Prateek Garg, CEO, Progressive Infotech briefs about the top 5 trends in the IT industry as it has become a hub of startups.

A fact that most businesses tend to overlook is that their ‘true’ identity is neither the superlative end products, nor the skyscrapers or retail stores where they operate from. Their identity rests within the most fundamental units constituting the enterprise, i.e. their employees. However, managing, retaining, and engaging the workforce in the IT sector has become a daunting task for any Human Resource professional. As the IT sector is witnessing a mushrooming of enterprises and start-ups, the competition for attracting and retaining skilled workers is intense. This makes engagement a vital component for HR professionals of IT organizations, in order to minimize attrition and optimize the motivation and productivity of employees. Thus, let us analyze top employee engagement trends influencing the IT industry as well as the broader market that it caters to:

i. Employee experience takes precedence: The corporate culture across IT organizations is experiencing a paradigm shift. IT companies are going beyond the idea of merely retaining employees. They are now integrating the core dimensions of engagement, culture, and performance management, to bring about a more evolved ‘Employee Experience’ for their workforce. We are also observing a more proactive usage of technology in the HR functions, deploying pulse feedback tools to understand employee sentiment, facilitating new-age communications convenient for the workforce, productivity tools to make performance more conducive, and employee wellness applications to ensure a holistic work-life balance. This enables the forward-looking enterprises to establish and evaluate employee journey map, which is quite similar to the customer journey maps that customer servicing teams sketch to visualize and enhance their customer experiences.

ii. Human Analytics: A survey conducted by PwC has revealed that 86% of organizations are either developing or enhancing their ‘people analytics’ in the coming one to three years as a ‘strategic priority’, while 46% respondents already having dedicated people analytics team. But what is this human analytics? Today, a majority of organizations rely on the perception of a manager or a recruiter to judge a current or prospective employee. But this judgement is prone to inaccuracies which can ultimately result in inefficiencies and friction. Human analytics is the process of using data analytics to make these judgements free from human biases and oversights. This makes management of human resources backed by credible data.

iii. Strong Company Culture: Today, businesses are focusing more on developing a strong and distinguished company culture. This is to ensure that the entire organization generates a unidirectional effort to achieve a company’s business objectives while keeping its core values intact, and keep this culture intact by aligning their current and prospective employees with it. This also creates greater consistency across all customer and service touchpoints. In the near future, more companies are expected to lay emphasis on developing a strong corporate culture, mission, with the employer brands focusing on creating and promoting the image of extending a fair, inclusive and honest workplace.

iv. Emergence of Gig Economy: The gig economy, also known as the contingent workforce, refers to a growing number of independent specialized professionals who are breaking the traditional 9-6 job and taking work as a freelancer. The so-called “gig economy” is altering the way that professional view and perform work, and organizations must be ready to respond with innovative policies and program. According to a survey done by “The Times Group” company called- 'Gig economy: The rise of mobile workforce', reveals that 41% of HR professionals think IT and tech sectors will emerge as the largest employers of freelancers. HR leaders should look beyond traditional resumes and enterprise employment models to find talent and should develop methodology to incorporate Freelancers into existing organisational workforce.

v. Diversity to propel businesses on their growth trajectory: A report released by McKinsey & Company ‘Delivering Through Diversity’ in early-2018 found out that the companies in top quartile of gender diversity were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability and 27% on superior value creation. Similarly, top-quartile companies for ethnic/ cultural diversity were 33% more likely to have an industry-leading profitability. The study conducted on an array of market verticals and countries further revealed that the companies that belonged to the bottom quartile of gender and ethnic/cultural diversity were 29% less likely to achieve above-average profitability, making them lag within the respective industry vertical that they cater to. Organizations are becoming more inclusive and promoting diversity within their workplaces. Diversity and inclusion is a business responsibility, not an HR responsibility. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house