Emerging Trends in IT Industry!
The emerging trends in Information Technology sector have considerable relevance for countries like India. In a state like Kerala Information Technology enterprises are instrumental in providing a new lease of life for its fading industrial map. generates several new issues for the new generation computer and IT professionals.
Implication for employees/recruits given the sad history of non-IT industry failures in Kerala, the mindset and work culture of IT professionals has to be modulated before they become employees. An IT professional is subsuming, slowly, a set of work values, which has a globalized color to it. The natural tendency on the path of any new employee is to,knowingly or unknowingly, work in the legacy of the existing work culture.
The strengths and weakness of a company’s human resources can have determining effects on the viability of the firm’s strategic options. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the different dimensions of the changing human resource requirements of IT companies. These requirements or expectations of the companies are in terms of their personal qualities and capabilities, both technical and non-technical of the human resources. In short, the expectations from new generation IT professionals are a shade different from professionals in other industries.
These requirements are emerging out of the factors such as the globalized economic environment, intensified competition between IT companies for performance and output, the often occurring need for change management and similar challenges on time management emerging especially from international projects. The international nature of projects also makes the teams spread in a wide geographic area. Such projects also impact on the nature of work resulting in increased work pressure in companies and on employees.
In some IT companies, absence of a formal performance appraisal system and tough performance standards in work is another challenge flexible work time including rigid work time schedules exist, also has ramifications for employees. Employees have to work continuously and at odd hours, which increase the complexity of human resources management as motivating and rewarding them appropriately becomes challenging.
Another critical aspect is the increasing significance of team and teamwork. New professionals entering IT sector need to refine their capabilities to work in teams, as teams are the hallmark of IT project management. The criticality of teams in work situations, competition inside team, performance affected by inadequate attention to people and teamwork issues are all situations and contexts which the new generation IT professionals have to understand and equip for. Therefore, HR Management of IT companies will have to take adequate mechanisms to recruit professionals who would be compatible and conforming to these work situation requirements.
Therefore, HR department of IT companies have to take care of team building efforts and enhance the quality of teams,performance based promotion system, is becoming very important while attrition– talented employees leaving the company is increasing the headaches of IT enterprises delivering the solution within the specified deadlines, etc.Programmers find it difficult to build relationships. Programmers has been observed to be quick in seeing the project from the user’s point of view, This can end in team failure. There are many cases of this sort.
From what is stated above, it is clear that the human resources management strategies in IT companies are distinct. This is because the work culture and environment of other companies have to be distant from IT companies. Given these specification and peculiarities in IT enterprises, the personal qualities and traits expected from a professional are distinct and different from the requirements of other enterprises. These being the mandate, software/computer professionals aspiring for first time employment need to condition their mind and work perceptions in such a way that it will be compatible with behavioral expectations of these IT companies in their, rather unique, work environment.
Generally, a child growing in Kerala is unwittingly exposed to certain work related values such as ‘working less and getting the best remuneration’ as good and acceptable. According to these values, deadlines and work pressures are undesirable. Standards of work output are locally defined. In IT companies, such definitions are in the context of an international work environment.
Another important quality required in prospective job seekers in IT industry is ‘tolerance to ambiguity’. Tolerance to ambiguity is a capability to tolerate behavior deviance from colleagues and superiors. In the context of Kerala, by social tuning, a young professional do not undergo positive conditioning on this trait because of ‘Kerala psyche’. Coping with ambiguous situations and contexts are, therefore, generally found low among average young professionals team work and this quality.
The new work culture of IT companies also rewards the best talents and persons with the best output. Another related dimension is the survival of the fittest in a globalized work culture. The nature of jobs and their duration are also changing. Compared to the past, contract jobs are becoming a thing of the present in most IT companies.
If any company think that HR dept is the only dept responsible for team building, work culture, motivation etc.. then its not gonna work. My view is if all the above things have to work in a firm it have to start with the team leaders itself. Because HR dept cant look into each employee individually...
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