Filling the IT talent gap with automation

Jeroen Reizevoort at MuleSoft explores how the IT talent gap is fuelling the need for transformative automation and connected workplace experiences

 

After two years of pandemic related lockdowns and the shift to a distributed workforce, businesses and their supply chains were plunged into yet another crisis.

 

Today’s IT leaders are now facing rising inflation, geopolitical tension, surging costs, and growing IT skills shortages – exacerbated by the Great Resignation. This trend has created a unique set of circumstances that encouraged many workers to question the role they’re in and seek other professional opportunities.

 

Some have moved to rival companies, while many have left their industries altogether due to the increasing pressures on IT to ensure that businesses continue to thrive amidst our now digital-first culture. 

 

Global research reveals that 60% of senior IT leaders have skills gaps in their IT and solutions architecture function, while nearly half (45%) say the same about cloud and infrastructure management. Additionally, a majority of senior IT leaders say it has never been more difficult to attract IT talent.

 

To help alleviate this skills gap, today’s leaders are using technology enablement to create more people-centric experiences and attract IT talent. This is driving a fresh wave of digital transformation, as organisations seek to improve not just the customer, but also the employee experience. 

 

Filling the skills gap

To help overcome the skills shortage, most IT leaders are widening the recruitment criteria to bring in fresh talent from non-traditional backgrounds. Even more are improving their training and development resources to upskill and reskill existing employees and attract new talent to the IT function.

 

Yet arguably the biggest potential impact is set to come from changes to digital investment strategy. In fact, nearly all global IT leaders say that attracting new IT talent influences their organisation’s current technology investment choices.

 

Businesses are investing in technologies like automation to ease the strain on existing IT teams by streamlining repetitive tasks and creating efficiency at scale. Automation increases capacity for technical and non-technical workers while reducing the likelihood of employees feeling overworked and burnout from high volumes of mundane work. It also increases employee productivity and workers are better able to keep up with the demands of the business.

 

A new wave of digital builders

IT teams are creating APIs to connect data and applications end-to-end. This eliminates the silos that cause automated processes to break down or require human intervention. This approach enhances employee satisfaction by delivering more connected workplace experiences.

 

Yet businesses can drive even more growth by implementing API-led integration projects via low- and no-code tools, which can be used by business technologists – employees outside the IT department. 

 

Low- and no-code tools empower teams in non-traditional IT roles to become digital builders, by reusing workflows or capabilities that others have built with clicks, not code. This helps to circumvent an IT department struggling to manage the post-pandemic digital workload and accelerates innovation across the business.

 

Research reveals that almost all organisations currently use low- or no-code tools, and over a third plan to increase their use over the next 12 months.

 

To increase the chances of success with such projects, organisations are increasingly focusing on process improvements, and creating multi-disciplinary “fusion teams” comprised of a mix of workers with technology, analytics, and domain-specific expertise. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of IT leaders say that using these cross-functional teams, which share responsibility for business and technology outcomes, has helped the business meet its goals.

 

As they continue to embrace these approaches, IT leaders must also ensure that bringing ‘digital builders’ to the fore, and laying the foundations to automate processes, does not add to their organisation’s technical debt. Research reveals 4 in 5 IT leaders said restructuring existing application and data landscapes to support automation would compound their organisation’s technical debt.

 

One of the most effective ways of doing this is to ensure teams are building automations and connecting data and applications in a unified manner, which can be underpinned by centrally governed platforms, rules, and processes.

 

The changing role of the IT leader

These trends reflect how the IT talent gap is increasingly encouraging organisations to improve the way they deliver ambitious digital transformation projects.

 

However, it’s also driving senior IT leaders to reconsider the skill sets they need to be effective in their own roles. They are realising they need skills that go beyond technology and developing a growing array of non-IT competencies to take on a more strategic role in their organisation.

 

Ultimately, these efforts to develop new skills will help businesses drive critical digital transformation and efficient growth. The economic headwinds may be gathering pace, but by delivering excellence in employee-centric experiences, IT leaders are well set to weather the storm.

 

---

 

Jeroen Reizevoort isField CTO EMEA at MuleSoft

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com