A typical image of today’s youth might be of them permanently attached to their hand-held computer game consoles. But while they might love playing with technology, they are not, it would seem, so enthusiastic when it comes to learning what makes computers tick.
This dichotomy has led to quite a lot of public hand-wringing lately. Last month, Margaret Sambell, head of strategy at E-skills, the government-funded skills organisation for the IT sector, raised the worrying prospect that, unless British universities adapt, businesses will turn to China and India for recruitment.
“The focus of IT systems now is on business change and how technology can be used to help companies address new markets and attract clients. To do this, students need to understand about business and dealing with customers,” she says. “Our research tells us that more than 30 per cent of employers say there are problems recruiting IT graduates with business skills and 40 per cent say there is a shortage of interpersonal skills.”
The need for action is clear. In 2001, there were more than 27,000 applicants for IT degree courses; now there are half that number. An obvious target group is women, who are massively under-represented in the sector. This year, Microsoft bewailed the shortage of women working in the technology industry and said that pregnancy was a particularly acute issue. The speed of technological advances meant that, by the time a woman had returned from maternity leave, the technology had moved on, leaving them familiar only with obsolete practices and products.
So, in short, the problem is not enough people and not enough well-rounded ones. In response to this, E-skills joined forces with a number of universities and the software company Micro Focus last year to create a more business-facing course — Information Technology Management in Business (ITMB). The degree course is now early into its second academic year.
Micro Focus says the goal of the course is to underline the importance of core IT systems and skills in the COBOL programming language. Recent research by the company using 650 customers and prospective customers revealed that more than three quarters of chief information officers expect the recruitment of COBOL programmers to remain a key focus. However, 73 per cent indicated that trained COBOL professionals are hard to find, Micro Focus found.
The ITMB course, which is being run at 13 universities, has been developed with employers, which also provide mentors for individual students. It combines pure IT with classes in business, management, accounting and teamwork. “Our view is that there has been a big disconnection between what students want to study in IT courses and what the industry needs,” says Aaron Ramadoss, head of the Academic Connections (Action) programme at Micro Focus. “There is a very worrying drop-off in the number of youngsters wanting to get involved in pure programming because of the level of maths involved.”
He adds that many employers have IT platforms that are perfectly adequate and run well, but they are having a problem keeping them going. And the reason why, he says, is that they can’t find the people to run what are often perceived as old systems. “The youngsters don’t want to learn those systems because they think they are out-of-date, not realising that there are employers in desperate need of those skills,” he explains.
Ramadoss believes that, by creating a degree course that has been heavily influenced by a core group of major employers, E-skills and Micro Focus have been able to support a content programme that is not only more relevant, but also more attractive to youth because of its broader approach. The course is made up of 35 per cent business, 35 per cent technology, 20 per cent communication and 10 per cent project management.
“What’s great for the first students – who are now in year two – is that they have met with these employers at a couple of social occasions we have had and they can see that there are jobs more or less lined up for them when they qualify,” says Ramadoss. “Because of this, they are an incredibly focused group.”
He believes that the greater diversity of subject matter is also vital in attracting more women to a sector that has been traditionally male-dominated. That challenge is one that is widely acknowledged. “In fairness, retailing is probably one of the more go-ahead sectors,” says Triangle business development director Karen Dyke. “Across the industry as a whole, the male/female split is pretty even and we’re seeing senior IT positions starting to be filled by more women.” However, she adds: “I think many youngsters see IT courses as architecture – and programming – dominated. I think it would be much more appealing if they could see the context of it all – retailers need to find people with the right mentality.”
And Dyke believes that the issue of operational effectiveness is no longer about technology, but about personnel who can make the crucial difference. “If you look at the systems retailers use now, everyone has great point-of-sale systems, the latest merchandising systems and so on. These things alone don’t give you a competitive edge any longer,” she says.
“What does make a difference is getting the right staff to implement these systems who understand retailing and can see the wider context. That comes right down to the in-store staff. As we know, there are issues about the dynamics of shop staff, with a lot of part-time workers, a profile of very young and middle-aged staff and high turnover. So, with any IT system, it is crucial that it is easy to use.”
Ramadoss also points out that for women entering the IT sector, the opportunities are very good. “IT has generally attracted a very male group, but the women who come into the sector tend do very well because they bring a different approach and mindset to the industry,” he says. “We hope that, by creating courses with more of a business appeal, we can help attract more women at the starting point.”
Reassuringly, there are plans to address the decline in student take-up of IT education. Supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Revitalise IT initiative brings together employers, universities and schools to help prepare the future IT professionals.
It is based on two themes. The first element, AmbITion, focuses on changing attitudes and stimulating demand among young people for technology-related degrees and careers. It will include an emphasis on widening participation in higher education and improving the gender balance in IT. The second, Catalyst, focuses on degree curricula, promoting the skills graduates develop from different types of IT-related degree courses and encouraging curriculum development in areas of industry growth.
Partners committed to Revitalise IT include John Lewis Partnership, Vodafone, Microsoft, Logica CMG, the BBC, Cisco, Apple, Accenture, as well as the University of Kent, University of Greenwich, University of Reading, Oxford Brookes University, University College London and City University London. The initiative will focus primarily on London and the Southeast and will run from this year to 2009. It is expected to involve more than 40,000 students and it is hoped that success will stimulate and lead to similar programmes in other parts of the UK.
A spokesman for John Lewis says: “Traditionally, John Lewis Partnership has had a policy of recruiting from graduates across a wide range of disciplines to its IT departments at both John Lewis and Waitrose, not just IT graduates.
“We then train them in the specialisms specific to JLP. Consequently, we’ve been able to attract a wide range of graduates, which is also helped by our approach of recruiting people who we believe will be with us long term. Also, possibly as a result of our policy, a third of our IT department across both John Lewis and Waitrose are women, which we would imagine to be well ahead of industry norms. The female/male split across the whole business is 60/40.”
Charted Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) learning, training and development adviser Victoria Winkler says that her organisation is seeing John Lewis’s approach elsewhere more often. “CIPD research shows attracting people with the relevant skills is a major challenge for most organisations – regardless of sector – and has left organisations facing a war for talent.”
Winkler explains that, to combat these recruitment difficulties, employers are increasingly aiming to position themselves as an employer of choice, by looking at how they present themselves to candidates and what they offer.
“In terms of external recruitment, a lot of work is being done in how employers brand themselves, how they demonstrate their ethics and values and other related factors that might attract someone to their organisation. It’s really about demonstrating that wider package to potential employees,” she says.
And, rather than pick purely from IT-trained staff, Winkler believes that more employers will increase their focus on potential. “To coincide with these recruitment efforts to attract external candidates, many organisations are responding to skills shortages by appointing people who have the potential to grow, but don’t yet have all that’s required. Others are using training to allow internal staff to fill posts,” she says. “So learning and development activities are vital to ensure that the workforce is kept up-to-date with changing skills demands. Actively developing employees should not only increase the internal talent pool, in turn reducing their reliance on external candidates, but also ease problems with retaining staff due to new career opportunities.” Ensuring the best IT talent is not just about recruitment, but looking ahead too.
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