Attracting, developing & keeping people a low CIO priority

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 23 March 2010 17:22

IT People - People

Australia's chief information officers are finding the battle to attract and retain IT expertise hotting up, but don't have fixing the problem high on their priority list, according to Gartner.

Gartner has released results from its 2010 CIO agenda survey of 1586 CIOs globally, 67 of them from Australia and New Zealand.

According to Linda Price, group vice president Asia Pacific for Gartner Executive Programs, 2009 was the most challenging year for CIOs since the survey began in 1999.

She said that CIOs were finding it harder to attract and retain skilled IT personnel, and the shortage was resulting in increased rates for contractors, and pushing up salary levels. "I was talking with a large Government IT department that had just lost four senior people in the past week," Price said.

According to Price CIOs surveyed recognised the need to raise IT skill levels but few were making it a priority. 54 percent of CIOs surveyed said they did not have the right number of skilled resources, but they did not list building IT personnel as one of their top five priorities.

Only 19 percent listed this as a top five priority and only 27 percent of CIOs believed they had the right number of skilled IT resources.

When asked to select the top five priorities that they expect to focus on in 2013 ANZ CIOs collectively put attracting developing and retaining IT personnel in ninth position.

When presented with a list of 10 issues for 2010 to 2013 and asked "which one will be the most important issue facing you and your IT organisation between 2010 and 2013" ANZ CIOs collectively rated "assessing and securing the right level of IT skills to deliver IT's mandate to the enterprise" as almost the least important, in ninth position.