IT Employment Trends
By Robert Greene, Synergy America
Traditional modes of employment are changing at a rapid pace. Ten years ago temporary employment was generally the domain of office workers. Hired directly or through agencies, temporary employment now encompasses all occupational groupings from the most junior to the most senior levels. This trend is likely to continue as industry endeavors to adopt tighter cost control measures in an era where maintaining a competitive edge requires operating at increasingly lower profit margins. We are now seeing the emergence of a new breed of employee – the “professional temp.” Many organizations are rapidly moving towards a project-based mode of operation that results in the necessity of flexibility for staffing. Organizations will operate with a core group of employees and “top up” with contractors and temporary staff for specific projects. Payroll will become more of a variable overhead than a fixed cost as organizations embrace this mode of employment. In response, employees will need to become more adaptable and project-orientated. They will need to be multi-skilled and technologically proficient. There will be no time to become acquainted with a task. It will be a matter of hitting the job running.
Synergy America, Inc. is an IT solutions and staffing company that works closely with its clients to make this employment transition in the marketplace. Established in 1993, Synergy America helps clients evaluate their existing resources as they consider their broader strategic resource needs. The IT industry has vigorously embraced change in the last few years because of marketplace demands. The key is how companies manage the impact of change. If not managed properly change can lead to resource allocations that are non-essential to the viability and growth of a company’s core assets.
Synergy America works closely with the IT leadership team to ensure that they develop the right resource strategies between contract, contract to hire and permanent employees to manage the demands of change. The most important assets are the employees and the impact on the local community when change is a necessity to improve the financial viability of a company. Mani Krishnaswamy is the founder and CEO of Synergy America who believes companies need to focus on the re-employment of local employees when displaced by IT changes before considering the prospect of outsourcing.
Synergy works hard to identify local IT resources that are cost effective to meet the budget requirements of many IT organizations before the prospect of outsourcing. Should outsourcing be the only viable option, Synergy America has the capability to identify the best-outsourced solution for both the IT leader and the company.
Companies that are able to put their employees first and create a resource plan to meet their strategic IT requirements will clearly have a competitive edge. They will become an employer of choice, and be recognized for anticipating the evolving trends in IT employment.
