A group of current and former Meta employees is suing the company, claiming that it used AI to target those on medical or family leave for layoffs.

In May, Meta announced it was cutting around 8,000 staff, representing roughly 10% of its workforce. According to the lawsuit, the tech giant used AI systems to identify those set for redundancy.

These systems allegedly took into account keystroke monitoring data, AI token usage

“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” court filings state.

“Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems — including a system referred to internally as ‘Metamate,’ employee-trained ‘second-brain’ agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration — to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list.”

Complainants allege this put employees on protected medical or family leave, or those whose output was reduced by a disability, at a disadvantage by penalizing them with reduced performance scores.

"The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves."

In one example, an employee was laid off while on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave – the day before her waters broke, and just two days before she gave birth.

In another, a manager’s own performance review noted that his demotion followed his return from medical leave; he was put on the list sixteen days into a second medical leave.

The 26 plaintiffs claim that Meta has violated state-protected leave laws, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

They're calling for a preliminary court ruling that would stop Meta from finalizing the layoffs while they pursue their ​claims.

“Once these separations are final, the harms are irreversible: employer-subsidized health coverage lost during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and active medical treatment; time-bound leave rights extinguished; unvested equity forfeited; and immigration consequences triggered,” they said.

Plaintiffs are also seeking financial compensation that could include reinstatement, back pay, lost equity, benefits, and other damages.

AI in HR is a delicate balancing act

The use of AI systems in HR and recruitment has been a long-running point of contention, particularly with regard to the potential for bias or discrimination.

Workday, for example, is facing a class-action lawsuit amidst claims its AI software discriminated against job applicants. As ITPro reported in June, the company hit back at the claims, with a spokesperson insisting its AI solutions “don’t make hiring decisions”.

Ilia Kolochenko, founder of cybersecurity company ImmuniWeb and a lawyer practising in cybersecurity and data protection, noted that over-regulation of the use of AI in HR could cause long-term harm.

"With the current trend to restrict or even entirely ban AI in HR decision-making processes, most organizations will either conceal the use of AI or shift back to non-AI systems especially in those jurisdictions that have no GDPR-like protection against automated decision-making on human subjects," he said.

"Compared to AI-powered HR systems, their non-AI homologues are quite primitive, fail to consider the relevant context and often provide incorrect metrics or data,” Kolochenko added.

“For instance, a poor performance of a delivery truck driver will not be correlated with extreme summer heat or winter snowfalls, sudden family loss or simply a technical issue with the vehicle. Eventually, innocent persons are wrongly punished.”

ITPro approached Meta for comment, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

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Three years ago, a Californian man claimed that he'd been rejected hundreds of times by Workday's AI-driven HR system – now a judge has ruled that a class action based on the complaint will be heard in court.

US District Judge Rita Lin has ruled that Workday must face the claims brought against it, which includes claims that the company's AI-based candidate screening system discriminated on the grounds of age, race, and other protected characteristics.

With the case set to proceed, this makes it the first to consider the impact of letting AI-powered software make decisions on job candidates – a significant case given the rise of recruitment.

Indeed, a report from HireVue suggests seven-in-ten companies are using AI in HR and recruitment processes. The shift to AI hiring isn't popular, either, with two-thirds of Americans telling Pew that they didn't want to apply for a job via AI.

A spokesperson for Workday told ITPro the “claims in the suit are false” and dismissed claims that AI recruiting tools make hiring decisions.

“Workday’s AI recruiting tools don’t make hiring decisions in California or anywhere else,” the spokesperson said. “Our customers maintain full control of their hiring process and our tools are designed with human oversight at their core.”

Workday added that its technology “looks only at job qualifications, not protected traits like race, age, or disability”.

“We rigorously test our products as part of our Responsible AI program to confirm our tools do not harm protected groups.”

Workday case considerations

Lin ruled that anti-discrimination laws do indeed apply when Workday's software is used outside of California, where the company is based and where the claim was filed.

Workday's lawyers had argued that "it makes no sense for a Texas employer with a Texas applicant who will perform work in Texas," but Lin disagreed.

Lin also refused to drop a claim alleging that the software filters out candidates using "proxy indicators", including gaps in employment history, which could impact those with disabilities or illnesses.

One claim was dismissed, however. This sought to include discrimination against Asian Americans in the suit, on the grounds that proper procedure wasn't followed.

History of the case

In 2023, Derek Mobley first sued Workday claiming that he had been rejected by the company's software, which is used by other companies to sift through candidates, between 80 and 100 times.

Mobley believed that the Workday pre-selection system was discriminating against him because he is a black American, over 40 and suffers disabilities. At the time, Workday said the lawsuit was "without merit."

Workday attempted to have the case thrown out in 2024, but Judge Lin dismissed those challenges, ruling that the company wasn't an employment agency but could for the case be considered an employer.

She dismissed claims that the discrimination was intentional. At the time, Workday said it was confident that the remaining allegations would be "easily refuted."

Earlier this year, Mobley was joined by four other would-be candidates, with the judge ruling they could be considered together as a class action.

One of the new plaintiffs, Jill Hughes, said she submitted hundreds of applications that were rejected, with some responses saying she didn't meet the job's minimum requirement, when she actually did.

The AI recruitment conundrum

With the case set to go ahead, it could reveal much sought after details about how AI is being used in recruitment and how it influences who is being hired – and not.

The case comes as AI has overrun recruitment, with companies using it to power everything from sifting through CVs to conducting interviews, while would-be candidates use AI to find open roles, apply automatically, and boost their responses in interviews.

This has created a situation where AI is essentially talking to AI in order to hire a human for a job. Anthropic raised eyebrows last year when it told candidates not to use AI when applying, for example.

Workday isn't the first company to be caught out by the risks of using AI for recruitment. Back in 2018, Amazon was forced to pull an AI tool it was testing for recruitment after it became clear the system was methodically filtering out CVs submitted by women.

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HR and finance software specialist Sage has announced a double leadership appointment, with Krish Vitaldevara joining the business as chief product officer (CPO) and Anand Swaminathan as chief strategy officer (CSO).

As CPO, Vitaldevara will oversee the company’s global product and platform strategy, innovation roadmap, and delivery as it continues to develop and grow its range of intelligent AI solutions.

Meanwhile, Swaminathan will work closely with the rest of the executive leadership team to direct corporate strategy, growth priorities, as well as Sage’s long-term value creation agenda.

Vitaldevara will join the executive team on May 18, while Swaminathan will begin on June 15, with both based at the firm’s office in San Jose, California.

“Krish and Anand are proven leaders with deep experience building and scaling world-class products and businesses,” said Sage CEO Steve Hare in an announcement.

“Their appointments reflect our continued investment in innovation and growth, and I’m excited about the impact they’ll have for our customers, colleagues and partners”

A seasoned industry leader, Vitaldevara brings more than 25 years’ experience building and scaling AI-first platforms and products for large enterprises and holds more than 30 patents across distributed systems, trust and safety, as well as anomaly detection.

He joins the business from Salesforce, where he served as general manager and executive vice president following the company’s successful acquisition of Informatica, where he led the integration of products, people, and processes. He has also previously held general manager and senior leadership roles at NetApp, Google, and Microsoft.

Commenting on his new role, Vitaldevara said he joins Sage at an important moment for the business as it looks to further strengthen its market position.

“Sage has a unique purpose, a strong customer focus and culture, and a compelling opportunity to lead in intelligent, trusted solutions for small and medium-sized businesses,” he explained.

“I’m looking forward to working with the team to continue evolving the product portfolio and delivering meaningful impact for customers.”

Swaminathan joins Sage from McKinsey, where he served as a senior partner, advising management teams and boards across industries on AI transformation, technology-enabled growth, and enterprise transformation.

Prior to that, he held senior roles within Accenture Digital, where he helped scale the company’s global operations and supported growth across strategy, data, AI, cloud, and digital product development.

“Sage has a clear strategy and a powerful position in the market,” said Swaminathan.

“I’m thrilled to join the business and to help shape the next phase of growth, building on Sage’s strengths and ensuring we continue to create long-term value for customers, colleagues and shareholders.”

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Edge data center provider nLighten has announced the appointments of Dame Dawn Childs as chief executive officer (CEO) and Matthew Harris as chief financial officer (CFO).

Childs and Harris will help lead the company’s next phase of growth as it looks to expand through organic growth, strategic acquisitions, as well as continued investment in sustainable infrastructure solutions.

The firm’s pan-European platform currently consists of 34 data centers across seven countries.

The double appointment comes as enterprises, hyperscalers, and AI providers increasingly invest in edge infrastructure to support high-bandwidth applications, cloud connectivity, and latency-sensitive workloads across Europe.

In an announcement, nLighten chairman Nick Read said the pair bring the operational and financial expertise needed to support the company’s continued growth ambitions.

“Dawn’s deep experience leading complex, mission-critical infrastructure businesses makes her exceptionally well suited to guide the company’s continued growth, while Matthew’s strong financial and strategic expertise will be invaluable as we scale the platform,” he commented.

“As AI drives unprecedented demand for digital infrastructure and edge capacity across Europe, nLighten is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity.”

Childs joins nLighten from Pure Data Centres Group, where she spent nearly five years, initially as chief operating officer (COO) and most recently as CEO.

Prior to that, she led a multi-billion-pound transformation programme at National Grid and previously held senior engineering leadership roles at Merlin Entertainments and Gatwick Airport, following a 23-year career as an engineering officer in the Royal Air Force.

Commenting on her appointment, Childs said the company is entering a pivotal period for both the business and the wider digital infrastructure sector.

"The opportunity for nLighten to play a meaningful role in supporting Europe’s growing need for digital sovereignty is significant, particularly as demand for secure, high-performance and sustainable infrastructure continues to accelerate,” she added.

Meanwhile, Harris brings more than 15 years’ financial and strategic expertise across digital infrastructure, technology, and investment sectors.

He joins the business from Kao Data, where he served as CFO, alongside being a founding board member and investor director. He also previously held the CFO role at Goldacre Ventures, where he oversaw funding and growth initiatives across the investment firm’s portfolio companies.

"I am excited to join nLighten as it continues to build momentum across Europe,” he said.

“The company has a clear strategy and strong platform on which to build from. I look forward to working with the team to support its continued expansion and deliver long-term value for customers and stakeholders."

nLighten co-founder and outgoing CEO Harro Beusker will remain on the company’s board as a non-executive director to support the leadership transition, while also serving as a senior advisor to I Squared Capital.

Dame Dawn Childs will formally assume the position of CEO on June 1 and will also move into a non-executive position at Pure Data Centres Group. Matthew Harris will join the business as CFO on July 1.

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Digital employee experience (DEX) specialist Lakeside Software has announced the appointment of Oli Giordimaina as its new lead for EMEA product strategy.

A seasoned industry leader, he brings extensive experience across service desk operations, infrastructure deployment, and executive product leadership. Most recently, he helped shape the DEX strategy at 1E prior to its acquisition by TeamViewer.

Earlier in his career, Giordimaina supported critical systems for organizations such as British Aerospace before moving into product roles at Appsense and Ivanti, where he led a £100 million portfolio through periods of integration and change.

Based in Cheshire, UK, he will leverage his technical and commercial leadership experience to help the company meet increasing market demand for greater value, insight, and predictability through its DEX platform.

“Employees expect the same seamless experience at work that they get from personal technology - and when IT can’t deliver that, frustration builds,” Giordimaina explained. “Lakeside Software has the data, the platform, and the mindset to close that gap.

“This isn’t about visibility for the sake of it, it’s about enabling IT to deliver consistent, measurable outcomes that improve productivity and experience.”

Opportunity beckons in EMEA

With its latest appointment, Lakeside is looking to tap into fresh opportunities across EMEA with the help of its partner ecosystem.

The firm said regions such as the UK – where channel delivery and service desk efficiency are top priorities – are seeing growing demand for solutions capable of reducing costs and improving the employee experience.

As enterprise AI adoption continues to gather pace, Giordimaina said vendors must deliver “thoughtful, trust-led implementation” in order to deliver tangible value.

“The organizations that will succeed with AI are the ones that start with outcomes, not algorithms,” he continued. “The same applies to DEX, which is no longer a nice-to-have, but is now a critical performance metric across IT and company leadership.”

Driving the next phase of intelligent IT

Giordimaina joins Lakeside in the midst of its transformation journey, with the firm bolstering its leadership team and placing a heightened focus on telemetry and execution.

Commenting on his reasons for joining the business, Giordimaina highlighted Lakeside’s innovation-led culture, as well as its readiness to challenge conventional thinking and move at pace.

“This is a company with the right people, the right data, and the right intent,” he added.

“There’s a clear opportunity for Lakeside Software to lead the next phase of intelligent IT. I’m here to help make that happen.”

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Veeam has announced three new appointments to its senior leadership team in a move the firm says will help deepen partner engagement and fast-track its growth ambitions.

The reshuffle sees Brandt Urban promoted to chief business development officer (CBDO), while Tony Colon and Michael Rau join the business as chief customer officer (CCO) and vice president of Worldwide Partners, respectively.

By recognizing internal talent while also bringing fresh expertise into its senior management ranks, Veeam said it is doubling down on its commitment to delivering the first trusted data platform for accelerating safe AI at scale.

“Brandt, Tony, and Michael bring essential experience and vision that will ensure Veeam is ready for the next phase of our transformative growth and innovation, always keeping our customers and partners at the heart of everything we do,” explained Veeam CEO, Anand Eswaran.

Reporting directly to Eswaran, Brandt Urban has been promoted to the role of CBDO and will oversee corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and corporate strategy. He steps into the role having previously served as the firm’s senior vice president of worldwide cloud, following senior roles at Microsoft, Genesys, RingCentral, and HPE.

Brandt will work closely with Veeam’s product and go-to-market teams to expand its value proposition and accelerate growth through targeted ventures, alliances, and acquisitions.

Tony Colon also joins the business as its first CCO, bringing more than 20 years’ experience of leading global customer-facing organizations such as ServiceNow, Cisco, and Salesforce.

Reporting to Veeam CRO John Jester, he is tasked with leading the entire customer journey – including renewals, customer success, professional services, and technical support teams – while advancing the company’s expertise in data resilience, ransomware recovery, and cyber resilience.

Lastly, Michael Rau also joins Veeam as vice president of Worldwide Partners, also reporting to Jester. He will spearhead the global partner business, focusing on program, incentives, and solutions development, overseeing the firm’s critical partnerships with the likes of HPE, Lenovo, Pure Storage, CrowdStrike, and Palo Alto.

The company said Rau’s deep technical and partnership expertise from previous roles at F5 and Cisco will help it to further differentiate its offerings and boost value for partners.

Commenting on the move, CRO John Jester said the appointments reinforce Veeam’s “unwavering commitment” to innovation and industry leadership.

“With this strengthened team, we’re not just keeping pace with change; we’re setting a new benchmark for data resilience and customer success worldwide,” he said.

“I have absolute confidence that together, we will drive even greater value for our customers and partners at every step of their journey toward robust data resilience and business continuity.”

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AMD CEO Lisa Su has revealed AI is directly influencing recruitment practices at the chip maker but, unlike some tech firms, it’s led to increased headcount.

Speaking to CNBC at the CES 2026 conference in Las Vegas, Su said prospective hires with AI expertise and experience are now a priority as the company targets further gains in this sector.

“We’re growing very significantly as a company, so we actually are hiring lots of people,” Su said. The profile of these new recruits has changed, however, with the company hiring “people who are AI forward”.

Su added that the chip maker is now using AI to support development and testing of chips, which is having a tangible positive impact on workforce productivity and efficiency.

“I would say that AI is augmenting our capabilities,” she told CNBC. “It’s not replacing people, it’s actually just augmenting our productivity in terms of the number of products we can bring up at any given time.”

The AMD chief’s comments come in the wake of a year fraught with concerns about the impact of AI on the global labor market. Industry stakeholders have issued repeated warnings that the technology could adversely affect entry-level workers and long-term talent pipelines.

IT, customer support, and software development have all been touted as areas in which AI has the potential to take human jobs, with comments from major industry figures only intensifying concerns.

In early 2025, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff suggested the company may reduce hiring in software engineering as a result of gains made with its own in-house agentic AI service, Agentforce.

Elsewhere, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned AI could wipe out nearly half of all entry-level roles within five years.

AMD isn’t alone in AI hiring changes

AI is influencing hiring at enterprises globally, with the trend expected to continue in the coming years. This disruption might be more positive than some critics believe, however.

Analysis from Gartner in November 2025 predicted around 32 million jobs a year will be “reconfigured, redesigned, or fused” from 2028 onward.

The consultancy told ITPro at the time that a “jobs apocalypse” is unlikely with a long-term net positive gain on job creation anticipated.

Notably, a December survey of UK business leaders from project management company Monday seemed to back this prediction up, with more than three-quarters (78%) of respondents saying they don’t expect a drop in hiring across 2026.

Nearly one-third (32%) of respondents even said they expect to hire more staff this year as a result of their AI strategies.

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Keeper Security has announced two new additions to its federal leadership team, as the privileged access management (PAM) specialist moves to strengthen its government security and modernization efforts.

Shannon Vaughn has been appointed senior vice president of federal, while Benjamin Parrish will serve as vice president of federal operations.

Vaughn will lead federal business growth and strategy, with Parrish overseeing delivery and operational readiness as Keeper strengthens identity security support for civilian, defence, and intelligence agencies.

In an announcement, Keeper Security CEO and co-founder, Darren Guccione, said the pair will add a unique combination of operational military experience, federal tech leadership, as well as a deep understanding of zero-trust security.

“They know how agencies operate, how threats evolve and how to translate modern security architecture into real mission outcomes,” he explained.

“These exceptional additions to our team will be instrumental as we expand Keeper’s role in securing the federal government’s most critical systems, personnel and warfighters.”

Deep expertise

With more than two decades’ experience across the private sector, government and military service, Vaughn brings deep expertise in securing sensitive data, modernizing federal technology environments, and supporting mission-critical cyber security operations.

Prior to taking his new role, he served as general manager of Virtru Federal and has previously held various senior leadership roles at high-growth tech companies.

His career has seen him work closely with US government customers to deploy secure solutions and is also a career member of the US Army with more than 20 years of service.

Benjamin Parrish also brings extensive US Army experience, with the now-retired officer having spent more than 20 years across field artillery, aviation, and cyber operations. His military experience combines combat deployment with operational support to national cyber mission forces.

He also adds extensive experience in leading federal operations, software engineering, and secure deployments across highly regulated environments during his time in previous senior leadership roles, Keeper said.

In his new role at Keeper, Parrish will oversee the delivery and operational readiness of the company’s federal initiatives, working closely with government stakeholders to ensure secure deployments in line with strict compliance and operational requirements.

Modernization

Keeper’s latest appointments come as federal agencies continue to adopt zero-trust architectures and modern privileged access controls to defend against credential-based threats.

Keeper’s Security Government Cloud platform – which is both FedRAMP authorized and FIPS 140-3 validated – is designed to help federal, state, and local government agencies apply secure privileged access across hybrid and cloud environments.

According to the firm’s new federal chief Shannon Vaughn, agencies find themselves being asked to modernize faster while facing increasingly sophisticated, identity-driven attacks.

“I joined Keeper because we are focused on what actually produces tangible cyber benefits: controlling who has access to what, with full auditing and reporting – whether for credentials, endpoint or access management,” he said.

“We are going to win by being obsessive about access control that is easy to deploy and hard to break.”

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HackerOne has announced two key executive appointments as the cybersecurity vendor looks to drive further growth in the threat exposure management arena.

Stephanie Furfaro joins the business as chief revenue officer, while Stacy Leidwinger steps into the role of chief marketing officer.

Both executives bring deep go-to-market expertise which HackerOne said will help the company to scale its impact across enterprises worldwide, as well as strengthen execution across sales, customer success, partnerships, and marketing.

The move builds on several recent developments at HackerOne, including the evolution of its AI platform, Hai, from a copilot into an agentic AI system, and the release of its AI-native code security offering, HackerOne Code.

Earlier this year, the firm also launched its Technology Alliance Program to help tech providers leverage its AI-powered platform.

In an announcement, Kara Sprague, CEO of HackerOne, said the pair join at what is a “pivotal moment” for both the company and the wider cyber security industry.

“As AI reshapes the threat landscape and modern defence, Stephanie’s experience scaling global revenue organizations and Stacy’s leadership in brand and growth marketing will strengthen every part of our go-to-market engine,” she explained.

“Together, they will accelerate growth by delivering our full Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) value proposition to more enterprise customers.”

Furfaro brings 25 years’ experience of scaling high-growth software companies and transforming global go-to-market strategies, alongside a reputation for building strong customer relationships and high-impact channel partnerships.

She joins the business from DigitalOcean, where she served as general manager, and was previously chief business officer at Rapid7. She has also held senior leadership positions at Allaire, Macromedia, and Adobe.

As HackerOne’s new CRO, Furfaro will lead all revenue-generating functions across sales, customer success, and partnerships to help accelerate global growth.

“Building on HackerOne’s strong partner ecosystem will be central to expanding our reach and empowering more organizations to proactively manage their risk,” Furfaro commented.

A fellow seasoned industry leader, Leidwinger brings extensive experience in spearheading cybersecurity marketing teams and scaling software businesses.

She previously served as chief marketing officer at Secureworks, leading the firm’s shift from a managed service provider to a software platform company.

Alongside security leadership, she also adds deep expertise in large language models (LLMs) and AI, having previously worked on IBM’s Big Data team.

In her new role, Leidwinger will apply her strong customer and partner focus to HackerOne’s global marketing functions as the vendor looks to capitalize on market demand.

“I’m energized to elevate HackerOne’s customer and partner value message and show why Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), paired with the unique combination of AI and human adversarial expertise, drives stronger results than anything else on the market today,” Leidwinger said.

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Enterprises are cutting back on entry-level hires at an alarming rate, which experts warn could create significant long-term skills shortages.

In a survey conducted by IDC on behalf of Deel, 66% of enterprises revealed they expect to slow entry-level hiring while 91% reported that roles are already changing or disappearing due to AI.

Media, retail, healthcare, professional services and logistics are the industries most affected, the survey found.

“AI is no longer emerging, it’s fully here. It’s reshaping how we work and how businesses operate,” said Nick Catino, global head of policy at Deel.

“Entry-level jobs are changing, and the skills companies look for are too. Both workers and businesses need to adapt quickly. This isn’t about staying competitive, it’s about staying viable.”

Virtually all of the organizations surveyed have at least started exploring and implementing AI, despite the fact they’re reporting significant problems with talent pipelines.

With AI taking over repetitive and knowledge-based tasks, this means there's a shortage of candidates with the necessary skills for higher steps on the ladder.

Just under seven-in-ten survey respondents said there are now fewer on-the-job development opportunities for junior employees, while 71% reported increasing difficulty in recruiting and training future leaders because of the loss of entry-level learning pathways.

Similarly, nearly half (43%) cite a shortage of skilled AI talent as a big problem. Half of all employers are now willing to pay AI specialists 25% to 100% more than comparable tech roles.

They're also offering extra incentives, with half offering access to cutting-edge tools and 43% promising well-defined career paths.

Enterprises are evolving to compensate

Meanwhile, organizations are restructuring to try and improve matters, with nine-in-ten saying they've experienced role changes or displacement and 34% undergoing significant workforce restructuring to integrate AI.

Two-thirds of respondents are already investing in AI training programs to upskill workers and future-proof their teams.

However, 57% are finding limited employee engagement in training, 51% face budget constraints, and 45% struggle to find expert trainers.

Notably, respondents said it’s unclear who holds responsibility for AI reskilling in many companies, with only 3% having established cross-functional teams to coordinate initiatives, and 29% admitting they don’t know who owns the process.

A grim outlook for entry-level workers

The survey results mark the latest in a series of gloomy future predictions for graduates this year, and with enterprises changing recruitment practices things could get worse.

Just 5% of organizations now view a degree as essential for entry-level roles, for example. Instead, the top three requirements for entry-level talent are technical certifications in AI tools or coding bootcamps, problem-solving and critical thinking abilities, and strong communication and collaboration skills at 51%.

"Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global workforce at an unprecedented pace, outstripping any recent technological shift,” said Chris Marshall, vice president for AI in Asia Pacific, IDC.

“Organizations that will thrive are those that unite automation with a human-centered vision – investing in upskilling, redefining entry-level opportunities, and ensuring that governance and ethics evolve in step with innovation.”

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AI is continuing to make life harder for entry-level workers, with a new study revealing that new grads are facing a radically changed job market.

According to research from St. Thomas University, nearly half (42%) of employers believe that AI may eliminate most entry-level white-collar roles in the next five years – although a similar number think these roles will recover after the initial AI boom.

The study noted that the application process is getting more disheartening for those entering the workforce. One-in-five graduates said they'd applied to more than 50 jobs before landing their first role, with just 21% of applications resulting in a real human interview.

Nearly three-quarters of job seekers (73%) believed AI resume filters prevented their applications from being seen – and they're right, with almost half of employers using AI to screen resumes.

Meanwhile, 28% said AI helped schedule interviews or assess candidates through tests. Other applications include chatbots for communication, ranking candidates after recruiter reviews, and even analyzing video interviews.

Nearly eight-in-ten job seekers said they’ve run into 'ghost jobs' that appear outdated or fake, and 42% or employers admitted that this was the case.

There’s light on the horizon for entry-level workers

Despite a challenging jobs market, researchers said there is room for “cautious optimism” ahead.

Nearly two-in-five hiring professionals said they expect to increase entry-level hiring in the year ahead. Over the past year, 38% said entry-level hiring stayed the same, and 29% reported growth.

More than half of companies (53%) said they hadn't changed minimum experience requirements, and only 18% required AI-specific skills for most postings.

"Early-career tech workers are facing a challenging but not insurmountable path into the industry. Graduates are applying to numerous jobs, often encountering ghost listings, yet many still see value in their degrees and believe in the long-term potential of tech careers," researchers said.

"On the employer side, cautious optimism about entry-level hiring suggests opportunities remain, even as AI-driven processes change recruitment tactics.

“These findings illustrate a complex but evolving hiring environment that future graduates must be prepared to navigate."

The report is just the latest to highlight the difficulties facing new graduates in the age of AI.

Earlier this summer, for example, SignalFire’s 2025 State of Talent report found that tech companies were hiring significantly fewer college graduates than in the year before.

The unemployment rate for new college graduates had surged 30% since September 2022, researchers said.

Meanwhile, tech leaders confirmed the trend, with LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, comparing the situation with the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs that took place in the US during the 1980s.

Notably, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that both the industry and government needed to be more honest about the situation, telling Axios "I don’t think this is on people’s radar."

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Researchers have issued a warning about a new Google Careers phishing scam used by hackers to dupe tech workers looking for a career change.

Victims receive an 'are you open to talk?' message impersonating an outreach email from Google Careers. If they click the link, they’re taken to a landing page designed to look like a Google Careers meeting scheduler and, from there, to the phishing page.

Detailing the scam in a blog post, Sublime Security threat detection engineer Brandon Murphy said the phishing campaign has evolved rapidly in recent weeks, employing more sophisticated techniques to dupe unsuspecting victims.

"What makes this attack particularly interesting is that it is in active development,” he said. “We have observed threat actors refining and adjusting their tactics and techniques over time, evolving to evade detection."

The initial message may be sent in a number of languages, including English, Spanish, and Swedish, and purports to come from a talent recruiter or recruiting department.

It includes a Book a Call button that leads to a URL that also has a hiring-themed subdomain and Google Careers-themed root domain, although they didn't always match the sender’s domain. There are a number of different links in use, Murphy noted.

How the Google Careers scam works

In almost all cases, after clicking on the Book a Call button, the target is taken to either a real or impersonated Cloudflare Turnstile page.

After completing a Captcha, they are directed to a spoofed Google Careers meeting scheduling page, where their name, email address, and phone number are all recorded by threat actors.

After clicking save & continue, victims are taken to the password phishing phase of the attack, which features a fake login page, as seen in most Google credential phishing attacks.

While most modern credential phishing attacks typically use Adversary in the Middle (AITM) infrastructure to automate the validation and theft of credentials, this attack appears to be using a C2 server, Murphy noted.

What to look out for

With all the variations, there are certain common features of attacks. The phishing messages impersonated Google Careers, but are delivered on non-Google Careers infrastructure, and links to domains that mimic Google branding but are not a legitimate domain.

These domains are typically newly registered, with the sender and/or links within the message using domains that were registered within the past 30 days.

Similarly, there's a misalignment between claimed sender identity – Google Careers – and the actual sender domain, which varies.

As so often with phishing messages, there's a sense of urgency, with job offers coming with vague details, but requiring a call to be scheduled immediately. Messages also use flattering language but are short on the specifics.

"Adversaries will impersonate trusted sites and services to improve their chances of success," said Murphy.

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HR software specialist Workday has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Paradox, a candidate experience platform powered by conversational AI.

Paradox’s solution leverages AI to simplify the entire job application journey, particularly for high-volume frontline industries.

Upon completion, Workday said the talent acquisition suite will now help its customers more efficiently find, hire, and onboard all worker types, whether frontline or office staff, and across full-time and contingent roles.

Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal is set to close in the third quarter of Workday’s fiscal year 2026, which ends on October 31st 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

In an announcement, Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday’s president of product and technology, said the acquisition will help streamline the hiring process by eliminating the pitfalls of outdated processes and disconnected tools.

"By bringing Paradox's candidate experience AI agent into Workday, we're giving organizations a smarter, faster, and more engaging way to connect with candidates,” he explained.

“Together, we'll help our customers move from transactional recruiting to transformative hiring that helps deliver talent, in less time, and with a better experience for everyone."

Candidate experience efficiencies

Paradox’s platform has been designed to drive candidate experience efficiencies at scale by providing every candidate with a personalized, high-touch interaction using AI.

Applicants receive instant responses, self-scheduling capabilities, alongside around-the-clock support as they navigate the recruitment process, while organizations can more efficiently fill high-volume roles.

According to Paradox, the platform has powered more than 189 million AI-assisted candidate conversations and enabled candidate conversion rates of over 70%, reducing time-to-hire to as low as three-and-a-half days.

Unified talent acquisition

With Paradox’s integration, Workday will create a unified, intelligent AI-powered talent acquisition suite that combines AI-powered talent discovery and matching through HiredScore, Paradox’s AI-driven candidate conversations, and streamlined hiring with Workday Recruiting.

For Paradox, CEO Adam Godson said the company will benefit from Workday’s more expansive resources and wider global reach.

"From day one, our mission has been to help our customers' recruiting and hiring teams spend more time with people and less time with software," he commented.

"Workday's global reach and comprehensive platform provide the perfect runway for us to accelerate our mission, bringing our proven conversational AI to a much bigger audience and helping more companies around the world transform their hiring processes."

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Meta has been on a multi-billion dollar hiring spree in recent months, and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis thinks it shows the company is scrambling to keep pace in the AI race.

In a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast, Hassabis suggested the tech giant is fighting tooth and nail to catch competitors in the space, noting that they’re “not at the frontier” – and top AI talent could bridge the gap.

“It’s probably rational what they’re doing from their perspective because they’re behind and they need to do something,” he told Fridman.

Spearheaded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s quest to secure top talent has seen the tech giant dangle eye-watering offers to high-profile figures from the generative AI space.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that Meta had attempted to poach AI researchers with signing-on bonuses as high as $100 million. These sums pale in comparison to another big money offer put to a leading industry figure.

Zuckerberg reportedly reached out with an offer to acquire the startup launched by OpenAI’s former CTO, Mira Murati. According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, the offer was knocked back and staff at the startup were met with an onslaught of job offers.

The proposal, put to co-founder Andrew Tulloch, included a billion-dollar package that could exceed $1.5 billion over six years with bonuses taken into account, sources told the WSJ.

Billion-dollar pay packages for a single individual may seem unlikely, but given Meta’s current focus, it’s clear Zuckerberg is willing to part with cash to secure the industry’s top figures.

In June, the tech giant unveiled the launch of the Meta Superintelligence Labs, a new division aimed at driving development of new foundation models, including its Llama range.

Notably, the unit will be led by some other high-profile hires, including Scale AI’s former CEO, Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, former chief executive at GitHub.

Wang, who now serves as Meta’s Chief AI officer, was brought onboard following the company’s $14.3 billion investment in the AI startup.

Hassabis noted that one key challenge facing Meta may lie in how many researchers view their role in pioneering the technology – they’re looking to “steward the technology safely into the world”.

“There’s more important things than just money,” he told Fridman. Of course, one has to pay people their market rates and all of these things, and that continues to go up.”

The quest for top AI talent

Lower down the food chain, the same talent-related issues are affecting enterprises across a range of industries. Since the advent of generative AI in late 2022, enterprises have faced acute shortages of workers with AI skills.

Research from Amazon Web Services (AWS) in early 2024 showed some employers are willing to pay a 31% premium for staff with relevant AI expertise.

The findings, based on a survey of IT leaders, showed that staff with experience in research and development also command a 30% premium. Workers with AI skills in domains such as marketing, finance, and sales, can also expect a 27% pay bump, the survey found.

Similar research from Indeed in February 2024 showed that workers with AI skills can expect to command a wage 47% higher than those without.

Higher salary demands also create a bigger strain on budgets, however. Analysis from CloudZero found that while investment in the technology is surging, expectations among top talent mean hiring is a challenge for some enterprises.

35% of companies surveyed by the firm said rising salary costs are among the biggest barriers to filling gaps in their AI talent pool, further exacerbating the issue.

All told, typical salaries top $100,000, the study found, with a quarter earning between $150,000 and $200,000.

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The Channel Recruiter and Nebula Global Services have teamed up to launch Tech Talent on Tap, a new global resourcing solution tailored to the technology channel.

The move combines The Channel Recruiter’s expertise in sector-specific recruitment with Nebula’s global service delivery capabilities and technical service infrastructure.

The resulting Resource-as-a-Service (RaaS) initiative aims to give VARs, MSPs, GSIs, and channel organizations seamless, on-demand access to world class technical professionals.

The vendor and technology agnostic service offers a “dynamic and results-driven approach” to bridging the skills gap and helping channel firms tackle rising operational costs, the companies said in an announcement.

“We are excited that Nebula Global Services has agreed to partner with us and launch Tech Talent on Tap,” commented Zoe Chatley, founder and CEO at The Channel Recruiter.

“Our joint global Resource-as-a-Service offers the IT channel a service like no other, offering quick, on-demand technical resource and people solutions.”

According to Chatley, the RaaS offering goes beyond basic recruitment to offer ways to help channel firms scale rapidly, improve performance, and keep pace with the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

“This isn’t just about filling roles — it’s about redefining how the channel scales, innovates, and competes,” she continued. “Tech Talent on Tap delivers cutting-edge capabilities with a results-first mindset, enabling firms to accelerate growth, drive transformation, and lead the future of tech.”

The duo said the service is focused squarely on the desired outcomes of both the channel partner as well as their end user client, whether the goal is a complete technical outsource function, or a supplement of existing resources.

Commenting on the partnership, Ross Teague, Nebula’s founder and CEO, described Tech Talent on Tap as a “game-changing resourcing solution” that will equip VARs, MSPs, and GSIs with instant access to elite technical talent.

“As pioneers in our respective domains, this strategic alliance sets a bold new benchmark for the global technology channel,” he said.

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Security researchers have uncovered a misconfigured recruitment database leaking almost 26 million files, and security experts have warned it's a trend that's becoming far too common.

According to analysis from Cybernews, TalentHook, an online applicant tracking platform connecting HR departments with people looking for work, had left a misconfigured Azure Blob storage container open.

As a result, the resumes of millions of US citizens, including their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, education details, professional details, and employment history were exposed.

“The detailed personal information in the exposed resumes enables attackers to conduct highly targeted phishing campaigns," the Cybernews team said.

"Email addresses and phone numbers can be used in phishing emails, SMS scams, or fraudulent job offers, tricking individuals into revealing sensitive information such as ID scans or banking details."

The data could be a boon for cybercriminals looking to snare unsuspecting jobseekers, researchers have warned. In recent months, groups such as the North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus group have been specifically targeting jobseekers.

Research earlier this year showed the group has targeted victims using LinkedIn, for example, or by posing as recruiters and approaching targets via email and WhatsApp.

Sharpen up on storage configurations

Tim Mackey, head of software supply chain risk at Black Duck, said the incident shows the huge risks posed by easily overlooked misconfigurations and urged enterprises to sharpen up processes.

"Misconfigured systems, VMs, containers, micro-services, and data stores are nothing new,” he said.

"For example, the sample of the exposed data for this breach masks key identifiable information, such as email addresses and cell phone numbers, indicating that encryption of those elements wasn’t a priority or that an unsecured API was also part of the breach."

Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress, echoed Mackey’s comments, noting that incidents like these are becoming increasingly common.

"Misconfigured cloud storage (like the unsecured Azure container in this case) remains an alarmingly common yet preventable issue, especially in sectors handling highly personal information," said Agha.

"Organizations must implement rigorous configuration audits, enforce least-privilege access controls, and conduct continuous monitoring to prevent such massive exposures of stored personal data."

The Cybernews researchers said they have contacted TalentHook, and advised the company to change the access controls to restrict public access and secure the container, and to update permissions to ensure that only authorized users or services have the necessary access.

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With more than half of enterprise leaders worried about future skills shortages, many organizations are turning to a range of new techniques to expand potential talent pools.

According to Workday's Global State of Skills report, only 54% of leaders say they have a clear view of the skills within their workforce today, and fewer than a third are confident that their organization has the skills needed for long-term success.

It's not always technical skill sets that are in high demand, however, with the research finding an equally critical need for uniquely human skill sets.

Social skills like communication and teamwork, and individual skills like resilience and creativity are listed as the most impactful skill gaps faced by organizations today, followed by digital fluency, including AI and software proficiency.

Indeed, the study noted that these skills shortages are leading to a move away from the traditional focus on job roles, qualifications, or titles when hiring and fostering talent.

Workday found firms are instead moving to ‘skills-based talent strategies’, which prioritize an individual’s capabilities over traditional credentials and focus on identifying, developing, and deploying specific skills and competencies.

According to the study, more than half of organizations worldwide are already switching to a skills-based talent model, with another 23% planning to start this year.

Eight-in-ten leaders agree that adopting a skills-based approach improves productivity, innovation, and organizational agility. They also said it increased access to job opportunities for employees, improved workforce equality, and cut unemployment.

Notably, AI is helping here by streamlining routine and repetitive tasks, enhancing decision making with data-driven insights, personalizing learning and development programs, and predicting the need for future skills.

"AI is reshaping the workplace, but the human element has never been more essential," said Chris Ernst, chief learning officer at Workday.

"Organizations that embrace a skills-first mindset will not only unlock AI’s potential but also harness human ingenuity in new and transformative ways."

There are, though, challenges to a skills-based approach. The time needed to reskill employees was a problem for 43% of business leaders, with 38% having difficulties caused by resistance to change.

Meanwhile, 28% cited a lack of infrastructure to support skills-based talent management, and the same number highlighted inadequate skills measurement tools.

‘Hiring for promise’ gains traction

Running parallel to the skills-based strategy approach, many organizations are also employing ‘hiring for promise’ practices.

Hiring for promise is a recruitment technique which takes into account a candidate’s potential willingness to expand on their existing skill sets, developing new capabilities to support the organization.

Recent analysis from Gartner found that adopting this approach - rather than focusing primarily on traditional criteria - is the most effective and efficient way to close skills gaps in enterprises.

Gartner’s study found that employees hired on promise were 1.9 times more likely to perform effectively, and played a vital role in plugging talent gaps.

Notably, half of HR leaders said this has been driven by the fact that demand for skills is evolving rapidly, meaning in-house talent can’t keep up with new requirements.

Similarly, with talent pools drying up across a range of professions, recruitment professionals are widening their nets to compensate.

"Waiting to find an employee with all of the exact skills listed for a role significantly shrinks the pool of potential candidates," said Annika Jessen, director of the Gartner HR practice.

"Instead, managers should focus on defining simple, foundational role requirements to reach a wider group of candidates."

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Work-life balance has become more important than pay when choosing or staying in a job, according to two new reports.

A recent survey by Randstad found that 83% of workers view flexible working options as their primary consideration ahead of job security and salaries.

Nearly half of the respondents said they had advocated for better working conditions, and a third said they'd actually left a job due to the lack of flexible work options.

"Many expected the challenging economic conditions of 2024 to temper talent expectations, but the Workmonitor shows the opposite has occurred," said Randstad CEO Sander van't Noordende.

"We have seen a new baseline established with talent continuing to hold multifaceted expectations."

Nearly three-quarters of workers said they'd be willing to take a cut in salary in return for a four-day work week, and 76% said they'd do the same for flexible working hours.

The report found that half of UK workers are now working flexibly, with most wanting to be in the office around three days a week and three-quarters saying they prefer hybrid work.

Notably, the report showed not all employers share the same views on the topic of flexible and hybrid working. Employers’ reasons for getting staff back into the office include improved collaboration and innovation and strengthening relationships between colleagues.

These three issues have been frequently cited by employers when implementing return to office mandates over the last year. Enterprises have also cited productivity improvements as a key motivation behind RTO mandates.

However, van't Noordende said employers need to be flexible if they're to keep the best staff.

"For today’s talent, the significance of work is complex and needs to be personalized. They are setting the terms on what truly matters to them as individuals and within their communities," he said.

"Successful businesses are those that will adapt and adjust to this new talent baseline. The solution lies in empowering our key resource: people."

Research from the University of Pittsburgh last year highlighted the risks of failing to offer flexible working, as well as the pitfalls of RTO mandates. The study found firms that implement strict working practices frequently experience ‘brain drain’, with many losing their most senior and experienced employees.

Workers are setting stricter boundaries

Ranstad’s study found employees are finding techniques to try and set stricter boundaries with their work.

These include clock blocking - blocking off times in their calendars to avoid meetings that could extend beyond their designated work hours.

Nearly six-in-ten millennials confess to doing this, along with 22% of Gen Z employees and 16% of Gen X workers.

Similarly, four-in-ten workers said they engage in coffee badging - starting their day with a few hours at the office before heading home to finish their work remotely.

Interestingly, 54% of those who have been caught doing it said their employers weren't bothered.

Workers aren't budging on flexible work

Ranstad’s recent findings correlate with similar research into flexible working arrangements. A study from the Global Payroll Association found that three-quarters of workers would turn down a job that didn’t offer hybrid or remote working options.

Most respondents even said they would prefer these options to a four-day week.

More than half reckoned they were more productive working from home, with 38% saying they were just as productive as they would be in the workplace.

Meanwhile, almost three-quarters said they were more likely to go ‘above and beyond’ for their employer while working remotely, perhaps committing to earlier starts or working later into the evening.

"It’s clear that a flexible working arrangement is now a key requirement in the eyes of many UK workers, so much so that no less than three quarters would now avoid applying for a role that didn’t offer some degree of flexibility," said GPA CEO and founder Melanie Pizzey.

"So whilst there may be a case to prove with respect to the impact remote working can have on productivity, it certainly seems that those firms who completely eradicate it from their professional offering could seriously reduce the talent pool on offer to them when it comes to hiring."

Jobseekers are becoming increasingly picky with seeking opportunities and demanding greater benefits and incentives from employers, according to new research from Gartner. 

The consultancy’s latest HR survey found that half of candidates who accepted jobs over the last 12 months have backed out prior to starting, with respondents stating that their prospective employer did not match their expectations.

According to the survey, over one-third (35%) of respondents said they had received “four or more” offers during their most recent job search. 

Similarly, nearly half (46%) said they still remained open to offers after accepting a position, believing they could secure a better role if they extended their search. 

Applicants backed out of job offers for a range of reasons, Gartner found – 59% said they specifically accepted a role due to flexibility benefits while others valued roles that provided better work-life balance and higher compensation. 

Firms that failed to meet these requirements often found themselves losing out on talent, despite them having accepted a role. 

Jamie Kohn, senior director in the Gartner HR practice said this highlights the changing demands being placed on firms by prospective employees and warned that some could miss out on vital talent if they fail to provide such incentives.

“Nearly 90% of candidates said they have exited a hiring process due to at least one mismatch in employee value proposition (EVP) preferences,” he said. 

“This includes compensation and benefits, but also things like flexibility in working hours, career pathing, skills development, team diversity, and management style.”

This changing dynamic with regard to employee requirements is exacerbating the increasingly competitive talent landscape that organizations must now contend with, Kohn said. 

A separate survey conducted by Gartner in December 2022 showed that 86% of CIOs reported heightened competition for talent and qualified candidates – a trend that is expected to continue. 

“Competition for talent remains steep – our research shows 59% of HR leaders expect more talent competition in the next three months,” he said. “We are seeing many candidates uncommitted to their new employer and keeping one foot in the job market.”

What employees want

Transparency in hiring processes was highlighted as a key stumbling block for candidates, with 68% of respondents stating they want to see concrete salary information in job postings. 

Nearly two-thirds (64%) revealed they are more likely to apply for a job that lists compensation in the job description while 44% said they refused to apply for a role because the employer failed to meet this requirement. 

Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options were also a key factor in a candidate's decision to apply for – and accept – a role at a company.  

Gartner said that 75% of candidates who can work remotely prefer to do so more than 50% of the time, and this is becoming a key stipulation in applications. 

A Gartner survey in May this year found that nearly half of employees seeking new job opportunities were actively doing so because of a desire for greater flexibility. 

“When it comes to pay transparency and return to office mandates, organizations can either enhance or impede their talent attraction efforts based on the decisions they make,” said Kohn.

IBM looks set to pause hiring for non-customer-facing roles that could eventually be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), according to CEO Arvind Krishna. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, Krishna said that hiring for back-office roles such as human resources will be paused and that the firm expects thousands of jobs to be replaced due to automation in the coming years. 

Roughly 7,800 non-customer-facing roles could be replaced due to AI, Krishna suggested, equivalent to around 30% of the 26,000-strong workforce currently occupying these positions. 

“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” Krishna told the publication.

IBM added that workers currently occupying these positions won’t be made redundant, however, vacant roles won’t be filled moving forward. 

Krishna’s comments come amid a period of rising concerns over the potential impact of AI on the global workforce. 

The IBM chief executive has been bullish on AI in recent months, highlighting the transformative potential of AI in streamlining and optimizing organizational processes. 

In an op-ed for Fortune last month, he revealed that the tech giant has already begun integrating AI within back-office functions - specifically in the human resources department. 

Leveraging its own AI, IBM was able to drastically reduce workforce strain by automating traditionally manual processes in HR-related work. 

“With the help of IBM’s own AI, we’re beginning to automate key steps of what was a very manual process,” he wrote. “Piloting this technology within IBM itself, we have been able to shift from 700 professionals doing a relatively manual type of HR-related work, to less than 50.”

“That’s freed up a very significant number of people to spend more time providing important talent-related services, such as career guidance and support for managers, which requires thought and creativity, rather than doing routine paperwork.”

AI-driven job losses

While Krishna has been vocal about the potential of AI in supporting human workers and augmenting their capabilities, experts have warned that AI could have a significant negative impact long term and result in millions of jobs being lost. 

Research from Goldman Sachs earlier this year warned that up to 300 million jobs could be lost worldwide due to the integration of generative AI platforms.  

The study predicted that roughly 18% of work could become computerized in the coming years. 

Similarly, it warned that workers in  ‘advanced economies’ would bore the brunt of AI-related job losses. 

“A new wave of AI systems may have a major impact on employment markets around the world,” the company said. “Shifts in workflows triggered by these advances could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation.”

AI-induced job cuts have remained somewhat of an abstract concept for several years now based largely on speculation and warnings from industry experts. 

However, recent announcements from the global tech industry appear to confirm what many have warned. 

Last week, Dropbox confirmed it plans to cut around 16% of its workforce - roughly 500 staff - as the company focuses on AI to support future operations. 

Drew Houston, chief executive at the California-based tech company, told staff that recent developments in the generative AI space played a key role in determining layoffs. 

Houston noted that the company will sharpen its long-term focus on attracting staff with specialized AI-related skills. 

“In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible,” he said. “However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development.”

Kevin Poulter, employment partner at national law firm Freeths told IT Pro last week that the Dropbox move “feels different” from typical job cut announcements across the tech industry in recent years. 

“Many of the cuts already announced across Silicon Valley and further afield have been a general reduction in staff - some as a result of over-employing at the height of pandemic lockdowns, others to ‘right size’ the business in response to the black economic outlook,” he said. 

“The announcement made by Dropbox feels different. Rather than a cost-cutting cull, the business plans to pivot towards AI, suggesting that the reduction in numbers is temporary and simply to correct a skills gap in this burgeoning sector.”

More than half of UK tech workers changed jobs over the last 12 months as lingering economic uncertainty continues to drive employees to consider alternative roles. 

A survey of 2,000 tech workers by CWJobs found that 57% switched jobs over the last year, with 42% stating that they had moved voluntarily. 

Around 15% revealed their decision to change roles was prompted by redundancy.

A key factor in why tech workers have opted to change jobs was that many are “seeking out stability”, according to the study. 

Nearly half (45%) of those who changed jobs accepted a role within a larger organization due to the perceived safety this might offer compared to roles within smaller firms. 

This growing movement of workers across the tech industry comes amid a period of heightened demand for critical IT roles across the UK, CWJobs noted.

Analysis by the firm found that there were more than 454,000 IT job vacancies in the UK market during the first quarter of 2023. 

Some of the most in-demand roles included DevOps engineers, Java developers, and data engineers. 

Similarly, competition for talent in the UK tech sector is also increasing, the study found. Tech workers reported that they are now approached by potential employers an average of 3.6 times per month. 

However, half said they “never reply” or typically reply to just one approach per month. 

“We’ve seen a huge shakeup of the tech industry over the past year - whether workers have been forced to change jobs or have taken proactive steps to find a new role,” said Dominic Harvey, director at CWJobs. 

“This level of movement puts a lot of pressure on employers in terms of training and continuity of IT support, but it also represents a massive opportunity for the industry to accelerate innovation. Fresh talent can bring new ideas and new ways of doing things, which could help to push teams forward.”

CWJobs’ latest study follows a previous report published in January that found 53% of workers were actively applying for alternative roles due to the looming specter of redundancies. 

A flurry of layoffs at major tech companies at the beginning of the year prompted many to reconsider their positions, the study found. 

Amazon, Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft all announced plans to cut thousands of staff due to uncertain economic conditions.  

This disruptive period resulted in a significant negative impact on tech workers across the country, with nearly two-thirds (63%) revealing that they were preemptively applying for a new role in the event of layoffs at their respective employers. 

Less than a quarter of businesses specifically tailor their recruitment practices to accommodate neurodiverse candidates, according to a new study.

A survey of 500 senior and C-suite business leaders from Sparta Global found that firms could be missing out on a potentially lucrative talent pool by failing to cater for neurodiverse candidates.

Just 21% of respondents in the 2023 EqualTech report said they work for businesses that purposely cater their recruitment processes to attract neurodiverse talent.

The report warned 79% of organisations have taken “no steps to accommodate those with neurodiverse characteristics” - and this could have a significant long-term effect on their ability to attract talent and have a major negative impact on future success.

David Rai, chief executive at Sparta Global, said the report highlights a shocking lack of awareness among businesses over the potential benefits that a wider pool of potential candidates could offer given the current problems with the industry skills deficit.

“With the UK government reporting that we could face a shortage of 900,000 skilled IT workers by next year, an empowered neurodiverse community presents perspectives and skills that could be transformative,” he said.

“Despite this, I was shocked to see how few businesses have practically adapted their hiring strategies to support neurodiverse applicants.”

Changing perceptions

While concerns remain over organisational approaches to hiring neurodiverse talent, the EqualTech report does highlight positive changes with regard to perception of neurodiversity in business.

87% of digital leaders surveyed said they believe neurodiversity will be a “top priority” for their company in 2023.

“This signals that digitally driven businesses are increasingly aware of the importance of neurodiversity, which is viewed as a strategic objective for equality, diversity, and inclusion,” the report noted.

Crucially, the report found, the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore internal discussions around neurodiversity at businesses spanning a range of industries.

More than half (54%) of respondents stated that the pandemic accelerated their organisation's internal conversations on the issue, as well as equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategies generally.

This sharpened focus in recent years was largely driven by the shift to remote working and heightened awareness of employee wellbeing.

“The majority of businesses only started to strategise neurodiversity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the shift to remote working prompted a renewed focus on employee wellbeing and different ways of working,” the report said.

“When we consider these responses collectively, we learn that neurodiversity is becoming a new focus area for digital inclusion and business recovery," the report read.

"This is a promising sign, as more tech employers are starting to pay attention to the role of neurodiversity as something that is integral for the success of their EDI objectives post COVID-19.”

Recruitment strategies for neurodiverse candidates

Dr Miriam Marra, co-lead for EDI at Henley Business School told IT Pro that accommodating for neurodiverse individuals in the workforce requires “HR-specific skills in recruiting, interviewing, and then handling the post-recruitment employee-employer relationship”.

Neurodiverse employees “typically need to be allowed to deviate from the established and standardised HR practices”, which poses some challenges in recruitment processes.

As such, she recommended that organisations put in place specific people, departments, or diversity strategies to ensure that marginalised demographics are catered for within the recruitment journey.

“For neurodiverse colleagues, settling can be difficult at times and may require extra work or differentiated work patterns such as the use of coaching sessions, mentoring, and arrangement of flexible work patterns,” Marra said.

“Thus, there is the effective risk that these accommodating steps may be felt as preferential treatments. That is why a properly developed EDI culture is needed within the company.”

Leadership also plays a key role in fostering an inclusive environment for neurodiverse candidates, Marra noted.

Business leaders should be encouraged to improve soft skills and acquire a “deeper knowledge and understanding of their employees” and specific needs. Long-term, this will also have a broader positive effect on employee wellbeing across the breadth of the organisation,

“This is effectively an opportunity towards the development of a more emphatic leadership style,” she said.

“Once the manager feels the need to monitor the wellbeing of the neurodiverse employees and use communications more effectively to be able to reach out to them, he or she will monitor the wellbeing of the extended workforce and communicate with everyone more effectively.”

According to KPMG, recruitment activity slowed to a 19-month low in September last year, with vacancies expanding at the lowest level since February 2021. These findings are supported by the Office for National Statics (ONS), which showed online job advertisements down by a fifth in early January 2023.

Amid the cost of living crisis, and an emphasis on cost-saving measures, weathering the economic storm is fast becoming a mantra for all businesses, regardless of size. It’s an alarming time, and a flurry of layoffs across the tech sector, for example, shows even large corporations are seemingly not immune to the effects of an economic downturn. Research from the recruitment platform Employ, too, suggests fewer job offers are being accepted, with 61% of HR professionals stating 2023 will continue to be challenging when hiring new staff.

With a hiring freeze seen as a go-to tactic for many businesses, executives will question what pausing recruitment might achieve in terms of cost savings, and whether a hiring freeze is right for them in light of the ongoing economic pain. Experts, however, feel that issuing a hiring freeze, if not managed correctly, can lead to staff demoralisation and attrition.

Why do businesses issue a hiring freeze?

Many businesses see a hiring freeze as a way to avoid expenditure – or defer spending until the economic picture improves. "Some employers, even those who anticipate that the recession may be short, are taking steps now to contain costs, including hiring freezes,” explains Claire Warnes, head of education, skills and productivity at KPMG UK.

Chon Tang, a founding partner of Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, tells IT Pro the approach to hiring has certainly changed, and a key driver might be that businesses have stockpiled staff already.

"Not just major enterprises, even well-funded early-stage start-ups at Berkeley SkyDeck have also dramatically adjusted their hiring plans as the macroeconomy begins to slow down,” Tang says. “On a practical basis, the arms race for talent has slowed down. When every skilled engineer is bombarded with multiple offers, start-ups can't wait – when someone qualified walks through the door, they have to hoard talent or risk not being able to find the right person for many months to come.”

The protection of talent within a business, at present, is clearly a driver behind the slowing of new hires. Companies can see the value of protecting their human assets to insulate them from future events that could hurt their enterprises. However, how long can a structured hiring programme remain on pause before innovation and agility are affected? Smaller businesses are by their nature more agile than larger competitors, but even corporates can only wait for a while before talent shortage begins to erode their profitability.

Businesses are trying to do more with less

Businesses assessing the trading landscape across 2023 are considering how staffing levels will impact their ability to remain profitable. Even tech giants like Apple describe their approach to current recruitment as 'deliberate.' Enterprises are rationalising every aspect of their processes and operations to identify cost centres that can be reduced.

Investments in new talent moving forward are a critical component of all businesses' strategic development roadmaps. As they see their markets, customers, and the economic climate they are trading within changing almost daily, the prioritise business leaders are focusing on do including talent and recruitment, but this isn't their only concern. For example, the layoffs already seen across the tech sector are a symptom of a broader concern about whether enterprises can continue to offer their services and products to an audience with different drivers than just a few years ago.

“Clever internal mobility is often much more effective than large programmes of recruitment,” says Lu Hayward-Graham, global client services director, Cielo. “The objective is to move talent around the business to get through the tricky period, for example redeploying and mobilising existing talent.

“Proactive and reactive internal mobility is about reaching out to those individuals that are around 60% fit to their role and asking, “have you thought about applying to this other, more suitable role?” If you need to fulfil a role during this downturn period, you must advertise this internally. Employees need sight of every scenario, so they know it doesn’t always have to end in an exit. That’s legally defensible too.”

However, bucking the current trend is Arctic Wolf – a network security company that has continued to hire staff. "Leaders will need to keep a close eye on the culture,” CEO Nick Schneider tells IT Pro. “A hiring freeze could likely impact open backfill roles and ultimately create additional work for a team member that is spread thin. Pay attention to the signs from leaders within your organisation if their teams are struggling, as there may be opportunities to get creative and fill workforce gaps amidst a necessary freeze.”

Can a hiring freeze be counterintuitive?

The so-called great resignation is clearly a factor influencing the current labour market. Post-pandemic, the recruitment landscape has changed with a shift in emphasis towards workers who want to take more control of their working lives. The rise of hybrid working has also influenced not just how work is structured but also how workers define their jobs.

Layoffs across the tech sector have grabbed all the headlines, with many questioning what global workforce reductions say about the health of the tech industry in general. Each sector, however, will react differently to the factors influencing customers and commercial partners. It's important to put recruitment freezes into the context of a shifting post-pandemic job market, the uncertainty across all major industries, and how businesses have evolved their strategic planning.

The skills gap is still a clear and present danger to future growth and prosperity, and recruitment freezes tend to be a reaction to significant events such as the pandemic and the financial crash of 2008. However, any downturn can present an opportunity for many businesses to recruit against the tide, Ishveen Jolly, founder and CEO of OpenSponsorship, explains.

"To be honest, we haven't frozen anything,” she says. “In fact, while there has been a freeze and, indeed layoffs in the tech market, we see this as an opportunity not only to look for new talent but also to remind our existing staff that we have their backs, and OpenSponsorship is a good place to be right now. We aren't, however, just hiring for the sake of it; we are filling gaps and investing in people to grow the business.”

KPMG’s Warnes agrees in principle, saying seeing recruitment through the prism of cost-cutting might not be beneficial in the long term. “Those employers who continue to invest in their workforce, particularly upskilling, may find they weather the recession better and will be in a stronger position to benefit from the upturn as and when it comes.”

A recruitment freeze may have a short-term positive impact on a company's financial health. If a recruitment freeze is in place over a prolonged period, though, it could see key staff leaving, which could snowball into a haemorrhaging of staff that can’t be replaced. In this scenario, a business can quickly become unstable, with resignations chronic. Therefore, a clear message must be communicated to the workforce about why a recruitment freeze has been put in place to avoid eroding trust.

Indian IT and consultancy multinatinoal Wipro has almost halved salaries for its graduate scheme employees, prompting widespread criticism and calls for explanation over the sudden change in its hiring practices.

Wipro runs two graduate hiring tracks known as ‘Elite’ and ‘Turbo’, which carry annual salaries of ₹350,000 and ₹650,000 (£3,500 and £6,500) respectively. Through an internal scheme known as the Wipro Velocity Upgrade Program, Elite candidates can partake in 4-6 months of training in order to be upgraded to ‘Turbo’ status and receive the higher pay package.

But in an email sent last week, candidates who had completed the programme were offered project engineer roles at the Elite rate of ₹350,000, and told they had days to decide whether to accept the offer. Those that accept will be onboarded in March, with no commitment made for higher-paid roles per the company’s previous offer.

It is believed that more than 4,000 candidates were affected by the decision and given until February 20 to notify the company of their decision. The significant cut in starting rate raised alarm and confusion in the hiring pool.

“Our talent is our most valuable asset. We are committed to creating an environment where all our current and future employees are able to build successful careers and realise their goals,” a spokesperson for Wipro told IT Pro.

“In light of the changing macro environment and, as a result, our business needs, we had to adjust our onboarding plans.

“As we work to honour all outstanding offers made, this current offer creates an immediate opportunity for candidates to start their careers, build their expertise and acquire new skills—both through the interesting and innovative work that we do, as well as our extensive learning and development programmes.

“At Wipro, we are committed to the growth and success of all our employees and look forward to welcoming this new group of recent graduates.”

The cut is especially significant considering the average salary of earners in India. According to The Economic Times, those who earn ₹300,000 (£3,000) or more per year place in the country's top 10% of earners.

The Times of India reported that the Indian IT industry union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) has filed a complaint with the labour ministry in response to Wipro’s decision.

NITES also issued a statement in solidarity with Elite candidates who have been made to wait months for roles in the lower-paid tier, some of which have now been seemingly offered to Turbo candidates as part of the reduced offer.

“The delay in onboarding has caused immense stress and financial strain for these freshers, many of whom have been waiting for months on end with no clear end in sight. This is unacceptable, and it is a clear indication of the unethical practices that are rampant within Wipro,” wrote Harpreet Singh Saluja, president of NITES.

“We urge all workers to stand together in solidarity with these freshers and demand that Wipro take immediate action to resolve this situation. We call upon the company to provide these workers with fair compensation for the time they have spent waiting, and to ensure that they are onboarded in a timely and respectful manner.”

Macroeconomic headwinds have been blamed for a number of cuts, layoffs, and changes in workplace conditions in the past few months. Amidst big tech layoffs that have seen tens of thousands fired, Intel slashed staff salaries and bonuses and benefits at Twitter were been decimated.

In October 2022, Meta cancelled promised internships in a cost-cutting move similar to Wipro's decision.

Productivity software firm Zoom will fire 15% of its global workforce in a cost-cutting measure, as senior figures in the company are set to accept salary cuts.

Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan has stated that he will cut his yearly pay by 98%, and will not take a bonus in a move to show his responsibility for the cuts. Executives at Zoom will also see a 20% reduction in salary and forgo their corporate bonuses.

The company will give the 1,300 outgoing employees up to 16 weeks’ salary and healthcare coverage, as well as restricted stock units (RSU) and stock option vesting. The latter will last for six months for US employees, and until 9 August 2023 for those outside the US.

“As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today - and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions,” Yuan said in a message sent to employees.

“We worked tirelessly and made Zoom better for our customers and users. But we also made mistakes. We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyse our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities.”

Yuan's decision to only accept a 2% salary for the year is unusual, especially as he has also refused to accept a bonus.

As CEOs and executives receive the majority of their compensation through corporate bonuses, the message serves as a significant demonstration of the seriousness with which Yuan and other officials take responsibility for the cuts.

US employees were told to expect an email to their company inbox titled ‘[IMPACTED] Departing Zoom: What You Need to Know’ if they were included in the cut, while those outside the US were told according to local regulations.

Zoom has also stated that it will help fired employees to seek new roles elsewhere, and offer them 1:1 workshops, coaching, and networking opportunities.

Zoom's pandemic boom

Questions have long been raised about Zoom’s long-term future as a company. Following its meteoric rise driven by pandemic remote working, the firm reported its first billion-dollar quarter in August 2021.

But its path to profit was often unclear and moves to monetise the platform using advertisements have not succeeded in maintaining the company’s growth trajectory.

In September 2022, it was reported that Zoom will release email and calendar apps, adding to the company’s place as a productivity giant.

This would put it directly in competition with other productivity suites such as Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, a step up from the company’s focus on video conferencing.

Zoom’s Q3 earnings showed 5% revenue growth year on year, with a strong base of 210,000 enterprise customers that grew 14% over the same period driving much of this. It has projected total Q4 earnings of around $1.1 billion (£910 million), up from $1.07 (£880 million) year on year.

The method by which Zoom employees have been notified is similar to that taken by Twitter following its acquisition by Elon Musk, which saw 50% of employees laid off.

Those made redundant were told via an email to their personal inboxes, while those chosen to stay were informed through an email sent to their work address.

However, some discovered early as they had lost access to their company Gmail accounts, while others had laptops remotely wiped in advance of receiving formal notice of redundancy.

Zoom was notably used in 2021 by US mortgage startup Better.com as a platform through which to fire 900 employees. CEO Vishal Garg had hosted a company-wide call just prior to Christmas, in which all attendees were informed of their termination effective immediately.

The communications firm is the latest in a series of high-profile tech firms to engage in layoffs and cuts to employee benefits. Amazon and Salesforce fired a combined 26,000 employees in January 2023, while Google reduced its workforce by 12,000.

Facing poor financials, Intel has also slashed salaries throughout the company in place of wider cuts.

CEO Pat Gelsinger could cut his salary by 25%, compared to 5% cuts faced by mid-level staff. The chip giant has lost ground to its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), hurting its bottom line at a time when device sales have plunged.

Intel has announced a wave of pay cuts and reduced benefits in the wake of poor quarterly earnings, affecting mid-level, vice presidential, and executive staff.

The firm is reportedly set to cut mid-level staff wages by 5% in March, with higher-level roles such as VPs and executives facing 10% and 15% salary cuts respectively. Pat Gelsinger, CEO at Intel, could also cut his salary by up to 25%.

Staff will also face greatly-reduced benefits in the immediate future, with quarterly bonuses and merit-based raises cancelled and the company’s 401(k) matched payment scheme reduced from 5% to 2.5%.

“This was an incredibly dumb move, as employees will become “quiet quitters” and lose morale,” wrote semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel, who stated that all Intel employees in grades 7 to 11 will see cuts.

“Bonus cuts are one thing, but base pay cuts sting. Intel, unfortunately, has to cut costs dramatically due to its immense amount of cash being burned, but they are doing it in the worst way.”

“High performers likely start to 'phone it in' while they look for their next job, as there is no incentive to keep working long nights and early mornings. The level 7 cut-off point is too low. This includes some fresh advanced graduates and many normal graduates with a handful of years of experience.”

The changes have been implemented following a challenging quarter - the chip giant announced its Q4 revenue of $14 billion on 26 January, down 32% year-on-year, with its client computing group business unit reporting a 36% year-on-year decline.

The decline follows the ‘biggest ever decline’ in worldwide PC shipments, which has impacted hardware.

“Despite the economic and market headwinds, we continued to make good progress on our strategic transformation in Q4, including advancing our product roadmap and improving our operational structure and processes to drive efficiencies while delivering at the low end of our guided range,” said Gelsinger on the earnings call.

Other firms have been affected by the downturn in hardware sales, with Microsoft having reported a 39% drop in device revenue across the same period.

Reuters reported that Gelsinger had described Intel as having “stumbled” in its recent performance.

The firm has ceded market share to main rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) which reported better-than-expected earnings in its Q4 call.

Shareholders are not expected to receive reduced payouts, and annual bonuses will continue to be paid. However, as annual bonuses are linked to the company’s financial standing these are expected to be reduced as compared to previous years’ bonuses.

"As we continue to navigate macro-economic headwinds and work to reduce costs across the company, we’ve made several adjustments to our 2023 employee compensation and rewards programmes," Intel told IT Pro.

"These changes are designed to impact our executive population more significantly and will help support the investments and overall workforce needed to accelerate our transformation and achieve our long-term strategy. We are grateful to our employees for their commitment to Intel and patience during this time as we know these changes are not easy."

Intel’s move to cut salaries at this stage rather than engage in mass layoffs has put it out of step with the strategies of other large tech firms.

2023 has already seen a number of large firms slash staff, as Amazon and Salesforce fired a combined 26,000 employees and Google cut its global workforce by 12,000 roles.

A number of factors are behind this wave of big tech layoffs, including unsustainable business models and a drive for greater profit at the expense of employee security. As recession bites, more firms are expected to engage in cuts of this kind.

This article was updated to include comment from Intel.

More than half of UK tech workers are taking pre-emptive steps to avoid being caught up in the recent wave of layoffs affecting the global industry.

A survey of 2,000 tech workers by CWJobs found that 53% of respondents are currently applying for alternative roles in the event that redundancies are announced at their firms.

The study revealed that current sentiment among London-based tech workers is dire, with nearly two-thirds (63%) pre-emptively applying for a new job in the event of layoffs.

This marks the highest out of any region across the country, according to the survey.

Young workers in the industry are the most likely to ensure they have a “plan B in place”, the study found. Around 62% of workers aged 18 to 24 said they are actively applying for new roles.

However, this is in stark contrast to workers aged 55 and over, with just 24% taking steps to compensate for potential cuts.

Tech worker uncertainty

CWJobs said the research highlights the lingering anxiety among tech workers across the country over continued layoffs at major firms.

In recent weeks, a host of firms including Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce revealed plans to cut a significant portion of their respective workforces.

Google also confirmed last week that it will lay off around 12,000 staff as the tech giant looks to weather increasingly unpredictable and challenging economic conditions.

Dominic Harvey, director at CWJobs, said it is critical that employers reassure staff about the safety of their roles amidst a difficult period.

“Tech workers are showing signs of uncertainty around job security - likely triggered by what they are reading in the news and on social media,” he said.

“So, employers need to go the extra mile to reassure them and build a strong sense of security in their current role and long-term career prospects. This could be key to attracting and retaining much-needed talent over the coming months and years,” Harvey added.

Kevin Poulter, employment partner at national law firm Freeths, said the recent pattern of layoffs means that workers could be more willing to explore opportunities elsewhere as their firms cut back on spending.

“Such scaling back on spending and growth by big tech has come at a time when the financial markets have been hit by an energy crisis, war, the global impact of climate change and ever-increasing overheads and costs,” he said.

“Every business has been affected in some way and is seeking to cut back on spend. Employees have also been affected, with many in the tech sector seeking to move roles for more pay, a better way of working, or the chance to be part of the ‘next big thing’.

“If employees sense trouble ahead, they will be more likely to take up other opportunities they might otherwise have passed up.”

Tech redundancy data

Despite this uncertainty, research from the recruitment firm found that only a small percentage of tech firms plan on announcing redundancies.

ONS data shows that just 1.2% of ‘information and communication’ companies are planning to make their workforce redundant over the next three months.

“This is lower than the average across all businesses (1.5%), suggesting that high-profile tech layoffs are not indicative of the situation in the wider industry,” the firm said.

Alternative data published by CWJobs found that the number of job vacancies in the UK between October and December 2022 also rose to a record high of 502,151.

Across this period, the five roles in highest demand were Software Developer, .NET Developer, Data Engineer, Java Developer, and DevOps Engineer.

Harvey noted that, despite current concerns around layoffs and economic disruption, there are still ample opportunities for tech workers. As such, businesses should build trust with staff to ensure they don’t lose critical talent during a challenging period.

“The jobs market remains highly competitive - so if employees or candidates are made to feel insecure or uncertain at any stage, from the job advert through to employment, they will find plenty of opportunities elsewhere”, he said.

“Employers need to address how skilled workers are feeling and take proactive steps to build trust.”

Laura Baldwin, president at O’Reilly said that alternative research published recently shows there is still a significant demand for tech jobs, which should be reassuring to workers.

“So much of the conversation over the last six months has been focused on economic uncertainty and layoffs in the tech sector, and yet the recent Jobs on the Rise list from LinkedIn shows that there are many strong, in-demand tech and engineering roles,” she said.

“It’s refreshing to see the acknowledgement that the sky is not falling for tech workers.”

IT leaders have become increasingly worried by cost of living pressures which have raised salary demands of employees to levels that businesses cannot match.

C-suite executives identified salary demands driven by increasing prices as among the top three issues facing organisations amidst tech talent shortages, according to a new report.

These also included growing demands for a four-day work week, with 40% of respondents having flagged this as a structure they cannot currently provide.

Many respondents indicated that the unstable economic and hiring landscape is making staff recruitment and retention much more difficult, with 42% worried that staff will leave due to burnout. 46% of respondents stated that due to staff shortages, overworked staff are having to 'fight fires' and this is having a detrimental effect on productivity.

The results were published in enterprise software provider Rimini Street’s IT leader future outlook report 2023, which gathered data from a range of CIOs and CTOs throughout the industry.

Filling the talent gaps

46% stated that they are relying on external work partners to meet IT goals. Results also showed that IT leaders are aware of the need for people-oriented changes and more open hiring policies to plug these gaps throughout the year.

To grow teams and fill hiring gaps in 2023, 60% of respondents indicated that they would hire individuals with less experience or skills but an enthusiasm to learn.

Other strategies indicated in the report include a focus on hiring remote or overseas workers (50%) and cross-skilling or upskilling existing workers (39%).

Some firms are also entering into agreements with universities to drive candidates towards skills and careers in high demand, with 48% of those surveyed having indicated that this is an option they will pursue.

Universities can play a key role in boosting digital skills, as well as in fixing the gender bias in STEM roles to improve the overall range of talent available to businesses.

Changing strategies to adopt more flexible work arrangements is also an area that could improve onboarding for businesses. 38% of respondents stated that demands made by high-ranking staff to return to the office were a primary deterrent for potential recruits.

Beyond hiring challenges, executive teams are looking at a range of ways to ensure that current employees have the necessary skills without putting them at risk of burnout.

This is a crucial goal for IT leaders in a tech landscape still impacted by the so-called ‘great resignation’ and prolonged skill shortages of the past few years, and 47% plan on retraining internal staff in 2023.

A number of strategies have been implemented by firms to combat each challenge faced. 52% of respondents stated that they plan to encourage staff to learn skills via virtual training courses, while 46% identified the importance of checking line managers receive training on new technologies and on how to help employees adapt to these.

Reskilling and upskilling workers can be a crucial method for improving employee satisfaction and retention, as it represents a meaningful investment in one’s workforce.

Tech workers increasingly view a business' sustainability and overall purpose as equally important factors in choosing their next job alongside salary expectations.

Hays' 2023 UK Salary and Recruitment Trends study showed that the average UK tech salary increased by 7% over the last year.

Similarly, more than three-quarters (76%) of employers revealed they increased salaries in 2022 and tech jobs continued to pay higher than the UK average.

But salary considerations aren’t the only key factor for employees now, the study found. Increasingly, workers view sustainability, purpose, and diversity as attractive propositions as many seek opportunities at firms which align with their values.

Sustainability is “coming to the fore in many organisations,” Hays said, and firms recognise its growing importance in creating long-term value and satisfaction for employees.

Commitments to sustainability were highlighted as an important factor for 78% of employees when searching for a new role. Conversely, however, Hays’ research showed that only 65% of employers believe these commitments are important to help them attract and retain staff.

Fiona Place, global head of sustainability at Hays, said that issues such as climate change and environmental pollution were “firmly in the spotlight” for employees seeking new roles.

“Our research shows that employees want to work for organisations that can show their sustainability credentials. Younger generations are even more in tune with this, so failing to show progress towards a green agenda could impact your ability to secure the next generation of professionals,” she said.

Diversity and inclusion in the workplace

More than two-thirds (69%) of employees reported that an organisation’s ability to “demonstrate a diverse and inclusive culture” heavily influences their decision to apply for a new role.

In contrast, however, around one in four (26%) employees voiced concerns over workforce diversity and their respective companies, while 18% said they don’t think their organisation is inclusive.

This has prompted a shift among employees towards encouraging diversity and expecting this as an inherent cultural staple within their organisation. More than two-thirds (66%) said it's important that organisations implement steps to mitigate bias in the recruitment processes, for example.

An organisation’s purpose was also highlighted as a key factor for workers seeking new roles, Hays found. Most employees (85%) said purpose was an “important consideration” when assessing a new role.

This was identified as an even more prevalent factor for those working in the public sector and for younger generations – particularly Gen Z.

At a roundtable attended by IT Pro last year, representatives from Dell, Red Hat, and Kyndryl revealed that the continued influx had driven organisational changes and a shift in strategy in the hybrid cloud space.

Participants revealed that generational shifts had prompted changes with regard to ESG goals, such as the need to reduce energy demand. In fact, the continued onboarding of younger workers had helped embed a stronger focus on ESG among C-suite executives and improved transparency.

Kevin Poulter, employment partner at national law firm Freeths, told IT Pro that while salaries still remain a critical consideration, recent purpose-based trends present new challenges on how organisations present themselves to prospective employees and attract talent.

“Employees have for some years shown an ever-greater interest in how a company presents itself and behaves in a fast-changing socio-economic, environmental, and political landscape,” he said.

“Although employers should not discount the motivations of salary, benefits, and other financial incentives, they should expect questions about diversity and inclusion, sustainability initiatives, and a company’s response to global issues such as Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, and climate change.

“Employees and candidates have built a confidence in challenging employers and turning the tables on recruiters, moving the conversation on from issues of personal impact, such as work/life balance and flexible working,” Poulter added.

Lewis Maleh, executive recruitment expert and CEO of executive search firm Bentley Lewis said purpose and sustainability are key considerations for businesses in 2023.

“Purpose and sustainability are not only important factors for those seeking new roles, but they are essential considerations for business and society in 2023,” he said.

“If people hold sustainability and purpose as important values in their personal lives, it’s natural they are going to want a role that prioritises them professionally too.”

Sustainability a ‘key trend’ for 2023

Hays' insights on views towards organisational purpose and sustainability align with recent research conducted by Gartner on the issue.

A study from the consultancy firm identified sustainability as a key trend in 2023 as businesses look to reduce their environmental impact, boost employee satisfaction, and attract new talent.

Sustainability was highlighted as an issue which “traverses all of the strategic technology trends for 2023”, with CEOs reporting that environmental and social changes are now a top-three priority for investors after profit and revenue.

“This means that executives must invest more in innovative solutions that are designed to address ESG demand to meet sustainability goals,” the consultancy said.

Around 26,000 jobs are set to be cut across both Amazon and Salesforce as the latest round of layoffs continues to shake the global technology industry.

Salesforce announced yesterday that it plans to cut around 10% of its workforce as the software giant fights rising costs and an oversubscribed workforce on the back of intense pandemic hiring.

At the end of October, Salesforce boasted more than 80,000 staff globally. And since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the firm has brought on an additional 17,000 employees to compensate for a heightened demand for services.

However, CEO Mark Benioff confirmed the layoffs in a letter to staff on Wednesday, citing deteriorating business conditions and over-hiring.

“As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that,” he told staff.

“The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” Benioff added.

As part of the roll-back, Salesforce said it will also close offices as the firm looks to restructure and ensure an “ongoing commitment to profitable growth”.

Amazon layoffs cut deep

Lingering economic uncertainty is also a key factor in the latest round of Amazon layoffs, announced today by chief executive Andy Jassy.

In a memo to staff, Jassy confirmed that around 18,000 workers globally would be laid off as part of a restructuring process, with some job cuts expected to affect European and UK-based workers.

Amazon first revealed in November that it planned to eliminate a raft of positions across its Devices and Books division. As part of an audit, the ecommerce giant also offered a voluntary reduction for employees in the People, Experience and Technology (PXT) department.

According to sources speaking to Reuters at the time of the initial November announcement, the planned number of cuts originally stood at 10,000 - nearly half the updated estimates.

Following the review, Jassy confirmed today that additional cuts will be made to the PXT division along with layoffs across “several teams”.

“Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles,” he said.

“Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organisations,” Jassy added.

Jassy insisted that Amazon has “weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past”, and that the company is confident it can continue to “pursue long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure”.

A year of tech layoffs

This latest round of tech layoffs follows a period of lingering uncertainty in the global technology industry.

A number of major tech companies, including Meta, have announced job cuts in recent months as economic conditions soured rapidly. In November, Meta revealed it planned to lay off around 11,000 workers.

In the same month, the tech industry also saw a wave of job cuts spanning several industry verticals. Stripe revealed plans to cut 1,100 staff, around 14% of its total workforce, while Cisco announced more than 4,000 staff would be let go.

An analysis published this week by Layoffs.fyi revealed that more than 150,000 technology-driven jobs were cut across the whole of 2022.

Statistics show that layoffs across the year exceeded the total number of job cuts in 2020 and 2021 combined.

The tech talent pool remains competitive and the finance industry is keen to poach tech workers that have been left without a job amid a doubling of industry-wide layoffs in the US.

John Talarico, global head of talent acquisition at Millennium Management - a major US investment management firm - said it has seen a surge in applications from tech workers during the second half of the year.

Like most other modern industries, the finance sector is underpinned by technology and Talarico said a huge number of engineering roles remain open for intelligent problem-solvers, in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

Tech firms have seen an increase in layoffs in the second half of 2022. There were around 59,000 tech layoffs in November 2022, a figure up from 23,000 in October and 10,000 in September, according to Bloomberg's data.

In 25 years of running technology acquisition programmes, Talarico said he has only seen a few market disruptions like the one that it’s going through currently.

Millenium has managed to hire 294 technologists this year and still has plenty of openings on the company’s career site. “It’s December 15 and my team is working on over 100 open positions, my team is not getting a break,” he said.

The firm is currently recruiting across all levels, from those beginning their career to senior global positions. It’s also across a range of competencies, from software or full-stack engineering, to security or cloud engineering.

In contrast to the private sector, Bloomberg data also highlighted that the government is struggling to attract tech employees, with part of the reason down to the salary it offers. The average private sector tech pays $109,400, big tech offers $138,800, while the federal government can only afford an average of $80,900.

Financial firms aren’t the only companies looking to poach tech talent, as small businesses were described as being in an unprecedented position by recruiting company Randstad in September 2022.

It said that employers in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) could use the current period to its advantage, with the ongoing cost of living crisis and tech companies facing a downturn. With bigger companies cutting back, smaller ones could hire strategically while the market is down, leading to important gains.

The skills shortage in the UK tech industry has been recognised for years, but as the country emerges from COVID-19, numerous polls and surveys suggest the crisis is getting worse.

According to figures released in TechNation’s People and Skills Report 2022, tech roles now make up 14% of all job vacancies in the UK, up from 11% in 2019. Cyber security, data management and software development are often flagged as skills in the shortest supply, but there are skills shortages across the whole industry. As demand for IT professionals continues to grow, the gap between need and available talent in the UK widens.

Hiring from abroad is one route companies can take, but for those who’ve not yet dipped a toe in that water, the immigration requirements can feel bureaucratic, and downright baffling.

How do you recruit someone from abroad?

On 1 December 2020, the UK introduced a single immigration system applying to all non-UK and Irish nationals. Under the rules, newly arriving European nationals no longer have the right to free movement, which previously allowed them to take up employment here. Instead, they face the same immigration restrictions as others, and in most cases will need a visa.

Most types of UK employment visas require sponsorship by a company or organisation, which must first obtain a “sponsor licence”. They can then sponsor individuals to take up employment with them, with the visa tied to the sponsoring company. Sponsored employees can choose to leave the business, but must obtain a new visa if they want to remain in the UK or work for another employer.

After five years under a Skilled Worker visa (the most common type of sponsored work visa) an individual can apply to settle in the UK, and will then have the flexibility to work in any role, for any employer. To be granted a licence, companies must prove that they are genuine businesses operating in the UK, and have a real need for a sponsor licence.

That need may be based on them having a particular candidate in mind for sponsorship, but it can also be met speculatively, because they employ the type of roles that would be eligible for sponsorship. Sponsoring an employee brings certain duties and responsibilities, such as monitoring sponsored employees’ attendance at work and reporting changes in location, changes in immigration status or cessation of employment, as well as changes to the organisation itself. Obtaining a sponsor licence can take a couple of months, although the Home Office offers a priority service that reduces the processing time to a couple of weeks. There are only a limited number of these priority slots available daily, and considerable competition to obtain them, but the Home Office has finally increased the number available each day from ten to 30, meaning it should be slightly easier to obtain one.

Once you have a licence, who can you sponsor?

A Skilled Worker sponsor licence won’t allow you to sponsor any job or individual you may wish. Roles must be at or above a certain deemed skill level: RQF 3 – roughly equivalent to A-level standard. Broadly speaking, this encompasses roles at an executive level and above, or skilled manual roles. The vast majority of roles within the tech sector will be eligible, although it’s still important to check. There are also minimum salary requirements, which vary depending on the market rate for the particular role. For tech sector roles, minimum salary requirements usually start at around £25,000 per annum and rarely exceed £60,000.

Employers must also show anyone they sponsor is suitable for the role they’re filling. This is a significantly lower threshold than prior to the 2020 changes, when an employer could only sponsor someone if they could prove that there was no suitable resident worker available to fill the role (unless the role was a “shortage occupation” or another exemption applied). In many cases, employers had to carry out a “resident labour market test”, often re-advertising a role where a candidate had already been identified, to show that nobody could be found from the UK labour market with the skills to fill the role.

This change has significantly reduced the bureaucracy involved in sponsoring an overseas national and the time frame to obtain a visa for someone from overseas. The impact of the change has been less significant in the tech sector, where certain key categories (software developers, business analysts and cyber security specialists) were considered shortage occupations and so exempt from the requirement, but the industry has still benefited in regards to other roles.

Applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route must also demonstrate a certain level of fluency in English. If this is a significant barrier, one alternative option is a Global Business Mobility visa. There are multiple sub-categories under this route, but the most common – for “senior” or “specialist” workers – allows companies that are part of a global group to transfer employees from that overseas company to the UK on a temporary basis. Applicants don’t need to demonstrate a certain level of English, but they must have been working for the overseas company for a period of time (often 12 months), their role must meet a higher skill threshold (RQF 6) and they must be paid a minimum salary of £42,400.

How much does it cost to sponsor a worker?

There is no simple answer to this because costs vary depending on the size of the company and on the length of the visa that is being requested. There are also numerous fee elements that must be paid, including an Immigration Skills Charge and an Immigration Health Surcharge, among others.

These fee components usually add up to considerably more than the visa fee itself. In many cases, companies pay all these elements, but some of them can be met by applicants. There may also be reductions if the role is considered a shortage occupation, but it won’t be substantial in terms of the overall costs. Fees are also lower if you’re recruiting a graduate from a UK university.

Setting these reductions aside, the fees for a fairly standard three-year visa would come to £4,000 for a small company, and around £6,000 for a medium or large one. It’s also worth noting that some of these fees are refundable in part if an employee moves on before the end of their visa.

Are there other options to bring tech workers to the UK?

Although the majority of work visa routes require sponsorship, and therefore a significant outlay by the employing business, there are a few that don’t.

High Potential visas

The new High Potential visa route allows individuals who have graduated from a “top 50” global university (as included in the government’s “Global University list” for the relevant year of graduation) in the past five years to apply for a two-year UK visa, or a three-year visa for applicants whose qualification is a PhD. This will enable them to work in the UK for any company, in any role, or to take up self-employed work here.

This visa route is similar to the graduate scheme, launched last year, which allows those graduating from UK universities to apply for a two-year UK visa (again, three years for those who have obtained a PhD), with similar conditions. Neither of these routes leads to settlement in the UK, and neither can be extended, so while they’re useful entry routes into the industry, they aren’t options for long-term employment. However, visa-holders can switch to other routes once they’re in the UK.

Global Talent visas

For those further on in their careers, the Global Talent visa is a possibility that’s well worth considering. It’s much more flexible than the Skilled Worker route, as it’s not tied to a specific job or employer, and also allows an individual to be self-employed. Like the Skilled Worker visa, it’s a potential route to settle in the UK – after as little as three years. For employers, it comes with the benefit that it doesn’t require any expenditure, or tie them into any compliance obligations – beyond the standard obligation to check and monitor the right to work of any employee. However, it also brings the disadvantage that an employee is free to move on without any immigration restrictions or delays.

The Global Talent visa is open to applicants in a number of sectors, such as arts, engineering and research, as well as the tech industry. In most cases, individuals must apply first to a designated “endorsing body” to confirm they meet the requirements for Exceptional Promise or Exceptional Talent.

TechNation serves as the endorsing body in the IT sector. For anyone considering this route, it’s important to emphasise that “talent” is defined very specifically – you can be a very talented individual working in the tech sector, without being eligible under this route. The route does cover applicants with a technical focus and those with a business focus. However, non-technical applicants must have substantial involvement in digital product businesses – think companies that provide a proprietary digital technical service, product, platform or hardware as their primary revenue source. Senior corporate roles, including managing corporate teams and roles with consultancy companies, don’t generally meet the requirements of the route.

A quarter of UK businesses have turned to hiring global tech talent in a bid to overcome domestic skills shortages, according to new research.

Overall, 27% of UK businesses have already hired candidates from overseas, or are in the process of doing so, while 63% still focus primarily on UK-wide recruitment drives.

This compares to a larger figure of 36% amongst global decision-makers, indicating that despite the UK’s continued shortage of skilled workers, businesses continue to look inward for new hires.

Amongst those taking part in global talent acquisition, skills shortages motivated 25% to do so, but were not the primary reason behind the practice. This was identified as a desire to diversify teams (67%), while an interest in testing new markets was a motivator for 60% of respondents.

Results also indicated that while UK businesses are looking overseas, the majority (70%) of firms favour existing tech hubs like New York, Paris, and Berlin over emerging tech talent hubs like Ahmedabad, Budapest, or Mexico City.

This illustrates a disparity between hiring decisions and the potential talent pools in these emerging markets. In Gartner’s ‘Emerging IT Talent Hubs in 2022’ (PDF) report, existing and emerging tech hubs were each assigned a ‘supply-demand ratio’, calculated as talent supply divided by talent demand.

The higher the number calculated, the more untapped talent the hub was determined to hold. London and New York York were awarded 2 overall, versus a score of 8 for the top emerging tech hub Mexico City.

However, just 7% of respondents in Remote’s study indicated that they considered Mexico City to have ‘considerable talent’, compared to 20% who indicated that they still believe there to be such talent in London, and are continuing to seek candidates within the city.

HR solutions company Remote revealed the results in its 2022 Tech Talent Report, which showed the skills shortage is having an effect on the hiring decisions of decision-makers within the sector.

Beyond the benefits of flexible working, hiring managers are also factoring in the ethical implications of remote work from emerging tech hubs. 68% of respondents who indicated that they were considering hiring from a global pool said that it was important to allow workers to progress in their field without having to move country.

“When I think about the colossal opportunity to hire great talent around the world, the challenges businesses are facing and blockers to hiring the best talent seem small,” said Job van der Voort, CEO and co-founder of Remote.

“The research shows that for businesses to meet their tech talent needs, they need to go a step further and look beyond their own market. Tech talent hasn’t disappeared, it’s just distributed around the world, and companies need to overcome the challenges to access it”.

Firms looking to increase their international talent pool through remote hires face the challenge of managing a distributed team. 47% of respondents indicated that language barriers were a concern in hiring decisions, and 46% pointed to the difficulty of working across different time zones.

In response, Remote recommended adopting asynchronous work patterns which allow workers to adjust their shifts to best suit productivity and convenience, and also give those who don’t speak English as their first language time to translate information in work and messages.

In this and a number of other ways, companies could benefit from removing the need for instantaneous responses.

The research was conducted via an online survey in September 2022, with 1,485 decision-makers currently hiring for remote roles in the tech sector taking part. The UK sample consisted of 251 such business leaders across the same period.

Bringing global tech talent to the UK

In 2021's Autumn Budget, the government announced it would overhaul the UK visa system to attract more overseas talent, making several notable changes to the Global Talent Visa (GTV). This was created with the aim of attracting STEM experts to boost the UK’s innovation and diversity of talent in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Changes included the addition of a number of eligibility criteria for the GTV, with particular regard for candidates with research grants, approved international prizes, or an individual fellowship. Applications from such candidates are placed into a faster lane than those without any of these criteria.

The government also offers the Innovator visa, which aims to help those with a specific plan for setting up an innovative business in the UK.

However, unlike the Global Talent Visa, applicants to the Innovator visa must demonstrate a proficiency in English as assessed in an approved test, or through the candidate’s possession of a recognised qualification in English.

There are a number of countries and territories excluded from this requirement, but it can still be a stumbling block for potential applicants.

The latest recruitment data has revealed that hiring levels in Singapore are down 14% in 2022 after a 40% global surge was recorded in the previous year.

Careers and recruitment platform LinkedIn reported that between 2020 and 2021, the world saw a 40% increase in hiring across all industries - a figure that has not plummeted according to data taken between 2021 and 2022.

Singapore's hiring rate has fallen 14% which reflects the global average with different countries reporting decreases in hiring between 12% and 18%, according to Frank Koo, head of Asia, talent, and learning solutions at LinkedIn, speaking during a panel discussion held at Stack 2022, a developer conference organised by GovTech, Singapore's digital transformation agency.

Koo called this a rebalancing of the industry. What LinkedIn has found in Singapore, and other countries around the world, is that there are still many more jobs available on the market than there are people available for the jobs.

Recruiting the right talent now requires businesses to rethink their overall offering when it comes to the job package. In order to attract employees, organisations will have to prove what they can offer workers when it comes to their skills development as well as career development, said Koo.

Additionally, tech companies have pulled many of the best people out of the jobs market in the last five years, said Noah Pepper, former APAC head at Stripe and GovTech board member.

Retaining such skilled individuals has proven beneficial to the companies that were able to attract them - these people have added great value to their respective businesses through research, development, and the delivery of new products.

However, smaller companies and other organisations outside of the tech sector have found it more difficult to hire the right people for the job because the talent pool has decreased and thus recruitment has faced new challenges.

Pepper said there’s currently an uneven distribution of labour change for big tech companies as they pull back, referring to how a number of big tech companies have fired employees recently.

Despite this, there are plenty of small early tech companies still hiring, and plenty of venture capital money on the market. There are also lots of non-tech companies that now have the opportunity to expand their technical teams.

The panellists also discussed some of the transformational changes in the world of work that have come about as a result of the pandemic, highlighting that such transformations have evolved into modern-day buzzwords and phrases, such as 'working from home' and 'return to the office'.

However, according to Kok Ping Soon, chief executive at GovTech, the latest concept on the minds of business leaders is 'quiet quitting'.

Quiet quitting is a phrase to describe idea that employees complete their work doing what they can, and don’t spend unnecessary additional time on their work, said Soon.

He questioned whether quiet quitting is taking place in Singapore, or whether it was a calibration of the workforce. Soon added that Singaporeans are the second most hardworking workforce in the world, in terms of overtime.

It’s really about people just doing enough to fulfil their role, said Koo, who believes it is based on two different environmental factors.

The first is where workers are trying to establish a healthy boundary around where they work so they can contribute to work at the same time as maintaining mental wellness. On the other hand, he outlined that there are a number of workers who aren’t engaged in their jobs, pointing to a Gallup survey that found 30% of workers in Asia are engaged, meaning that two-thirds aren’t engaged.

Koo said it was important for leaders to provide the right opportunities and collaborative culture for employees so they can bring their best selves to work. At the same time, he said employees have a growth mindset meaning that they know their career has ups and downs, and they’re working towards improving it.

Some believe, such as Pepper, that quiet quitting is ultimately a leadership problem which comes down to how organisations structure accountability within their teams.

It’s a problem if the leadership approach is aiming to get employees back in the office for a specific number of hours and measuring them by that metric, instead of whether tasks are completed appropriately or whether customers are happy, for example.

He added that over the years, he didn’t care what hours employees or colleagues were working, or whether they were in the office or not, but what’s important was that goals were set and accomplished.

“I think, as an organisation, you have to be paranoid about the incentive structure that you create, because humans are really, really good at sniffing out what the leaders care about,” said Pepper. “And if they care about people showing up in person, and that’s the main thing they’re paying attention to, folks will show up but they’re going to find ways to take back something else for themselves.”

More than half of English IT workers report being interested in pursuing a career comprised of many different jobs at the same time, but lack the confidence to commit.

The majority of IT workers (59%) said they would be interested in developing a portfolio career - a higher percentage than the average adult (52%) - but imposter syndrome stands in the way of nearly half (47%), according to new research.

A portfolio career can involve a single person working two or more roles concurrently. The research comes as the UK government launched a campaign to encourage professionals to pursue part-time careers in further education (FE).

“I became a part-time further education teacher three years ago year alongside running my own IT business,” said Christian Núñez Fuentes, teacher of IT and digital subjects at Bedford College.

“I was nervous about what I could bring to the lessons, so lacked self-confidence. But I quickly realised it was my skills and knowledge from a career in the IT industry that made me most valuable to my students and colleagues.

“This grew my confidence over time as I could share what I had learnt over many years to inspire a new generation of students. It helped me grow as a teacher and I completed my training on the job, so I was able to start earning straight away. The benefits really outweighed my self-doubt.”

According to the Department for Education (DfE), 57% of all adults in England suffer from imposter syndrome - a feeling that one’s success is neither deserved nor the product of one’s talents or skills.

High-skilled professionals working in engineering, construction, accountancy, digital, and healthcare are all being targeted specifically by the campaign.

The DfE aims to highlight that neither a degree nor any teaching experience is required to get started in the world of FE and many people working in these industries are already qualified enough to begin just with their working experience alone.

The value of industry professionals is believed to be great since they are able to provide students with hands-on, practical knowledge that’s wrapped in the context of real-world application.

While teaching alone may not be the route to the highest-paying jobs in the tech industry, some individuals may find more fulfilment working multiple roles while also supplementing their main salary with money earned from part-time or ad-hoc work.

How the tech sector's industry-wide mass layoffs will impact the confidence of individuals to pursue work outside of their main job remains to be seen, the value of adopting a flexible approach to keep a company's top talent happy has traditionally been appreciated. Retaining the most skilled people may involve offering workers greater freedoms in and outside of the workplace.

‘Side hustle culture’ is rife among the younger generations but research has also found that those in the 35-44 age bracket are most likely to quit their jobs in search of more flexible arrangements - be it in working hours or allowance to pursue outside endeavours.

New data revealed that companies are posting fewer remote job positions although the demand for them has increased.

Fully remote job postings reached an all-time high in February 2022 comprising 20% of all listings but attracting 50% of the total number of job applications, according to LinkedIn’s October 2022 Global Talent Trends report.

By September this year, employers scaled back remote job posting to 14% of all posts on the platform but these still attracted 52% of all site-wide applications in the US.

Remote jobs also continue to be popular around the rest of the world, LinkedIn said. In the UK, 9% of posts were for remote jobs and they received 20% of all applications.

Simialr findings were made in Germany - 9% of the job postings were remote positions and they attracted 22% of all applications. India's fully remote job postings stood at 10%, attracting 21% of all applications for them on the site.

LinkedIn also underlined that candidates continue to highly rank three priorities that came about as a result of the pandemic: a work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, and upskilling. These three were only beaten by compensation as the top priority candidates have, as of August 2022.

“Even facing an uncertain future, people still highly value two areas of work life that have gotten a lot of attention since the start of the pandemic: work-life balance, and flexible-work arrangements – including remote work. I expect those two attributes to remain top talent drivers for years to come,” said Jennifer Shappley, VP of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn.

Additionally, LinkedIn also found that hiring is levelling off after historic highs, and discovered that the hiring rate in a sample of 14 countries has decreased in all of them in the past year. In the US, hiring has gone down 13%, in the UK it has decreased by 11%, while in India it has decreased by 18%.

“This year we are seeing a slower pace of growth, as the economy comes back down to earth after a meteoric rise last year in one of the fastest recoveries we have ever seen,” said Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn.

“Nevertheless, labour-market dynamics remain tight. So, in many ways, employees still hold the power to demand more from their employers when it comes to salary, flexibility, and benefits. But this power balance is likely to start levelling out in the coming months.”

The report also found that workers are bracing for an economic downturn. LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index measured eight countries’ candidates’ and employees’ confidence in their ability to better their financial situation, which has decreased or remains low.

The point change from January to August 2022 was -3 for Japan, -5 for the US, and -7 for Germany. The UK came last with -10. However, France ranked 0, Australia +2 and the Netherlands ranked +1.

Employees continuing to prioritise remote working positions comes as some companies have been attempting to usher their workers back to the office.

In May 2022, the widespread return-to-office efforts caused a former Apple executive to join rival Alphabet after he left the company because of its strict return-to-work policy.

Ian Goodfellow previously oversaw machine learning and artificial intelligence at Apple and reportedly left the company due to a lack of flexibility in its workplace policies.

Oracle is taking aim at the global talent shortage with a new platform that promises to build better relationships between employers and top candidates.

The Oracle Recruiting Booster is built upon Oracle Recruitment, an existing cloud-based HR application that connects all facets of a company's HR operation. The Recruitment Booster is an extension of that application and aims to help HR and talent acquisition teams build communities of top talent, accelerate the hiring process, and personalise the experience for every candidate.

Talent shortages, across various industries, have plagued businesses for years, particularly with ever-evolving technologies being embedded in the workplace. The issue has been exacerbated by the mass adoption of cloud technologies, brought on by the pandemic, and also the so-called 'great resignation' where people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their jobs.

Oracle's answer is an automated service that can handle the administrative burden of recruitment so that employers get the people they need, quickly.

For instance, it includes a feature that allows recruiters to create and promote open roles and recruitment events via the Oracle Recruiting job portal. The idea here is to make it easy for recruiters to create event listings, registration pages, and pre-screening questionnaires for specific job requisitions.

There is also a two-way messaging function where recruiters can send and receive text and email messages from candidates through Oracle Recruiting. This appears to hinge on candidates (and employers) having Oracle Recruiting as a preferred communications channel, but it does promise to speed up interactions and make the process more personal.

Oracle Recruiting Booster will also come with its own digital assistant (Oracle Digital Assistant) that will help to communicate with candidates in a 'conversational manner' from any device. Oracle Digital Assistant is an existing Oracle program that will have new capabilities for the Recruiting Booster, such as event notifications and interview scheduling.

What's more, the assistant can also conduct its own candidate surveys and automate certain administrative parts of the hiring process.

"Candidates seeking new opportunities want a simple, easy-to-use, and engaging recruiting process that meets them where they are and doesn't drag out," said Nagaraj Nadendla, senior vice president of product development, Oracle Cloud HCM.

"Oracle Recruiting Booster will help our customers successfully hire talent quickly and efficiently with an optimised candidate experience."

Jobbatical has announced an $11.6 million funding round as it looks to meet the demands of 281 million annual global worker relocations.

The former recruitment business specialises in managing employee relocations for high-growth companies – such as N26, TravelPerk, and Personio – to help make moving countries a paperless process.

Approximately 1 in 30 people decide to move internationally every year, with around two-thirds opting for Europe and the US. Post-COVID, this has increased rapidly as businesses relocate talent to plug gaps created by the global skills shortage.

As a result, Jobbatical says demand for its services has skyrocketed. The company registered 8x annual recurring revenue growth in the last year and 19x monthly recurring revenue in Germany alone, while also becoming cash flow and EBITDA positive. Between January and April this year, Jobbatical’s monthly turnover also increased sevenfold.

“The lockdowns following the pandemic should have slowed us down but didn’t - that’s proof that Jobbatical helps companies battle the largest ever global skills shortage as borderless living becomes the norm,” commented Karoli Hindriks, Jobbatical co-founder and CEO.

“As we welcome onboard these new investors, we welcome decision-makers to prioritise staff retention and increase the flexibility of their working models - including liberating their employees to work from anywhere.”

Jobbatical was founded in 2015 by Estonian entrepreneurs and siblings Karoli and Ronald Hindriks. In 2019, the company decided to shift its business model away from recruitment and towards streamlining employee relocation and immigration processes.

With the product leadership of co-founder Ankur Agarwal, the firm successfully navigated the change and has grown to manage employee relocation across 21 countries for leading European tech companies.

Jobbatical’s latest $11.6 million funding round was led by Inventure, with the pool of investors including Union Square Ventures, Swiss Post Ventures, Karma VC, Metaplanet, Devotion Ventures, as well as angel investors Kristel Kruustük, Indrek Prants, Andres Kull, and former Head of Airbnb Experiences Joe Zadeh.

“At Inventure, we see that the best companies in our portfolio want to offer their employees the ability to work from anywhere in the globe, before Jobbatical that was easier said than done,” said Rebecka Rydå, Investment Director at Inventure.

“Karoli, Ronald, Ankur and the team have shown great resilience and grit to tackle one of the biggest challenges in the future of work.”

There's a shortfall in the number of qualified tech workers available, just as high demand is putting many IT leaders in a tight spot. For years, organisations have had to struggle to get the right talent, at the right time, at the right price. In the UK, this has been made harder by the after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit restricting the flow of skilled people.

For tech organisations and their chief information officers (CIOs), the need to address the skills gap has never been more necessary, or difficult. According to research from Udacity, 52% of UK enterprises are experiencing difficulties hiring employees with the right experience and the right technical skills. The research also found 55% of UK employees expect their employers to invest in their future by providing skills training. Alarmingly, 80% of enterprises consider their skills programmes to be success, versus 39% of employees, demonstrating a disconnect.

CIOs, like many within organisations across the UK, are striving to find ways to plug the skills gaps, and must use every weapon in their arsenal to do so.

What does the skills gap look like to CIOs?

There's always been some sort of skills gap in IT for the best part of a few decades and perhaps even longer. Rhona Carmichael, regional managing director, Scotland, UK North & Ireland, of technology recruiter Harvey Nash, says this appears to be widening. She says a majority of IT leaders are unable to keep pace with change because of a lack of expertise.

“This isn’t just an issue of immediate skills available; it’s much deeper,” she says. “In Scotland, for example, there’s been a 22% drop in the number of Computing Science teachers from 2008 to 2022, which doesn’t bode well for the digital skills gap in the future. According to ScotlandIS, one of the technology sector’s industry bodies, there’s an annual requirement for an additional 13,000 digital professionals, but universities and apprenticeships are only producing about 5,000 new recruits a year."

Many organisations are noticing a shortage of skilled IT professionals and, according to Mark Mamone, group CIO at digital identity company GBG, this is true even for generalists. He adds it becomes particularly acute when it comes to some specific skills like DevOps, data science and cloud engineering.

“There are high levels of demand for these, which in some cases is exceeding supply in a saturated market and this is driving high salaries and has the potential to reduce the quality of recruitment,” he says. Mamone adds this isn't the only headache facing CIOs. “There's also the issue of higher levels of staff churn, increasing remuneration demands and, unsurprisingly, individual job seekers are being far choosier when looking for tech roles. All this means that finding and retaining talent is hugely challenging.”

Christoph Heidler, CIO EMEA at Zscaler, says the last two years have influenced the need for greater agility and flexibility for organisations, with the pandemic functioning as a catalyst. “A lot of organisations have had to search for employees who can manage the shift to the cloud to gain agility and scale,” he says. “The hardware and chip crisis has forced businesses to think about software-based solutions. This, as well as the introduction of automation, based on new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, has heated the skills gap. The bottleneck for many CIOs is to implement these technologies, due to lack of expertise in the area.”

How can CIOs close the skills gap?

For Carl Austin, CTO at global technology and engineering consultancy BJSS, in the short term, CIOs need to focus on optimising recruitment. They need to really care about the candidate and employee experience, and make sure they’re supporting and aligning their values with those they're looking to attract. “In the long term, investing in growing and nurturing your own talent is vitally important," he says.

Helena Nimmo, CIO at Endava, says fellow CIOs can help by focusing on office culture. By creating a strong team culture which has a clear purpose right from the beginning, CIOs will attract more prospective recruits. “By mixing experience levels, personalities and expertise, we can create a well-rounded and interesting team that more talented people want to join," she says. "Building a team and a culture which attracts the best talent is the best way to beat any skills gaps."

Nimmo adds that by recognising the skills gap and evaluating existing internal skills, CIOs can take another step to improving the situation. “Getting external consultants on board can help fill this immediate need, followed by internal training," she suggests. "The focus shouldn’t just be to hire from the market, but also to develop internal skills. The move to the cloud frees up resources which can get skilled-up on advanced technologies."

For all the talk about finding ways to attract fresh blood, Netcall’s CIO Richard Farrell, meanwhile, says that retaining existing employees is key. “According to a McKinsey report, new hires are two to three times more likely to leave an organisation. Not to mention that reskilling is often cheaper than hiring," he warns. "Research also shows that reskilling can pay for itself as much as six times over and saves recruitment and onboarding costs as well as the higher risk of turnover that comes with new hires."

How long should CIOs wait before their plans bear fruit?

Nimmo says that filling the skills gap will take longer than 12-18 months. “The change that is needed is structural, starting from how we approach the topic with our children. Not many ten-year-old kids cite IT as their dream job, it tends to be a choice that comes later on in life,” she says.

Carmichael adds, in her opinion, there won’t be a great improvement in the UK with regards to the skills gap, despite the best efforts of CIOs up and down the country. “Even if the economy contracts, one of the most protected job markets will be tech. Demand far outstrips supply in the UK and I think it will be a while before our current efforts to fill the talent pipeline have any real impact."

Until the government of the day seeks to resolve the wider structural issues that appear to be widening, CIOs must look inward for ways to change processes and policies. Imbuing their team with an attractive and positive culture can go a long way, as can focusing on implementing reskilling and talent retention schemes.

BT is set to hire 2,800 new employees in the UK and India, as it attempts to reduce its reliance on subcontracted labour.

The company is aiming to grow its in-house digital talent staff to 6,300 people by April 2024, from 3,500 at the start of the financial year, it revealed today.

In India, BT will recruit around 1,800 new workers centred around the company’s hubs in Bengaluru and Gurugram. Meanwhile, in the UK, BT plans to on-board 1,000 new employees who will be based around BT’s hub sites in Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Ipswich and London. The majority of the new UK digital talent will be based outside of the capital, and the company added that the new talent should be based at one of the company’s workspaces where possible.

The new talent is set to fill roles in product management, software engineering, cloud, design, data, AI and machine learning, and agile delivery.

The company revealed that its financial outlook remains unchanged for the next financial year as the incremental costs associated with these hiring plans are offset by a reduction in its reliance on subcontracted labour.

“Digital was founded to accelerate BT’s transformation, innovation and return to growth,” said Harmeen Mehta, chief digital and innovation officer at BT. “To succeed, we need to bring in and upskill the top digital talent, and our efforts will boost the tech communities in the UK and India along the way.”

BT will focus on entry talent, which could make up as many of the 400 planned new roles, focused on apprentices, graduates, women returners, and others starting their careers in digital. The company said it was working with organisations like Code First Girls and 10,000 Black Interns and underlined it knows its success lies in working with a diverse range of talent.

The telecoms company said that potential candidates can visit its digital careers site to learn more about the roles.

This comes at a time when several tech companies have cut back on hiring. Nvidia revealed in May it had enacted a hiring pause as part of a way to deal with the rising threat of inflation. Microsoft also reportedly said in the same month it had told staff to be more cautious about recruitment, in a bid to slow its hiring amid a global market downturn.

The technology we use at work is central to our day-to-day lives, giving us access to the systems we need and allowing us to share the work we create. We need to be able to rely on it to support us quickly and seamlessly, so it stands to reason that offering the right technology is key for businesses to attract and retain talent in the modern workplace.

"The PCs a company deploys can directly impact the quality of a candidate they can hire," reads an IDC White Paper commissioned by Intel*. "Increasingly, workers are making decisions about what jobs to take based upon the hardware employers have on offer."

The same paper found that 72% of enterprise IT decision-makers (ITDMs) see the right technology as vital to recruiting and retaining talent.

In a survey of Employee Experience (EX) exploring the KPIs which IT departments are tracking, 43% of respondents said that they had seen a "substantial positive impact" when it comes to the ability to attract the best talent, and 43% said they'd seen a "moderate positive impact."**

For Gen-Z, technology is a dealbreaker when considering new roles. Some 91% said access to cutting edge technology would influence their job choice among similar employment offers†. There is evidence that it can even impact whether employees are willing to recruit friends and family to their business. To make your business attractive to new employees, offering responsive and reliable technology that allows people to get on with their work without unnecessary interruption is a clear must.

A change of form

So, what are potential employees looking for in their PCs? To attract the best new workers, you need to be embracing new form factors, notably ultra-slim, convertible and detachable laptops – like those in the Intel vPro®, An Intel® Evo™ Design range – which "allow adaptability to the way workers are accessing, working with, and managing data", according to IDC's report.

The remote and hybrid working practices that have boomed in recent years have naturally increased the need for competitive businesses to invest in technology.

"People want the environment that's best for them," said Accenture's Technology Trends Report 2021††. "For some, that will mean going back to the office; for some it will mean going 100% remote, and still, others will want a mix. But regardless, this new approach is something businesses must accommodate rather than fight."

Likewise, potential new employees will judge your company based on the technology you can offer. Between an organization with an aging fleet of laptops and one with the newest hardware designed to support the demands of our new hybrid working models, the latter has a clear advantage.

Remote working means switching to cloud-based platforms and more people logging in from the home environment, raising the bar on data security.

Security is a top priority for mid-market organizations (500-1000 employees), with 88% mentioning it as their top priority or a priority in a recent report by Forrester (2021) commissioned by Intel§. With security such an important issue, workers want to know that their machines are sufficiently protected – for the company's sake, and so that they don't find themselves implicated in any serious breaches.

Paying dividends: an investment in the future

Keeping staff happy is paramount in the wake of the so-called ‘Great Resignation’, and technology can significantly boost employee experience (EX).

Over three-quarters of full-time employees surveyed said PCs are critical in their engagement and daily work. In addition, they agreed that PC devices are critical for customer satisfaction (69%), revenue growth (62%), and employee retention (55%)**.

The report also found that technology has the most significant impact on EX of the KPIs employers currently track. Nearly 60% of IT decision makers have seen more than 10% improvement in their EX scores by focusing on improving employees' satisfaction with technology.

"IT decision-makers are recognizing that there is a straight line connecting good technology and good employee experiences," reads the report. "They are therefore investing in technology improvements across the board. This connection was brought further into focus with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Investing in EX reaps financial rewards. Businesses can see a 5x return on investing EX, while a 5% increase in employee engagement leads to a 3% increase in bottom-line revenue**.

Plus, by ensuring that EX is high, your company will be more attractive to new hires, as well as offering an environment where they will want to stay in the long term.

Meeting the demands of a hybrid workforce

In 2020, many companies lacked the 'digital foundation' to pivot to a remote working environment – one that's almost certainly here to stay under new hybrid working models.

To develop this foundation, organizations need to regularly refresh hardware to support their working practices.

Laptops on Intel vPro®, An Intel® Evo™ Design offer a range of features like lightning-fast responsiveness, smooth multitasking capabilities and powerful security measures to support users, and are also easy to manage for IT managers and organizations. By delivering reliable hardware that can be quickly and efficiently managed remotely when troubleshooting is needed – and also reliably supports now-essential activities like video conferencing – these newer devices can help support workers in their day-to-day activities and reduce downtime, ensuring that EX is maximized wherever they're based.

Boosting EX with Intel vPro, An Intel Evo Design

Intel vPro, An Intel Evo Design-based laptops can help to deliver better performance for employees, boosting their productivity and minimizing the frustrating delays caused when hardware cannot keep up with the demands of the user. Batteries charge faster and last longer, and there's more power, too. By enabling workers to feel more productive, you can ensure a better employee experience.

Customer feedback confirms that Intel vPro®, An Intel® Evo™ Design-based laptops are easier to manage, helping to insulate employees from many of the delays associated with hardware issues so that they can instead focus on what really matters – their work.

The bottom line is that when employees get the right tools and their PCs work well, they are more productive, happier and can work creatively and collaboratively.

Laptops on Intel vPro®, An Intel® Evo™ Design are tools designed for the modern workplace, helping to build and support the hybrid working environment modern employees expect. By giving your team these business-class laptops, you can help keep EX high and make your organization a more attractive prospect.

Learn more about Intel vPro, An Intel Evo Design and how it can benefit your business

Intel technologies may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Your costs and results may vary.

@Intel Corp. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel vPro®, Evo™, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

*Source, IDC white paper hosted on Intel UK’s website

** Source, Forrester Research, Invest In Employee Experience (EX), Drive Your Bottom Line Growth, October 2020

† Source, Dell, as cited by Elite Group

†† Source, Accenture's Technology Trends Report 2021

§ Source, Forrester Total Economic Impact of the Intel vPro® Platform

Businesses of every size and in every industry are experiencing a jump in skills shortages, with a recent IOD survey finding that 36% of businesses report skills shortages are having a negative impact on their operations. The accelerated pace of transformation brought on by COVID-19 has caused the already high demand for digital skills to even further outstrip supply. Organisations that were already fighting for digital talent pre-pandemic are now having to compete with those that are shifting products, services and processes online.

The situation is so serious that a recent Open University survey found that more than three-quarters (77%) of organisations in the UK are grappling with a digital skills gap. More than two thirds (69%) put this down to not being able to find and recruit staff with the desired skills, while 62% said they're struggling to upskill their current workforce to close this gap. This is an issue that’s particularly prevalent in the world of IT where technical skills including cyber security, software development and network engineering are found to be significantly lacking.

In short, the digital skills gap has become a digital skills crisis.

Challenges into opportunities

Until recently, much of the focus on closing the UK’s digital skills gap focused on traditional education – encouraging, empowering, and equipping the next generation of workers to develop digital skills from a young age. While this is set to address future gaps, it doesn’t do much to shift the dial today. Employers need to make upskilling opportunities available to existing staff, or open the door to lifelong learning for those wishing to reskill into a digital role.

In a bid to make more immediate and real-world impact, the majority (93%) of UK businesses have taken steps to improve digital skills in-house, via training courses, partnerships and apprenticeships, according to research by the CBI.

The Open University's survey also found that almost half (48%) of business leaders believe upskilling their staff will drive profitability. Some 46% think it will improve productivity and 45% believe it will make their company more competitive. Upskilling was also cited by respondents as a way to avoid expensive new hires by a further 48% of survey participants.

Resource, unfortunately, remains one of the biggest barriers to the success of such initiatives. There are many training options available and all of these need to be balanced against the needs of the business and the personal commitments and job roles of employees. Finding high-quality, accredited, recognised and industry-focused courses – especially courses suitable for all stages of employment – is another hurdle.

For individuals, gaining basic on-the-job skills is one thing, but having a qualification widely recognised by other employers improves their future prospects, as well as their existing ones. This also makes it possible for would-be employers to understand which skills – and to what level – candidates have.

Introducing Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs)

In a move to help solve skills challenges, the UK Government recently introduced Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs). HTQs are qualifications, such as Foundation Degrees or Diplomas of Higher Education, that have been approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Available in England, they are designed to meet the occupational standards for their relevant sectors and each programme has been developed in collaboration with employers and businesses. This means that students – from school leavers to adults – get the specific training, knowledge and skills that employers actually want and need.

Compared to more informal or bite-sized in-house training options and online courses, HTQs provide a high-quality alternative, based on the same employer-developed occupational standards as apprenticeships without the need to find employment as an apprentice. Depending on the course and provider, HTQs can be studied full or part-time, with funding from the UK Government available for people looking to retrain and upskill around other commitments.

“As organisations continue to rely more and more on digital capability, [our survey] shows that it can be challenging to recruit staff into digital roles and keep existing employees up to date with relevant digital skills,” said Jacky Hinton, Director of Apprenticeships and HTQs at The Open University.

“The Open University is proud to be one of the first institutions to offer HTQs in Network Engineering and Software Development, which as the results show, are some of the roles that employers lack and are finding it challenging to recruit for.”

The Network Engineering and Software Development courses have been designed around professional practice in the industry. What’s more, they both build a foundation of computing, mathematical knowledge and skills, before progressing to the fundamental technologies and techniques relevant to the roles in question.

Gaining the advantage

HTQs give their staff the specific knowledge and digital skills to drive their business forward. They help produce highly motivated, trained employees and improve staff retention, all while enabling the business to address the digital transformation of products, services and processes. Benefits that could make or break businesses of the future.

The demand for digital skills is showing no signs of stopping, and neither are the mass resignations being seen worldwide. Businesses that are proactive in their approach to solving the skills crisis will make themselves much more attractive to both current and prospective employees. This, ultimately, gives them a competitive edge among other benefits.

Explore The Open University’s HTQs

Microsoft has announced a set of revised policies that will decrease the legal restrictions placed on US employees, as well as making a number of improvements to the transparency offered by the company in areas such as salaries and civil rights.

It said the new initiatives were made with a view to improving the company’s workplace culture and further deepening the company’s relationship with its employees.

The decision coincides with new laws enacted in the state of Washington, in which the company's Seattle headquarters are located, laws that appear to have influenced at least half of Microsoft's new policies.

The first of the four new changes is the removal of non-compete clauses in new hires’ employment contracts. The company will also ignore all the non-compete obligations that are currently embedded in all US employees’ contracts going forwards.

All Microsoft employees currently have non-compete obligations inserted into their contracts, and a policy to ignore them for existing workers, and eliminate them from future contracts, applies to everyone except for senior leadership members, such as partners and executives.

Microsoft said it rarely exercises these existing clauses, but also does not believe in using them as effective talent retention tools.

“In practice, what this means is those US employees will not be restricted by a non-compete clause in seeking employment with another company who may be considered a Microsoft competitor,” it said in Wednesday’s announcement. “All employees remain accountable to our standards of business conduct and other obligations to protect Microsoft’s confidential information.”

The tech giant has also made changes to help foster a culture that allows for more open discussions about potentially illegal issues that have occurred and been resolved through internal processes.

Despite having existing provisions that allow employees to discuss matters such as their terms of employment or concerns of possible misconduct, there have been occasions where employees have received separation benefits or have settled matters internally and then been bound by non-disclosure clauses.

This appears to be a direct result of the introduction of a new Washington state law, House Bill 1795, which came into effect today, although there is no mention of this in Microsoft's announcement.

Another of the policy changes likely driven by new legislation is Microsoft’s commitment to including all salary ranges on job postings, starting January 2023, the same date that Senate Bill 5761, which mandates clear salary information on new job postings, takes effect.

Microsoft cited its annual equal pay analyses and the company’s ambition “to implement best practices to further strengthen our equal pay approach” as the drivers that informed its decision to stop asking applicants about their salary histories “several years ago”, and that the new policy builds on this “best practice”.

The final commitment by the company will be to conduct a civil rights audit using a third-party company during its fiscal year 2023. It will make the findings public and report on its planned follow-up actions.

“This audit, to be conducted by a third party, will be guided by US civil rights law and Microsoft values with the purpose of identifying areas of opportunity for Microsoft to address,” it said.

IT Pro asked Microsoft if it was considering making similar policy changes in the UK or anywhere else in the world, but it did not reply at the time of publication.

Our new ways of working demand that we invest in digital proficiency for everyone.

The huge shift towards hybrid working in recent years means that there is a growing gap between people with digital skills and those without. To keep up with digital transformation and build a better working future, people need to develop digital proficiency across the board.

This whitepaper explores the state of the public sector in this new hybrid working world and how the cloud can be used to narrow the skills gap standing in the way of transformation.

Download now to learn how to support public sector staff and boost retention in our increasingly digitised environment.

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This automatically-generated transcript is taken from the IT Pro Podcast episode ‘Do degrees make better developers?'. To listen to the full episode, click here. We apologise for any errors.

Adam Shepherd

Hi, I'm Adam Shepherd…

Connor Jones

and I'm Connor Jones.

Adam

And you're listening to the IT Pro Podcast, where this week we're talking about what it takes to make it as a developer.

Connor

It's no secret that we're in the midst of a talent crunch. Software developers and engineers are in more demand than ever, and seemingly every company is fighting for skilled technical employees. At the same time, companies are under increasing pressure to improve the diversity of their workforces, and create more representative teams.

Adam

With all this in mind then, why do so many organisations still structure their recruitment criteria around restrictive ideas of what to look for in candidates? This week, we're joined by Rob Zuber, CTO of DevOps software company CircleCI, to discuss why organisations need to stop focusing on degrees and qualifications and talk about what it actually means to be a good coder. Rob, thanks for being with us.

Rob Zuber

Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Adam

So Rob, to kick off with then, can you tell us how many developers you have in your organisation?

Rob

Yeah, our engineering organisation is about 250 folks, including management, but about 250 overall.

Adam

And how many of them roughly came through what you might call the traditional university route?

Rob

Well, I guess honestly, in line with the topic, it's not something that we pay a huge amount of attention to, because it's not something that we spend a lot of time screening for. But I would say, it's still the vast majority, mostly as a result of the paths that people follow to get into software in the first place. Like the things that that end up filtering along the way, I guess, end up impacting us whether we, you know, specifically look for those things or not.

Connor

Cool. And there are a number of different sort of popular routes into IT in the UK, I've done a bit of work on it in the past, in terms of, well, if you've got the degree route, and then in England, we have well, in Britain, I should say, we have a degree apprentice programme across the country, which is sort of like more hands on with a little bit of academics, maybe like once a week. Aside from sort of the university route, and maybe like, a boot camp, what are sort of the main routes that you typically see when you have applicants apply to you guys?

Rob

Yeah, I mean, there's actually a really broad variety. I would say those are still primary, although, you know, we also have to think about at what stage in people's career are we are we hiring them? You know, we are obviously not hiring all of our folks directly out of college or at that sort of entry level. And so we have folks who have, you know, done all sorts of things to get to the point where they are at higher levels of experience and joining us, and then yeah, we have folks coming in through boot camps, we have folks who, you know, maybe just like, it's hard to say what the path was, but you know, didn't necessarily go to college or university. Sorry, I'll take a small pause. Because as a Canadian living in the United States, the terminology, like I flip back and forth, but I went to university as I would describe it, but here we would call it College, as you know, university versus community college. So but I mean that so a sort of three year community college is a totally viable path. What we would call university, totally viable path - or doing something else. Like we have folks very high in our, in our leadership organisation within engineering who, you know, left high school, went and did other things, found other jobs, and then sort of maybe ended up in technical roles that weren't engineering out of the gate; support, sales engineering, like, oh, you know, I enjoy being around people. Well, maybe I enjoy being around people less than I really liked the software element of it. I mean, I personally do have a university degree, but not in computer science. And so I, you know, I left school, went to work in a in a factory, in a production facility as an engineer, analysing basically, defects and effectiveness of our quality, or of our production from a quality perspective, I enjoyed the analytic piece, started writing software tools to solve my problems personally, and then enjoyed the software more than the factory and you know, some friends started a start up, and there we go. That was a really long time ago, but, and that may be different, right? Like when I look back at the people that I work with in software who graduated in the 90s, you know, when we were going to school, it wasn't obvious that there was a great, you know, that that computer science was going to be the path sort of thing. So people did all kinds of different things. Like some of my favourite software developers have degrees in things like Russian linguistics, you know, like, like, just completely random things. I mean, no offense, those are totally viable degrees, but but then came out and said, this is this is my affinity, in a sense, right? Like, and I think that's really the core of this discussion is not like, what was I taught in school, because, like, to be totally honest, you come out of even a university degree in computer science kind of scratching the surface of what you're going to do as a job. And particularly as you proceed, right, as you grow to higher levels, you move from technical proficiency into a whole bunch of different other aspects of what the job entails. I mean, we were joking before we started that the one thing I definitely do not do now is write code as as CTO, right, so. So the kinds of mental tools that you need to have can be very, very different as you proceed through the levels of software engineering. And so, you know, the technical proficiency, honestly, you could pick up a lot of different ways.

Adam

And also one of the one of the problems that we've heard about with, particularly, you know, university computer science education, is that it takes, you know, takes about three years to go through a standard kind of university course, it's probably taken at least kind of best part of a year to put that curriculum together in the first place, even if it's an entirely new curriculum. Four years in the world of software and technology, you know, everyone listening to this podcast will know, is a aeons. The industry will have moved on so much, by the time you get out of that course, that you'll you know, in all probability, you'll have to relearn a whole bunch of stuff, and unlearn a lot of stuff as well.

Rob

Absolutely. So I mean, I've alluded to it, my degree is in engineering physics. And I often comment that the thing that I learned was to learn a whole bunch of stuff very, very quickly, right? Like it was, yeah, tonnes of courses, tonnes of labs, like just it was a lot of hard content. And I don't use any of it day to day other than in analogies that I keep making that no one understands. The ability to take a complex subject and consume it rapidly is a skill that I learned there. And, you know, did I need to go to a university to learn that skill? Probably not. I would say, the, you know, the first startup that I ended up working at, was started by people that I went to school with. So I mean, that part like, you know, people make allusions to it, but the the networks that we build, the friends that we we make, the ability to learn, or learning how to learn, those are all those are all attributes, I guess, or outcomes of spending four years at a university. And so, you know, if, if you're looking at this from the side of someone who's interested in this career, then those are things to think about, where can I get those things, there's a million places you can get them, it doesn't have to be at school. And then coming from the other side, if you're looking at that, as a employer who's under pressure to hire, to deliver, and in a in a crunch, like, we can be a lot more creative about how we look at folks and ask the questions, you know, are they are they going to succeed here? Right, I think, and can I make them succeed, which I hope is a subject that we'll get into, which is the really hard part, it's easy to say, well, we're just going to change the way that we look at candidates. But most organisations, I believe, are also built to help the candidates that they've been looking for succeed, not the ones that they're now going to go look for. So they have to rethink that piece as well.

Adam

Yeah. So speaking of which, then, where do you think companies should be looking for new developers outside of these traditional kind of these traditional sources, whether that's traditional in the sense of kind of university education, or traditional in the sense of kind of specifically, computer science and software engineering degrees?

Rob

It's a great question. It's hard to describe for me where to go look, I mean, turning over rocks is a really hard thing for all of us. But I, you know, it's a question of understanding what kind of what attributes to look for. And I think that one of the things that I personally look for, this is probably a bias because of, you know, I've spent a lot of my life in small startups is, is best described, described as scrappiness. I don't know how well that expression carries over but, you know, people that have perhaps, left school early, didn't go to college, but started something, right? Didn't, you know, I don't know how to describe it, but just like, I started a little business, whether that's in my local neighbourhood or at some bigger scale, you know, like, even starting an online business is, uh, you know, super simple, I could set something up on Shopify and just be selling something interesting, right? Because I think that, you know, again, talking about that arc of a software developer, at some point you go from do I have technical proficiency to do I understand customers, right? Do I understand the needs of my users? And can I use the toolkit that I've built to support the needs of those users? And so someone who has that mentality, right? And is, is, let's say, excited, hungry, whatever expression you want to use, to really help people succeed, will be able to build out the toolkit, they'll be motivated to build out the toolkit to help them succeed, right? So, I mean, it's an example. It's like, am I going to now go look at all the Shopify vendors and see who wants to come work for us? Like, no, but it's really a question of, like, asking, What am I looking for? Right, like, what attributes do I want? And then where could I go find those attributes? Right, like, I think it's a classic thing in, in sales, to find athletes. I mean, it's kind of a, it's just this connection that I always see, right? Because, you know, they tend to have a lot of motivation, like personal intrinsic drive, tend to be very often personable, pretty comfortable with, with the struggle, you know, like it's a lot. But those people might also make great software developers, you know, with the right mindset, I mean, the other thing I think about with developers is like, puzzles, right? A lot of developers are people who like solving puzzles.

Adam

Well, this is, this goes way back to the Second World War. Alan Turing, when they were setting up the the programme at Bletchley Park to crack the Enigma code, the way they found the candidates to come and work on that was they set a crossword competition in the Times, and everyone who won it, got a letter from the government saying, you know, come on down and work on this super secret project that we've got. So it's, that is a strategy with a long history behind it.

Rob

You know, it's so funny, because I did know that story, but wasn't thinking of it. But it's, it's totally reasonable. And I'm actually kind of terrible at crossword puzzles. So, you know, I'm glad that that's not the only path. But one thing that's great about that, I mean, in sort of in the overall arc that we're that we're discussing is, is the filters aren't the same, right? Like, one of one of the challenges that I think we struggle from when we take these classic views is we're looking at either previous companies folks have worked at and there's this, you know, people are starstruck, I just, I don't even know how to describe it. Like, that's not what matters, schools that people have gone to, whatever, and all of those have filters that are keeping you from seeing the full candidate pool, right? And so, other path, like if you can sit down and think about what pathways might make sense for you, then a lot of those are going to have less of a filter, and give you a broader perspective of the people with the potential to do the job. And honestly, that's fantastic. And at a time when, you know, we're we're all under pressure, number one and two, I think we all realise that actually bringing in a diverse group of folks and having teams made up of, of different perspectives, and different backgrounds, brings value to all of us, right, whether it's personally or as as an organisation and the products that we're building.

Connor

So coming back to our previous point that I think was a really nice segue onto our next question, which was, do you think there's an element of bias among CTOs who have you know, taken that degree-led route themselves? Whether they'll give preference to those who have a similar experience? Just because it may be like the safer option?

Rob

I will say, confidently, although I'm smirking, which no one can see, about how confidently that every CTO is going to have some kind of bias; every everybody has a bias. Right?` And it's a question of what that bias is. I think, you know, as someone who didn't come through a computer science path, my bias is towards breadth, right? But you could probably like, I'd have to sit and think about it now. But there's probably bounds of what that breadth is, in my mind. Right? However, also as an experienced CTO, meaning someone who's been in the industry over 20 years and has, you know, hired a very large number of people or had people on my team hire a large number of people, the other thing that I have in my favour is exposure to breadth even beyond what may have been my bias originally that has continued to prove to me that folks from many, many different backgrounds can succeed, and folks from the classic backgrounds can fail. So that's not the only indicator, right? Like, I think the the, I was gonna call it reps as in repetitions, like just the number of people that you've seen and worked with in your career tends to give you a broader and broader perspective. And if you have the fortune of having that be fairly broad, diverse, however you want to express it, then you'll probably also have the fortune of watching those people succeed, whatever, I won't try to list folks but like, I'm trying to think of what the extremes are of that it's, it's pretty broad, you know, it both in terms of people who have, who have really demonstrated just aptitude, affinity for the types of things that we do, and folks who, you know, have gone through a traditional background, and it turns out, it's not a great fit, which is fine, because they end up going and hopefully, finding something that is a great fit, right? Like the crossover goes both ways, you could totally go get a classic computer science degree from a top university, and have it not be something that you want to do, right. And if it's not what you want to do, like, doesn't matter how much energy you put into it, it's gonna kind of suck, and you're gonna get frustrated, and you're not going to produce at the level of someone who's just fascinated by it. Who could have, you know, any kind of background.

Connor

Okay.

Adam

so speaking as a CTO, then, what would you say is kind of is going to attract you more to a candidate, somebody that has a computer science degree, or somebody that has gone out and got a professional certification, let's say, you know, Microsoft Certified Professional, kind of, you know, AWS certifications, whatever kind of stream you want to you want to go for, which one do you think is, is kind of going to be the bigger indicator for you?

Rob

That's a really interesting question. So now you, now we can explore my biases. Well, let's do this. I think certifications for me land more in the camp that you were describing previously, which is, it's very specific knowledge, you were talking about the arc of four years of university, and you know, how long it takes to even build that curriculum. What I would say, and sort of talking about my own university, like, to me that was about learning to learn, whereas certificates tend to be, I have demonstrated that I have this specific knowledge. And I mean, I am someone who, like, grates at the please have four years of experience with this tool, or this tool or whatever, like, yeah, I don't find that particularly valuable. If you have experience with a breadth of tools, then I get the indication that you know how to select a tool for the right purpose, that you know how to use a new tool when it comes along, as opposed to the thing that you were using two years ago, because one thing we love to do in software development, I mean, is just keep changing all the tools that we use all the time, so that our jobs are harder, it's it's a weird choice. But it's a reality, right? Like that is the discipline is evolving so quickly, that the thing that matters is your ability to pick up new tools, and use those tools to come into a new environment, even you know, within a particular language, right, every company is going to use that language slightly differently. Even the ones that have very strict perspectives, everyone has their own opinion, companies ideally build their own practices and approaches. And so being able to show up and and adapt and use your, you know, your brain in that environment is what matters. So, certificates, I don't find them particularly valuable in evaluating people, I guess, I'd be looking for something else. That said, it's, it's not kind of a either-or, I'm not saying Oh, do you have a certificate or a degree, I think of those as different things, each one would tell me something different. The thing I will say about the certificate is it's a sign of motivation. Like someone has said, I really want to demonstrate that I have the skills to do this job. And maybe I don't have something else to prove that. So I'm going to go put my time and energy into doing this thing. But you could demonstrate that to me as easily with a sample project that you built, or, you know, something that shows me that you have that, you know, there's lots of other ways to for me personally. Now, of course, I am one CTO and as I said every CTO has their own bias. So like don't take my word on how you're going to navigate your entire career. But but that's how I think about them.

Connor

Cool and um, so as an industry we talk a lot about the the benefits of building dev teams with experience beyond traditional engineering backgrounds. But in your experience, which job roles do you think make the best candidates for cross-skilling into technical areas? So for example, is a cybersecurity professional getting really bored with their job? You know, they speak to their line manager and say, Well, I really fancy this change. That kind of thing, that kind of department in a business.

Rob

Yeah, so it's such a fascinating question. I think anything can work. And not everything, or not, I can't think of something that says specifically like this is I mean, if you're talking about cybersecurity, I mean, a lot of our security engineers are software engineers-plus, like, they're really good software engineers who also have a very specialised piece of experience. So if they said, I just want to go do you know, software engineering work in another team, it's kind of a no brainer, right. Whereas, if I look at the other discipline, like we talked about support, right, in our support, to be clear, you're supporting software engineers, like you're, you're very, you are an engineer, basically, you just much more customer facing. And so, you know, we've made that transition a number of times, folks spend a lot of time you know, directly with our customers, they build a huge amount of empathy, they understand our product as a whole better than most of the engineers on our team, because the engineers on the team are working on a subset of the product versus the, you know, the customer's full view. And so when they say, Hey, you know, I'm kind of interested in growing to this engineering, you know, moving into, I guess, it's a different type of engineering, but product engineering, whatever. The response is usually awesome, you know, how can we support you? Like, what do you think you would need to succeed? You know, what, what sort of interests do you have? Like, there's always a conversation, that's a great transition for us.

Adam

I mean, it comes back to the breadth point you were making earlier, right? You know, when you have that experience across all of the various facets of a product or a product portfolio, indeed, it kind of, I would imagine that puts you in a really good position to then start actually digging in and working on it.

Rob

Absolutely. And, and so the understanding of the product, but the the customer empathy is like, you just cannot discount that, right? It's so so valuable to really think about how the product functions from the view of the customer. Like, what problem are they trying to solve? It's, you know, I talked about moving through the the kind of like growing as an engineer, that's where you're starting to really mature is, okay, I have this set of tools that I know how to use, now I really have the customer mindset, I'm thinking about what problem I'm solving for them. So that that's kind of a, again, an easy one. But the the thing that I think is most interesting is the unit of production, if I can be so bold, as to call it that, in software engineering is is generally the team, not the individual. And so as an engineering manager, I am very interested in the overall makeup of that team. And so if I have five, let's say I have a team of eight people, if all eight of them are formerly support engineers, I might not have great value in that, because a couple of them could bring that perspective; then I want a different perspective, right, like someone who understands really deep, gnarly technical systems, someone else who... maybe at some point, just a totally different background.

Adam

Well, one of the ones that we've heard a few times is marketing, actually, you know, people from marketing backgrounds who want to get into the technical side of things. And because they have a lot of kind of experience with team based working and with collaborative working, and with a lot of the kind of, for want of a better term, sort of softer skills, rather than the kind of hard code experience. In a lot of cases, I've heard CTO saying yeah, like the the people that I am most invested in, in keeping hold of and getting more of are people from that kind of that softer marketing background rather than my kind of like, battle hardened, you know, dotnet guys.

Rob

Well, yeah, I mean, first in support, I guess, as a shout out to our marketing folks, like, their analytical skills are unmatched. So when you think about the kinds of things that you're bringing, right, it's a very, very different perspective of it. But most of the people that work in our marketing organisation are very, very numbers oriented, very numbers driven, think about, you know, funnels and pipelines and flows, whatever. And so, again, have a very good understanding of the product, like there's a bunch of reasons that they bring that are, you know, range across all of the skills that you would want to have. And then with that, I would say, sort of, on the softer side, one of the things that you see in teams again, focusing on the team as the unit, is folks who come in and and honestly just make everybody better, whether their specific coding skills, you know, are the thing kind of doesn't matter. Like, there's really important questions that you need to be asking and really important perspectives that you need to have within your team to succeed that have nothing to do with the ability to just write code, right? The entire agile process is framed around rituals of things like, you know, planning, estimating, understanding what the problem is you're trying to solve, connecting correctly with your product manager, making sure everyone has the context they need to succeed as they build, through to retros and saying, you know, how are we doing? Can we do this better? A lot of that, like, that's not what they teach you, I'm pretty sure, in most of your, you know, university education about computer science, but you learn all this theory about how computers work, and algorithms and data stores and all really important stuff. But then you bring that out into, you know, into that world, and the world of of developing, the day to day teamwork, and it's very, very different. And so often, I see folks who, you know, move into a team and accelerate the whole team, not because of, certainly something they learned in - well, maybe they learned it while they were in university, but it wasn't, you know, CS 201 sort of thing. Like, yeah, it wasn't very explicitly explained in a textbook.

Adam

Although I think a lot of, a lot of computer science courses would benefit from having modules on here is how you work with a business, here is how you communicate with stakeholders here is how you, you know, say no to feature creep, you know, all of these kinds of business skills that presently you kind of have to learn on the job as it were.

Rob

Yeah, I, it was a really long time ago. So it's, it's funny that I keep referring to this, but I think one of the most interesting things that I studied in, in my degree was was engineering economics 101 kind of thing like, opportunity cost, right? Evaluating different projects, net present value, you know, like, basically, where should we put our time and energy to drive them at the best return for the business. And to your point, that's a, it's not something that people necessarily sit down and think of and, and those sorts of perspectives, like, that's kind of a first bridge, it's still a very analytical perspective, but those sorts of things you do end up needing to think about as you again, grow, whether it's as a technical leader, in like a more senior engineering organisation, as an engineering manager, as a product manager. You know, those are, those are the kinds of perspectives that we want people to have. And again, at that point, you know, the technical skills are sort of a given. Right?

Connor

So what's, what would you say is the fastest way to integrate someone from a non technical background into a development or engineering team?

Rob

That's a really good question. I would say. It very much depends - it's always the answer to hard questions - in the sense that the things that are going to matter, are going to be different based on what tools that person does have, what they're bringing to the table. Right? So at the point that you're putting someone into a technical software team, you know, whatever we're describing, I would assume they have some sense of software development, some skills, and there's going to be some question about, you know, what is it that we're trying to grow for that person, that's going to be very different. And then they're bringing something else, right, there's something that you saw in that person that said, okay, this person is really gonna be able to contribute to this team. So you want to combine I think two things, one, you want to play to their strengths, right? If someone's coming in, because they bring a very customer perspective, then make sure that they continue to use that customer perspective and bring that to the team. Because for them, that's a much more rewarding experience than just okay, I'm here. I know a bunch of things, but they're not valuable. But now I'm at the bottom and trying to like climb my way up and sort of feel like I'm contributing, right, like, social acceptance, being a part of a team, feeling like you're contributing; that matters to people. So building someone up in that way. And then the other, identifying, okay, where, you know, where their gaps are? Where do we feel like we want to grow this person? And what are they looking to grow? I mean, identifying that I think is really important. And then one of the tools that we use a lot is buddying or pairing. So pairing might be specifically like this programming session, I'm sitting with someone else, we're working together. I'm not sitting here by myself guessing, hoping and then asking for feedback. And that feedback feels intimidating, because I don't feel like I even knew what I was doing, sort of thing. Like working with others is a great way to get that, you know, by osmosis, any way you want to describe it, or you know, someone who's actually good at coaching which is, you know, not everyone but... so some mix there. So, and then a buddy sorry, like very clearly identifying, even when you're not working together, this is someone who's responsible for making sure you have what you need. Because even in a team of six or eight can be a little bit intimidating, and this is whether you're, you know, went to MIT for CS or whether you have some totally different background, you still feel intimidated, like, do I belong here? Do, you know, do I have the skills that all these other people have? So having someone specifically identified instead of just shouting into the void or sort of hoping that someone's going to come and help you, I think is really important. So so much of it to me, to kind of put a bow on that, is building the support systems for someone to succeed. And then the, okay, these are the tools you need, comes naturally, right? Meaning, making them comfortable, giving them some sense that they're contributing, that they have value to the team, like, they wouldn't be there if they didn't, but people don't always feel that way when they show up, and then identifying with them, okay, this is an area you want to learn, you want to work on, here's a project, we can work on this together, probably a small project so we can get some momentum, get something out, you know, shipped, like ultimately feeling that momentum, feeling like you're contributing is the goal. And, and so identifying ways, it's a lot easier for someone in a management or senior role to identify where those opportunities are, assess that they're appropriate for someone new who's trying to learn, then to have that new person look at, you know, a bunch of things that need to get done and be able to say that one looks like it's probably at my skill level, like that's really hard for someone new.

Adam

Well, this has been an absolutely fascinating discussion, but sadly, we are out of time for this week's episode. Our thanks to CircleCI CTO Rob Zuber for joining us though.

Rob

Thanks so much for having me. It's really interesting.

Connor

You can find links to all the topics we've spoken about today in the show notes and even more on our website at itpro.co.uk.

Adam

You can also follow us on social media as well as subscribe to our daily newsletter.

Connor

And don't forget to subscribe to the IT Pro Podcast wherever you find your podcasts. And if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating and review.

Adam

We'll be back next week with more analysis from the world of IT, but until then, goodbye!

Connor

Bye.

The lucrative rewards of the tech industry are enticing a growing number of people into the industry, but while degrees in computer science and software engineering remain widely popular, there are many different ways to prove your credentials as a budding developer - and spending three to four years being taught the fundamentals in the classroom may not necessarily be the most effective.

In fact, for those wanting to make a career for themselves as a developer, the best strategy may be to learn the basics and then get stuck in directly, either through an entry-level apprenticeship or by launching your own projects. We’re joined this week by Rob Zuber, CTO of DevOps provider CircleCI, to discuss the value of some of the less traditional routes into the industry, and the skills that set truly good developers apart.

Highlights

“To be totally honest, you come out of a university degree in computer science scratching the surface of what you're going to do as a job. And particularly as you proceed, as you grow to higher levels, you move from technical proficiency into a whole bunch of other aspects of what the job entails. I mean, we were joking before we started that the one thing I definitely do not do now is write code as CTO. So the kinds of mental tools that you need to have can be very, very different as you proceed through the levels of software engineering. And so the technical proficiency, honestly, you could pick up a lot of different ways.”

“It's a question of understanding what kind of attributes to look for. And I think that one of the things that I personally look for - and this is probably a bias because I've spent a lot of my life in small startups - is best described as scrappiness. People that have perhaps left school early, didn't go to college, but started something.”

“If you have experience with a breadth of tools, then I get the indication that you know how to select a tool for the right purpose, that you know how to use a new tool when it comes along, as opposed to the thing that you were using two years ago. Because one thing we love to do in software development is just keep changing the tools that we use all the time, so that our jobs are harder; it's a weird choice, but it's a reality, right? The discipline is evolving so quickly, that the thing that matters is your ability to pick up new tools, and use those tools to come into a new environment.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• How to become a developer: A beginner’s guide
• How to become a software developer
• Seven skills you need to become a front-end developer
• How to become a senior JavaScript developer
• What should I be looking for when hiring a developer?
• Retrain to be a software developer to future-proof your career
• Nurturing your business’ citizen developers
• How apprenticeships are fuelling the future of UK tech
• Is a degree still necessary to get ahead in IT?
• The IT Pro Podcast: Picking a programming language
• IT Pro Panel: Tackling technical recruitment

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When it comes to discussions around environmental, social and governance (ESG), issues around sustainability and environmental consciousness are usually the first on the lips of tech company spokespeople. Many in the industry are aware of the need to reduce carbon emissions and are pledging to become net-zero emitters. Stakeholders, too, are increasingly pressuring companies to report their impact on the wider world, with the ultimate aim being to achieve the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.

Amid the noise around general corporate ethics, though, the social and governance elements have been falling by the wayside. KPMG’s ESG research, published in 2020, found 79% of more than 800 leaders believed their organisation’s growth would be dependent on its ability to shift to a cleantech economy. Just under half of 110 tech CEOs (45%) surveyed also said they struggled to link their growth strategy to a wider social purpose.

COVID-19 has helped to move the needle by bringing social issues to the fore and forcing companies to consider employee health and safety. This is still, though, a work in progress, with plenty of room for enterprises to address their social and governance responsibilities.

Build inclusive teams

COP26 has recently placed an even greater focus on environmental issues, according to chief digital officer at KPMG UK, Lisa Heneghan, with issues like e-waste dominating the agenda. “I don’t think the S has been completely forgotten, it’s just not the current priority,” says Heneghan, adding companies should, ideally, be tackling all three strands. The problem is they may not have the resources to do so.

That said, CIOs and CTOs can start by rethinking their IT and software recruitment strategies. Enterprises should be hiring diverse and inclusive product development and engineering teams first and foremost, says Heneghan. Teams that are diverse and inclusive are more innovative. It’s also been proven they’re better at untangling complex problems and are often happier and more productive, she points out.

For its part, KPMG announced a two-year programme in February that’ll see young people from underprivileged backgrounds placed in roles they might not otherwise have had access to, especially within its cloud technology division. Trainees will be supported and upskilled by existing cloud engineers.

The firm has also previously partnered with Auticon, an IT consultancy that exclusively employs autistic adults as IT consultants. “Neurodiverse people are consistently underestimated for their knowledge and talent,” says Heneghan. “[Tech] leaders are missing out on the skills and benefits cognitive diversity can bring to an organisation.”

Plenty of research has shown that homogenous teams have blind spots. On the other hand, a mix of different ways of thinking can inspire new ideas as well as lead to teams designing better products and delivering better services and experiences.

Consider your workplace practices

Building an inclusive team is one thing, but then there’s the challenge of retaining the talent. A workplace ought to be one that promotes employee wellbeing. The way employers treat their staff matters more now than it did before the pandemic, especially when it comes to air conditioning and ventilation.

David Hunt, CEO and founder of Hyperion Executive Search, a talent acquisition specialist for the cleantech industry, says he’s seen cleantech firms rethink their employee proposition over the past two years.

“Until recently, there’s been an imbalance on the ESG front,” he explains. “While many organisations have publicly shared their ESG policy, few have afforded equal treatment to the S element of the equation. This is beginning to change, though.

“Their focus is now firmly on setting out their stall as an employer that provides more meaningful employment because of their commitment to both the environment and society.”

Cleantech companies have been addressing issues related to contract workforces to ensure parity with permanent employees when it comes to treatment, pay and conditions. Some have also been screening suppliers for their own social practices.

“This move towards greater social governance has become a business imperative. Employees want it, customers desire it, and investors demand it,” Hunt adds.

Incorporate good governance into your IT strategies

Whether a company decides to report its social metrics externally or internally is down to the leadership team. It’s good governance, too, that ultimately underpins such ESG decisions and transparency.

While there isn’t necessarily too much focus on the environmental aspects of ESG, according to Joanna Burkey, CISO at HP, the governance elements often get overlooked, in her view. It’s important that CIOs and CTOs work with their enterprises to think about how IT strategies promote strong corporate governance, she adds.

“When you think about privacy risk or cyber risk, for example, making the right decisions for your enterprise is all about governance.”

ESG is essentially a risk management framework that puts companies under a microscope and allows them to evaluate their corporate behaviour. By incorporating IT into the framework, enterprises can gain insight into cyber security risks and how these risks may be impacting the ability to meet environmental and social goals.

Any cyber security decisions taken, though, need to be communicated to employees. “If employees don’t understand the goals and reasoning behind your enterprise’s security policies, or if privacy controls are too obtrusive, this can lead to apathy, resentment, or even circumvention,” stresses Burkey.

A strategy that’s clearly communicated can help to attract and retain employees, especially if an enterprise can demonstrate that it’s doing good and can link what it does to a social purpose. Failure to communicate, however, could undermine ESG implementation and lead to enterprises missing out on talent that would otherwise be motivated to help them to achieve their environmental and social goals.

Digital technology has become the foundation of a huge proportion of modern businesses, so it’s little wonder that recruiting the right talent to maintain and expand that technology is near the top of the priority list for IT leaders. Digital transformation is exploding, and demand for qualified staff is at an all-time high.

As part of last month’s IT Pro Panel feature, we asked our community of expert IT leaders what their top priorities are for the coming year, and a substantial amount reported that plugging skills gaps within their organisations and ensuring a steady stream of new technical hires was going to be a strong focus.

This month, we decided to dig into the issue of technical recruitment, looking at why it continues to be so important for businesses, and sharing our panellists’ top tips for attracting and retaining talent. Interestingly, however, while this is a significant part of their strategy for the year, it’s not a new element; for most of our panellists, the rate of technical recruitment isn’t projected to significantly increase compared to previous years. Instead, it’s the result of steady growth in organisations’ digital maturity.

It’s the candidate’s market

“We have a fair amount of software engineering roles open at the moment,” says Moonpig’s head of cyber security Tash Norris, “and whilst we're filling them at a good pace (thanks to some superb in-house recruiters), we are constantly growing. Finding all the software engineers we want is definitely a challenge.”

Guide Dogs CIO Gerard McGovern reports that across his department, more than 10% of roles are currently vacant. One of the main factors that makes filling them more complicated is the extreme level of competition in the market – which means staff have the luxury of being much more selective about where they work.

“The challenge is that over the last two years it’s been both easier and harder to get the right people,” he says; “easier in that everyone recognises that we don’t need people to be physically in the office to work, but harder because everyone else has realised that too.”

“For me, the key thing is to remember that in the talent acquisition journey, you're selling the job as much as the candidate is selling themselves,” says Manila McLean, CIO of Newcastle Building Society.

The growing importance of digital services also means that businesses are no longer just competing with rivals in their industry or vertical for staff. As William Hill CIO Killian Faughnan notes, “for a lot of the skills currently in demand, almost everyone is a competitor for talent,” and this means that filling vacancies is no longer the one-sided effort that it once might have been.

“It feels very much like the candidate’s market and I've certainly felt the need to be more 'sales-like’ when talking to candidates,” Norris says, “focusing on highlighting the unique challenges I'm looking for the role to solve rather than just how our benefits might be better than someone else's. I do think we all have to work harder on how we sell our businesses and our problems to candidates. Our most effective recruiters are basically excellent sales folk!”

“Promoting the total employer proposition is so important,” agrees McLean. “As a mutual and a purpose-led organisation we highlight this, along with total remuneration packages, flexibility and the opportunity to work on some really interesting and challenging projects.”

Buying into the culture

LafargeHolcim EMEA CISO Jose María Labernia also points out the importance of a strong gender balance within the workforce as a recruitment tool. By leaving unaddressed biases in hiring practices or creating an unwelcome environment for female candidates, organisations may be cutting themselves off accessing large amounts of talented professionals.

“The technical competencies are essential, but they’re just the foundations,” McLean says. “It's important to get the right cultural fit. Our diversity and inclusion agenda is really important and we try to demonstrate that we're an inclusive employer throughout the process. I encourage the team to offer candidates to meet a range of stakeholders that they'd be working with so that all parties have the opportunity to check the chemistry before anyone commits.”

This focus on wider business culture represents a growing trend within technical recruitment in particular; as salaries rise throughout the industry, organisations are now having to rely on other elements to differentiate themselves from candidates. Factors may include workload variation, corporate social responsibility positioning and increased personal development.

“We’re finding the tech recruitment market challenging,” McLean admits. “As Tash says, it's definitely a candidate’s market. There’s pent up demand across the board and a general increase in demand for tech skills. About 8% of the roles in our tech team are vacant, and the average time to offer is around one month, which isn't bad – although there are outliers with specific skill sets, such as DevOps and digital product owners.”

Recruiting for specific skills is an eternal challenge for technical organisations, and for Labernia, the high level of specialisation he requires from his new hires combined with the rising demand has made recruitment “very difficult”. He says technical certifications are a good way to determine whether someone meets the minimum requirements for an initial interview, with further technical tests as a further option over the course of the process.

Arrested development

As William Hill consolidates its IT platforms and migrates away from legacy systems, it’s also reducing the diversity of skills it’s looking for. Faughnan, though, reveals this has been a double-edged sword in some ways. “On one hand,” he says, “this is a good thing as it allows for easier internal personnel development and/or movement, but it’s also a challenge, as it means you’re fishing in a smaller pool of candidates.”

The issue of finding skilled employees is compounded further when, as in Moonpig’s case, a specific blend or combination of competencies is needed. It’s finding these multidisciplinary candidates that can be a particular struggle, says Norris, particularly when the skills in question aren’t often used in tandem. She points out that while .Net developers aren’t hard to find, finding an organisation where .Net and AWS are used to equal levels is rarer.

Moonpig’s solution has been to stop looking for candidates that already have all the necessary skills it requires, and to instead prioritise looking for potential recruits that have demonstrated their ability to pick up the skills in question on the job.

“We've got a number of roles open across tech,” Norris explains, “and there's really been a push for all hiring managers to be clear on the problems they're trying to solve so that we can be as flexible in the job description as possible!”

McGovern, meanwhile, expects his biggest recruiting pain point to be finding developers for Salesforce and Jamstack, and notes working in the charity sector can introduce even more difficulties in this regard than those already faced in other areas.

Much of the current candidate crunch being experienced by technical organisations comes down to pipeline shortages; there simply aren’t enough developers and engineers in the hiring market, and a popular solution to this factor is to explore alternative candidate pools. Bringing existing employees into the IT function from elsewhere in the business is a common tactic for doing this, but an increasing number of organisations are also taking advantage of graduate programmes and apprenticeships to bring in more fresh blood.

“We’ve had good results with both approaches,” says McGovern, “and some bad results too. We’ll still continue with both, though.”

Most of our panellists use a mixture of both strategies, acknowledging that both have their own unique benefits. They also require different strategies to manage and often require more proactive onboarding and management than recruits brought in through more traditional routes.

“Similar to the others here, we also have a variety of channels for bringing in new people,” Faughnan says. “Graduates can be an excellent source of new recruits. They require a lot of investment in terms of time, but yield great results. It's a bit of a longer-term process which sees them picking up their own projects internally, presenting to senior management, reporting progress, et cetera, so there's a lot of ongoing investment around how to operate in a business, how to synthesise information and present what's relevant.”

Softening the edges

As previous IT Pro Panel discussions have indicated, these soft skills are essential to building a career as an effective IT leader, and Norris highlights the fact that this is one key area in which cross-training existing employees has an advantage over graduate schemes.

“I find graduates and apprentices can have well developed technical skills,” she says, “but it takes time to develop the business context, communication & stakeholder management skills that come naturally to someone cross-skilling or moving laterally.

“I personally think strong stakeholder management skills should be considered as valuable as a technical skill as it's hard to craft and just as valuable – if not more so. I have a mix of both in my team and I strongly believe that's what makes us most effective,” Norris continues, adding “we'll continue to invest in both routes”.

Regardless of where companies source them from, finding enough candidates to fill open vacancies is enough of a challenge already without having to replace staff leaving the business. For obvious reasons, all of our panellists give equal importance to retaining existing team members, with a variety of suggested strategies for how to keep technical staff happy and fulfilled in their roles.

Pay and benefits packages are understandably key to this, but as with recruiting fresh talent, keeping hold of existing employees often comes down to giving them an environment in which they feel engaged and stimulated.

“In terms of retention, creating a good mood while in the office is key, together with a career plan in which each individual can have a say,” says Labernia, “and obviously the best possible package that would allow any other offers received to be disregarded.”

“It would be wrong to not consider financial compensation as important, especially in such a competitive market,” Norris adds. “I think, however, ensuring there are projects set at the right level of challenge and a clear direction of travel for the individual in terms of promotion paths is really important.”

Chasing your dreams

One interesting tactic being adopted by many engineering and development organisations is to allow team members to pursue personal projects outside of their normal duties. Giving them this time can not only make staff feel valued and supported, but also allows them to flex their creativity in ways their everyday role may not, which may benefit the organisation in the long run.

Every other Friday, both Moonpig and Newcastle Building Society give their tech teams the opportunity to work on personal side projects, development objectives and hackathons. The only proviso is they need to loosely tie these projects into the organisation’s tech stack or business challenges in some way. Both Norris and McLean report the initiative has been a hit with employees and has helped foster a positive internal environment.

“R&D time is definitely powerful for maintaining talent,” Norris says. “We've seen some neat things come out of the time, and it's been a good hook for enticing recruits.”

There are always going to be instances where it’s impossible to hold onto someone, on the other hand. If a developer wants to change careers and go into teaching, for example, no amount of salary increases or benefits upgrades are likely to convince them to stay, and as McGovern points out, sometimes you just can’t retain everyone.

“All you can do is create an environment that makes people happy, with great culture, continuous development and interesting projects to work on,” he says. “People will always leave, for various reasons; we just try to make sure it’s not for a reason that we could have changed.”

“All of the points above regarding internal retaining, cross-training, and internal mobility play a part,” notes Faughnan. “Though, as Gerard said, sometimes there's not much to be done. In those cases, it's just important you're happy for their success, and learn what you can from their departure. How you treat people on the way out is at least as important as how you treat them on the way in.”

“When people leave,” McGovern jokes, “we always order a card from Moonpig saying ‘sorry to see you go but you’re dead to us now’!”

Technical recruitment remains a pressing concern for all our panellists, and indeed for the IT industry at large. The insatiable demand for capable developers, engineers and product specialists continues to expand at pace, and often it seems that it’s all organisations can do just to keep up with it. At the same time, IT leaders must also balance this with keeping existing employees challenged and motivated in order to retain them.

Amidst all this, it may seem like an impossible situation to resolve, but our panellists remain hopeful that the situation is moving in a positive direction. As Faughnan advises, the best way to ensure that your business is in the best position when it comes to securing talent - as with so many other things - is to put into it at least as much as you hope to get out.

“Invest your best people's time into it,” he says. “If you do it right, then the people you're interviewing could be your next cohort of best and brightest.”

This article originally appeared in issue 23 of IT Pro 20/20, available here. To sign up to receive each new issue in your inbox, click here

As businesses redraw their digital transformation roadmaps, and with skills shortages persisting, enterprises are turning to new technologies to improve recruitment. Over a third of employees (38%) are seeking to change roles with the next six to 12 months, according to Personio. Organisations are hoping to slow this talent exodus by adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools – particularly machine learning and psychometric testing – to onboard and retain new recruits.

Human resources (HR) teams are now mirroring the use of automation across the wider business, with systems being used, for example, to filter candidates based on pre-defined criteria. Psychometrics, the science of testing mental processes such as motivation, aptitude and knowledge, is also being used to narrow the field. Recruitment, however, is a sensitive area, and implementing these technologies carries risks, especially given the propensity for algorithms to show bias.

Trusting the machine

With predictive analytics demonstrating successes in other areas of the business, applying these technologies to recruitment is becoming more appealing; having the potential to forecast what talent and skills will be needed in future can be powerful. HR professionals are already incorporating machine learning tools into recruitment to make better decisions: in screening, testing, interviewing, and generating future performance metrics.

Akhila Nagabandi, head of HR for internet marketing firm Pearl Lemon, for example, explains how her firm has used AI to identify and onboard more than 200 employees and interns over the past five years. “We created automated systems that filtered out those who didn't fit our qualifications or who didn't have the proper means to handle the job requirements,” she says. “We've also seen it work against us, however, when candidates feel like the hiring process was impersonal.”

Such tools can be useful, but they mustn’t be used as a panacea for professional HR practices, David Shrier, professor of practice (AI and innovation) with Imperial College Business School, and CEO of Esme Learning Solutions, tells IT Pro. “People are struggling to find a means of predicting success. It’s so expensive to replace a bad hire. As it’s as much as 15 times the base salary, HRs are grasping at tools to try and head off these problems,” he says. “Unfortunately, a number of these tests are unreliable in predicting future outcomes. The industry that sells them, therefore, is making a good deal of money offering psychometric testing, but the results are decidedly uneven.”

Rage against the algorithm

The challenge for all businesses is ensuring any automated systems incorporated into the recruitment process are fair in their approach, and unbiased in the recommendations they make. Amazon, for instance, scrapped an AI recruitment tool in 2018 after machine-learning specialists uncovered a bias against women.

Machine learning systems should be set up and deployed to reduce bias and avoid rejecting potentially ideal candidates, says Josh Bersin, CEO and HR analyst of the Josh Bersin Company. “There are many 'gotchas' when using automated processes,” he says. "The truth is AI systems are always biased in some way, so there's a chance of lawsuits about allegedly discriminatory practices or simply poor hiring styles that leave out great people and irritate job candidates.

“Positive candidate experience is a huge factor in recruiting now. Chatbots and other screening tools work very well in terms of improving this, but they have to be trained by humans on an ongoing basis – essentially, a whole new HR skillset."

In its report on the legal implications of AI in the workplace, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) also found that gaps in employment law could lead to widespread discrimination in the workplace. “Without fair rules, the use of AI at work could lead to widespread discrimination and unfair treatment – especially for those in insecure work and the gig economy,” said TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, in response to the findings. “Every worker must have the right to have AI decisions reviewed by a human manager. And workplace AI must be harnessed for good - not to set punishing targets and rob workers of their dignity.”

Bolstering the talent pipeline

Oracle has previously backed the use of AI in recruitment, suggesting it can allow a business to realise the full potential of talent management. Such systems can personalise career development, optimise succession planning, close skill gaps and steer compensation strategy, the firm argues. Indeed, CV filtering and personality testing, alongside measuring candidate engagement during and after the recruitment process, are already being embraced by HR departments, as they battle to ensure their companies optimise recruitment.

Despite the risks, Shrier only sees this trend expanding. "I think we will reach the period of having AI digital twins interviewing each other, where the candidate creates an AI clone of themselves that gets interviewed by an AI clone from the HR department,” he says. “Properly programmed, this could actually improve efficiency and outcomes, once we’re able to create AI that truly can understand and emulate someone’s personality. Instead of just screening a stale set of résumé statistics, you are getting a sense of the worker and how they will perform.”

AI and HR are fast becoming symbiotic, adds AI expert and author of Deep Tech and the Amplified Organisation, Simon Robinson. “AI promises to truly revolutionise HR, elevating HR into a far more strategic role than it traditionally has had,” he explains. “The challenge for HR professionals is to integrate AI not only into their departmental processes, but to develop a complete understanding of their organisation’s digital operating model to transform the employee experience, accelerate decision making and become more intelligent in automating tasks that free up staff to better drive innovation.”

For all the potential these systems may offer, businesses shouldn’t forget the governing policies that go hand-in-hand with deployment. Ignoring concerns around risks may lead to the unintended consequences of discrimination and bias, as historical examples show. This may come alongside ill-informed decision making if the systems deployed aren’t fool-proof. No matter how far recruitment processes are automated, HR professionals will also always need to oversee the AI tools in use; these systems can improve efficiency in recruitment, but must only be used with great care and attention.

At this point, arguing for more diversity in tech is (or at least should be) like preaching to the converted. Multiple studies have shown the benefits of diverse technical teams, it remains an ever-present topic of conversation within the industry, and awareness of the need to increase diversity has never been higher.

Yet, even with all this attention, diversity across a variety of categories still remains a perennial problem, indicating greater awareness may not be having enough of an impact. So if we know there’s a problem, what’s stopping organisations from remedying it? We spoke to some of our expert panellists about why diversity in tech continues to be such a challenging issue to address, and what can be done to try and fix it.

It’s important to note the last few years have not been entirely without progress. Pressure from both campaign groups and industry bodies has led more companies to implement programmes aimed at boosting diversity and creating more inclusive working environments. As Studio Graphene founder and CEO Ritam Gandhi notes, however, these efforts aren’t yet universally adopted.

“I think the ones that are taking it seriously are either large organisations with top-down direction requiring managers to take it seriously, or smaller businesses and startups that have witnessed the benefits of a diverse team,” he says. “There are a number of smaller businesses in particular who don't prioritise diversity because it simply isn't a high enough priority – as they are battling for survival or growth, and that needs to come at any cost for them.

“I definitely think one of the big changes is the extent to which addressing the lack of diversity is being taken seriously by organisations and policymakers. For instance, I was impressed to see Web Summit giving a 90% discount on tickets for women in tech. One of the big realisations that everyone is coming to is that a ‘heterogeneous’ team can create better technology delivery outcomes to the table because everyone brings a different perspective to the table.”

The pace of change is slow, though, and the problem extends beyond entry-level development and helpdesk roles. According to our panellists, more effort is still needed to decrease gender and racial disparities at the higher levels of organisations.

Pipeline problems

“We are starting to see reports that show growth when it comes to things like the gender split in technology roles in the UK, but we're not seeing that same level of growth for more senior technology roles,” says Moonpig head of security Tash Norris. “This is even more true when you look at BAME representation at director-level and above in the technology sector.

“However, whilst the growth when it comes to greater diversity in tech isn't where it should be, I do think we're starting to see companies make more concrete commitments on their diversity and inclusion agendas. Diversity is so much more than gender and it's refreshing to start to see companies be more upfront about how they're creating more inclusive environments and contributing towards creating good 'pipelines' of talent, as well as nurturing existing talent.”

The question of how to shore up tech’s talent pipelines – the supply of candidates coming into roles for the first time – has been the subject of debate for some time. It’s widely regarded, though, as a critical step for long-term diversity improvements, particularly as it relates to women in technical roles.

“I agree with Tash about the need for diversity in senior roles, but that won't happen unless we are feeding the pipeline,” explains Natural History Museum CIO Alison Davis. “In my experience, when I’ve hired at senior roles, the candidates just aren't there, and this isn't just about how you write the job description.”

Davis’ experience is not unique; even when organisations actively want to bring a greater balance to their senior technical roles, they’re often stymied by a lack of available candidates. This is one of the principal reasons why improving the supply of diverse technical candidates has become such a priority.

“I think the biggest pipeline challenges lie in the deeper tech roles such as security and infrastructure,” adds Manila McLean, CIO of Newcastle Building Society. “I've witnessed over the past few years a move towards a better balance in software development, testing and IT services. In other digital and tech roles such as product design and UX, I'd say we have a really good balance across industry; certainly in the financial services sector organisations I’ve worked with.”

Looking at gender diversity in particular, one of the industry’s biggest goals has been to get more female students into STEM fields at an earlier age, and turning an interest in technical subjects into a fully-fledged career after university. The IT community, according to Davis, could help this effort by doing a better job of communicating that the industry includes a range of roles, from highly technical careers to ones that are much more people-focused, adding “it’s not all about coding!”.

“Alison referenced the importance of encouraging young women to choose STEM subjects,” Norris says, “and I agree this is absolutely part of the resolution to increasing our talent pipeline. At Moonpig we've recently partnered with two organisations, Stemettes and Cajigo to do exactly this. Investing time demystifying our sector and showing that it's a fulfilling (and interesting) career path can go a long way.”

“I agree,” McLean adds; “it starts with grass roots!”

Culture club

One of the key tasks for any company looking to create a diverse environment is to ensure that it’s a welcoming place for different kinds of people. This, however, can be fundamentally undermined by the culture of an organisation, Davis points out, and it’s about more than stamping out overt discrimination or bullying.

“Company culture has to affect diversity,” she explains. “It doesn't matter what you say, if there is an ethos that a company works in a certain way and that is counter to supporting inclusion, then you can have all the policies you like; it won't change. It doesn't have to be overt, but if for example, you’re expecting folks to travel all the time, that excludes people.”

“I do think institutional biases still play a role in promotion challenges,” Gandhi adds, “but perhaps less so ‘institutionally and more down to individual personalities. As individuals, we have personal experience in relation to who we've worked with and how things have worked out – this is controversial, but I do see individuals letting past experiences impact their present world decisions.”

A problematic company culture can manifest in other ways too, such as favouring more aggressive, confrontational management styles that are typically seen as masculine. Placing more emphasis on these kinds of styles can create an environment in which more empathetic personalities are viewed as less effective.

“I think that assertiveness is sometimes a mischaracterisation of being decisive,” says Norris. “Having the ability to be clear on, and committed to, a decision (whilst still being open to fair challenge and even maybe being wrong) is a great skill for a leader. Sometimes, being decisive is also demonstrated alongside assertiveness or even aggression and I believe it's misunderstandings around the skill that's actually being appreciated that can cause challenges around diverse hiring, progression and maintaining diverse talent.”

“Not that long ago, I was told by a fellow CIO with whom I was working on a project that he didn't really trust me to be capable,” Davis reveals, “because he hadn't seen me throwing my weight around, and he thought you had to do that to be a CIO – never mind that I'd been a successful one for a significant number of years.”

McLean suggests one of the reasons why technical roles in areas like UX and product design have a better gender balance than deeper tech areas, like infrastructure or security, may be because these areas tend to use less ‘masculine’ terminology. She also argues in order to improve overall diversity, companies might need to adopt a more interventionist approach.

“I‘ve been reflecting on things like gender quotas and a programmatic approach to achieving proof points in diversity and inclusion, and while I would prefer the culture to drive behaviours and outcomes, I do think in order to see a shift we need that ‘programme and quota’ element until it almost becomes a moot point. I’ve seen initiatives like the Women in Finance Charter, which requires organisations to commit to achieving a better gender balance across financial services, having successes in those organisations that have committed to it.”

Movers and shakers

This approach has gained favour in some circles, but it can be controversial. Some argue this kind of affirmative action can actually be damaging for equality, as it potentially implies someone may have got a job on the basis of box-ticking diversity initiatives, rather than their skills. Others, however, maintain this outcome can be avoided by employing quotas in a thoughtful and considered manner, which is what Norris’ boss – Moonpig CTO and fellow IT Pro Panellist Peter Donlon – has done.

“I initially struggled with quotas,” she admits. “I'd personally hate to think the main reason I got a role (or for anyone at the company to think that) is because I'm female. However, it can drive good behaviours; our CTO has previously said he won't 'click go' on hiring a role until he's seen a diverse candidate pool. This approach has really resounded with me. It's really ensured a lot of us to think about whether we're doing enough to attract (and seek out) diverse talent.”

A good HR team can really make a difference in this aspect. By emphasising the importance of building a diverse talent pool, IT leaders can work together with talent acquisition teams to ensure that a wide enough net is being cast in order to seek out a broad and diverse selection of candidates, while still hiring somebody suited to the job.

“I feel lucky to work with a really talented recruitment team who know how important it is to our team, and our CTO, to see a diverse candidate pool,” Norris says, “which means more than just gender diversity.”

“When I open a new role, our recruitment team will do things like challenge my job description, which I really dig – such as what skills are truly must-have, whether a degree is really needed, et cetera. We do need to ensure that whilst our recruitment teams have tough KPIs around hiring, that we're also making space (and creating a culture) where they feel okay to challenge what we're asking for and how we're asking for it.”

This is also a key part of the conversation McLean’s team has with HR departments and recruitment agencies when filling technical roles, noting that looking for candidates outside of traditional pipelines is one short-term measure she’s considering to boost diversity. McLean’s considering ways to attract candidates who are hoping to reskill and transition into a technical role, “almost like apprenticeships for mid-career candidates”.

“Yes, we have had a lot of success with internal hires,” agrees Davis. “One of our recent developers has moved over from our fundraising team, where she was doing some local data analysis to support operations. Project managers are easy to move around and can then move into technical areas if they want, and we have also had folks move into the service desk.”

“We have real challenges with recruitment because of the comparatively low salaries, which is why internal development is a good route for us. We're also looking at being more creative with apprenticeships, which we hope will open up roles to wider communities.”

Norris has firmly embraced internal recruitment and cross-skilling, but beyond its capacity for improving diversity, she pointed out that bringing in staff from different areas of the business (or different industries altogether) can introduce significant advantages from a problem-solving perspective.

“I'm a big fan of career-switchers! I have an ex-lawyer in my team and an ex-marketing executive joining soon. They have entirely different skill sets and perspectives to the rest of the team and continue to increase our effectiveness as a unit. Their strength areas are ones not often found in traditional cyber security applicants and so they've been able to join and upskill some team members whilst also learning the tech side themselves. I think there's still some way to go for companies to recognise and embrace the value added by mid-level career switchers (and not offer them entry-level salaries).”

Fostering true diversity is a challenge, and despite the industry’s stated willingness to improve matters, factors such as a lack of diverse applicants for technical positions and a need for cultural change have proved to be barriers to companies’ diversity and inclusion efforts.

There are ways to remedy this, however. Improving the pipeline by making technical roles more attractive to people from diverse groups is one strategy, as is mandating diverse candidate pools at the hiring stages and removing unnecessary qualification requirements. Whatever the approach, one thing is certain: the road to a genuinely diverse tech workforce is still very long indeed.