Staffing refers to the process of finding, selecting, and hiring members to fill in various roles within your organization. Staffing in the field of Information Technology refers to the same thing – the process of finding candidates to fill in specific technical roles within your organization.
However, while this process might sound rather simple, it often involves various roles, including those of the tech teams in your organization and the human resources department.
If you’re looking to staff your IT team and are wondering how to go about it, do it yourself or via IT staffing agencies. This definitive guide will offer you five key things to know about the process as a whole.
What Does IT Staffing Involve?
IT staffing, as mentioned earlier, is the process of hiring candidates for a wide gamut of open roles in your organization’s IT team. These roles could be full-time, contractual, or even part-time or remote. However, the process as a whole can be extremely nuanced, especially with the various niches in the IT world today, along with the need for candidates with similar niche expertise.
These could be in the fields of app development, cybersecurity, data management, and much more. While the process is often best carried out by IT staffing agencies working alongside your organization, it’s most certainly possible for your internal HR team to do so.
However, this requires that the existing team define the exact nature of the role the organization’s looking to fill, so the talent acquisition team can find the right match.
With this out of the way, let’s dive into the five key things you must know about the process of IT staffing.
5 Essential Things to Know About IT Staffing
Let’s look at five crucial aspects one must know about IT staffing.
1. It’s Important to Identify Your Needs
The very first aspect that an organization looking to staff its IT team must consider is what role they want its members to fulfill. This involves creating a list of your projects and short and long-term goals to understand what kind of candidates you need to hire.
For instance, if you’re developing an e-commerce application, you should have a clear understanding of what web development frameworks your team members must know. These could include CSS, JavaScript, Angular, or even Node.js.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for someone in the cybersecurity niche, you must know what their skills are and if they align with your projects and goals.
These needs can also be listed in order of importance so your hiring managers or the IT staffing agency you’re working with know what to look for when sifting through candidates.
2. Analyze the Strengths and Weaknesses of Your Existing Team
Not every organization looking to staff its IT team will have to do so from scratch. Some might already have a certain number of people in their It teams. However, if you’re looking to fill in a gap in your current team, it’s essential that you understand where that gap is, and what skills you need to account for when hiring someone new.
It’s also essential that you analyze the nature of your team and select a candidate who stands the best chance of being a good cultural fit. Further, it’s also important that you assess the strengths of your existing team and find a candidate who can build on it or help you scale your operations in the long run.
3. Training Existing Employees is More Economical
While identifying weaknesses or skill gaps within the existing IT teams, organizations might consider hiring someone new to fill in the gaps identified. However, it’s also essential to evaluate whether or not it would be worth the investment in terms of money and time to hire someone new when you can train your existing team in the skills required.
If this is possible, and your existing team is willing to learn and has the bandwidth to do so, it could potentially save you a great deal of money, which you’d otherwise have to spend hiring someone new.
Remember that any new employee needs to be provided with a salary, insurance, training, and other benefits such as pensions. Further, you’ll also have to provide them with the tools necessary to perform their roles, such as laptops or a desktop.
4. Outsourcing Can be a Great Option
When looking to fill gaps in their existing IT teams, organizations often tend to look for potential candidates themselves. However, this may not always yield the best results. Instead, consider outsourcing your hiring needs to organizations dedicated to connecting businesses with the necessary talent.
IT staffing agencies, for instance, know the best ways to find the right candidates to fill in the gaps in your organization and often also have wide networks of candidates registered with them. Working with such an agency can streamline your hiring efforts considerably.
5. Training Your IT Team is Crucial
Lastly, businesses must realize the value of training their existing employees, along with any new ones they hire. According to statistics, 94% of employees consider training and development an essential policy that motivates them to stay with an organization.
Ensuring that you train your IT team shows them that you value their career growth and in turn, want them to work and grow with you in the long term. This, as a result, improves employee retention while reducing the need to hire new members ever so often.
Conclusion
As you can see, staffing your IT team requires several elements to work in tandem. Be it a clear communication of the IT team’s needs and present skills gaps, or the communication of the roles and responsibilities to potential candidates, there’s a lot that goes into hiring and retaining employees in the long term.
Talent acquisition is an expensive affair, and organizations must ensure they dot their I’s and cross their T’s when conducting the hiring process. However, given that this can be rather nuanced and time-consuming, it can often be a good idea to work with an IT staffing agency.
These agencies have a diverse talent pool and can efficiently match a candidate for the right role, benefiting both the business and the employee.
