKsystems Director, Rachel Russell.

Consequences of Not Being Agile in Team Assembly

Serious consequences can occur within an organization when the necessary IT skills are not assembled and brought up to speed effectively. Performance areas negatively affected by this inability include:

Project timelines – 81% say timelines are missed due to a lack of agility in bringing in new skills
Speed – 77% report their ability to effectively respond to business demands is affected
IT’s reputation – 59% say IT’s reputation is harmed when the right people are not put in place quickly. Some leaders even felt an inability to quickly assemble strong teams harms their job status and promotional potential (16%), as well as their chances of getting a seat at the strategic decision making table (14%)

“People are every organization’s most variable and most important asset. To address business demands for better, faster, and cheaper IT, companies must take a thoughtful, serious look at how they manage their workforces – how much do they care for each individual, how are they optimizing the way people work together, and how flexible or nimble are they at organizing teams around important initiatives,” says Russell. “IT leaders may not always see or experience the link between these capabilities and their own professional reputations; however, we find that IT leaders who are great at workforce planning and management have a clear competitive edge over those who are not.”

Top Challenges to Being Agile

Forty percent of IT leaders rate finding high-quality talent as the toughest barrier to assembling IT teams quickly. Other issues preventing agility in assembling a high performance IT team include managing internal politics (10%), optimizing processes for onboarding team members (9%) and optimizing an organization’s hiring processes (8%).

“It’s not only about finding people, but ensuring you get the right people on board. Even if you’re only looking at a three month engagement, the cost of a bad hire in IT is too high to risk. No corner should be cut in screening. In-person interviews, technical skill assessments, and thorough reference checks are critical for making the best match possible. The key is to not only be meticulous in screening, but to also act quickly,” states Russell. “We caution our clients about viewing staffing as a commodity service. If that were true, then skill and talent wouldn’t matter as much as they do. The success or failure of IT initiatives hinges on the quality of people driving them.”

About TEKsystems:

TEKsystems® is a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, human capital management expertise and IT services. Combining a proven track record of superior performance, a quality-focused approach to service delivery and the highest-caliber technical professionals in the market, TEKsystems helps our clients successfully plan, build and run their critical technology initiatives. With more than 25 years of experience, we annually deploy 70,000 technical professionals from 100 locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia.