How to make productivity a differentiator for your technology team
Every IT leader knows that demand for technology talent remains high.
In the UK, half of all tech hiring managers plan to expand their workforce in the coming year. Within certain sectors – including financial services, e-commerce and fintech – demand is sky-high. Meanwhile, the costs of hiring are significant – both in terms of onboarding and training new employees, and in losing the institutional knowledge that existing employees bring with them when they move into a new role.
For IT leaders, this means attracting and retaining talent is a key strategic priority as 2024 kicks off.
As wages rise and remote work means talent is receiving offers not only from local competitors but also from companies around the world, maintaining workforce levels can be a tough task.
Part of the solution lies in increasing the skills available. That’s why I’m a strong supporter of programs like CodeYourFuture, which equip refugees and displaced people with advanced technical skills. It’s a win-win in the best sense of the word: those who need it most get a foot on the ladder of a rewarding career, while organizations across the country gain access to incredible new talent.
But in addition to attracting new employees, what can you also do to keep existing teams satisfied? Speaking from experience, the best developers, engineers, and other technical specialists are typically not driven by benefits, but by productivity and access to best-in-class tools.
Empowering technology teams to have an impact
Technology and IT staff are often your problem solvers. They want to take on a challenge, figure out how things work (or why they don’t work) and build new innovations. That requires a high level of collaboration, but it also means they don’t want to get bogged down in processes, or lost looking for important information while switching between the many tools.
Too often, our teams can’t focus on the work that really matters to them. Overall, more than half of workers report being relatively unproductive at work. And that leads to disengagement, a lack of motivation and – yes – the likelihood that they will seek a productive environment elsewhere.
Senior Technical Director, Slack.
To make productivity a differentiator for your business, you need to give your engineering teams the right platforms and processes to increase impact, without getting bogged down in administration and endless context switching between tools. There are a few ways you can do this – and integrating your tools into one platform is an important first step.
Instead of spending hours switching between Jira and their email inbox, or a helpdesk software platform and video calls, keeping everything integrated can help tech teams stay on top of the latest notifications from a single productivity platform. They can even take action – for example close a ticket – without having to leave the platform. That means fewer headaches associated with opening and closing twenty windows and a hundred tabs, and more time to focus on solving problems.
Focus on intelligent productivity
Building on these integrations, think about how you can help automate certain tasks for your engineering teams. That could include setting up automations for file sharing, invitations to ongoing meetings, and access to the right communication channels for a new employee – all with a single click. Or it can automatically notify a specific team member when a particular ticket is created. Another example is automatically collecting survey feedback at the end of a quarter. The sky is the limit: today, creating and implementing automation is easier than ever.
All of this can be used to help your technology team spend less time on mundane back-and-forth and more time on compelling work. In other words, it creates a more attractive workspace.
Meanwhile, with the rise of generative AI, this era of intelligent productivity will evolve even further: from AI-powered code reviews to more intelligent search functions that help people find important information faster.
While that means more opportunities for the engaging work that keeps teams motivated and happy, it also means that companies that don’t focus on technology productivity are likely to fall even further behind in the race for talent.
Preparing tech teams for success
Competition for technical talent will always be tough. To take the pressure off that search, you need to build an environment that not only appeals to great new hires, but also accommodates your existing team and helps them make an impact.
That starts with looking at what really appeals to tech tenants: problem solving, clarity about their role and the ability to act quickly. By removing the barriers to these priorities, starting with integrating tools and automating processes, IT leaders can give technology specialists what they really want: a workplace that gives them the freedom to focus on the work they’re there for. accepted.
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This article was produced as part of Ny BreakingPro’s Expert Insights channel, where we profile the best and brightest minds in today’s technology industry. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Ny BreakingPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing, you can read more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro