Altron Karabina pioneers Smart Skills Sourcing programme to plug the IT skills gap for customers who can’t hire.
While the business confidence index in South Africa rose in July, signaling the gradual return of normal business activity, the volatile rand, increasing rates and price pressures across the board are holding many businesses back from investing in crucial skills needed to complete their recovery and grow their business. However, without those skills, they won’t grow and so there’s a need to redesign the process of getting skills into businesses in a short amount of time so that their impact is felt quickly.
A chronic skills shortage in the technology sector makes this exceedingly difficult. The amount of time and resources that businesses must invest just to find the right candidate, and then retain the candidate in a highly competitive environment, is often more than many organisations can bear. Beyond this, hiring full-time staff may carry too much risk – especially if a new project or opportunity only spans six or 12 months.
Only recently, a partner business – much like many other businesses in the country – found themselves in dire need of critical IT skills. The irony is that the business was forced to undergo a retrenchment process as a result of the pandemic squeezing the life out of the organisation’s sector. However, today the business has an opportunity to scale but is still not in a position to make a long-term commitment.
On the other hand, it’s not only businesses that are recovering that need IT skills urgently. Sometimes businesses just need additional technical capacity to deliver on projects, without the need to create new jobs.
How then, does one navigate this delicate environment where skills are needed to make an immediate impact without the burden of embarking on a long-term employment journey?
Of course, companies could engage independent contractors directly, or work with recruitment agencies. Technical IT skills, be these data scientists, software engineers or any other specialised position, are notoriously difficult to come by precisely because what a CV says and what a candidate can provide are not always the same. This is not a criticism of recruitment agencies or any other intermediary that assists with sourcing skills, rather, it is a recognition that a thorough technical assessment by in-the-field experts is generally required before businesses can even consider a candidate or else, they will be stuck with contractor churn and wasted time and resources.
Altron Karabina has built a reputation for delivering successful implementations of solutions across a wide range of industries. One of the key drivers behind this has been our recognition that top-tier skills are non-negotiable. With this, we pioneered the Smart Skills Sourcing programme that plugs the gap for businesses that need agility, speed and top skills without the long-term commitment of hiring.
The programme is underpinned by the understanding that IT skills are highly specialised and go far beyond what recruiters can glean from a CV. Beyond that, as consultants, one must also understand that a certain type of candidate would be ideal in a customer-facing role, while others are better suited to backroom work.
Harnessing this acute knowledge of the IT industry, in the context of the critical skills shortage, our Smart Skills Sourcing offering provides businesses with an alternative, and highly effective and efficient route to filling key roles in their organisations and projects, without the need to onboard and manage the talent – which is all managed by the Altron Karabina Smart Skills Sourcing team.
By Diane van Zyl, Lead: Smart Skills Sourcing at Altron Karabina. For more visit: https://altronkarabina.com/
