November 14, 2007 in Industry News, Talent by admin
Simpl Group chief executive Bennett Medary launched his CEO’s blog today with a broadside against talent poaching.
Medary, who took to the blog this week joining the likes of Jim Donovan from Fronde and Xero’s Rod Drury, says the TUANZ ICT Skills Shortage conference may not have acknowledged some realities about how services companies are really managing the talent crunch.
He says two other strategies are in play in addition to those covered in the “virtue” press given to the conference. One is robbing “Peter to pay Paul”, where service providers fleece established projects to service new contracts “they could not otherwise possibly fullfil”.
The second is poaching.
Medary says “vendors with the deepest pockets target and ‘buy’ specific talent required for immediate deployment to meet new or unfulfilled commitments. This often has the secondary effect of wounding the competition (and their customers) — killing two birds with one stone.
“Neither response is good for the industry or its credibility with customers!”
In a remark that appears to be targeted at Gen-i he comments: “Vendors with 50 – 60 vacancies each month do not have time for graduate programmes and other long term training/recruitment approaches! We have had a number of key staff specifically targeted by one large vendor recently, and my industry colleagues assure me that we are not alone.”
Medary concludes offering to sign mutual non-poaching clauses with anyone “and publish who is and who is not willing to do the same”.
66 Responses to “Broadside on Talent Poaching”
Steve Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 4:57 pmTo me this market at the moment is a very competitive, candidate-short market. If you want to succeed out there it’s really a “get big or get out” mentality at the moment. As long as it it done professionally I can’t see why there’s a problem it happening. I’ve been in the IT recruitment industry for over seven years now and it happens (professionally) all the time. The key is to create an environment where your staff are happy to stay.
MC Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 5:23 pmCompetitive advantage comes from getting the best people therefore I advocate I free market where we work to get the best and keep em! Can’t manaufacture a non-poaching status as it doesn’t reflect the real world.
DM Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pmTalent poaching is reality. A poor employer has the mindset of threatening people with court action. I was told about one story this week where the management from one company (that was recently acquired) has decided to enforce a rule of ‘no huddling’ in the office as this was considered to undermining management. Staff are also being told that if they are not in the office between the hours of 9-12 and 2-4pm then they must advise their manager (presumably to stop staff attending interviews). In my view, Talent poaching only happens to companies that deserve it.
DJH Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 7:17 pmI agree with Steve. The CEO should be less worried about what his competitors are doing and more worried about creating a positive working environment so that when the inevitable head-hunting call comes, his key staff have no reason to leave his company.
Adam Says:
November 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pmWhile I sympathise with the managers and C-level people out there, trying to hold it all together in the face of an increasingly competitive job market, I can’t help but feel that management need to maintain a real focus on keeping staff interested and excited about their jobs and the companies they work for.
IT workers are a strange breed, if you can give them a real challenge, with well defined rewards they will think twice before moving on. Too often managers blame competitors for staff losses, maybe they should focus instead on providing a worklife that staff can enjoy.
Julian Stone Says:
November 15th, 2007 at 3:11 pmCompetition and poaching are always part of the IT game. It’s not nice, but if you need to expand and there’s no IT staff – you unfortunately have to consider it. Just remember that what goes around comes around, so look after your employees…
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