ManpowerGroup: Shortage of skilled IT workers in Greece

The shortage of skilled IT workers is one of the biggest obstacles to digital transformation, ManpowerGroup points out.

As the HR consultancy reports, as effective as new technologies are, they must be designed, implemented and operated by experts – and they are in short supply. “ManpowerGroup’s research data clearly captures the challenges of the talent shortage. According to the Annual Talent Shortage Survey of the ManpowerGroup group for this year, 8 out of 10 (81%) Greek employers report difficulty in finding specialized talent, while in terms of technical skills, 23% state that IT / Data skills are lacking.

Up-skilling and re-training

According to data from ManpowerGroup’s Hiring Intentions Survey, 53% of IT employers are choosing to Re-skill workers and 51% are choosing to Train and upgrade their current workforce to address the shortage of skilled staff.

The biggest challenge of Greek employers (27%) regarding retraining / upskilling programs is the fact that “employees do not have enough time to be able to proceed with retraining”.

However, ManpowerGroup’s guide presents 9 useful suggestions on upskilling and reskilling workers and preparing companies for the next phase of digital transformation, as it finds that building a ready workforce is high on the agenda of many CIOs ( chief information officer) and CHRO (chief human resources officer).

The nine propositions

Here are 9 suggestions for securing the IT workforce:

• Establish strategic HR planning for digital transformation
• Track, promote and leverage incentives
• Solving the “obsolete technology” problem through reskilling
• Automation requires workers and skills
• Utilization of business know-how from all available human resources
• Re-skilling as a path to excellence in cyber security
• Creating choices and transparency for employees
• Upskilling/reskilling enhances employee engagement
• Collaborate to scale