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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”.