Skills dearth bites SITA

With over 10% of its positions vacant, the State IT Agency (SITA) aims to bolster its recruitment strategy.

Earlier this month, it told the public service and administration portfolio committee that it had 301 permanent and 166 contract positions vacant within the organisation.

SITA said it had 2 347 permanent and 1 062 contract employees in its system.

Chief of shared services, Fatima Habib, has since revealed that most of these vacancies are within SITA's business operations unit. It requires enterprise architects, software analysts, programmers and project managers.

The situation underscores the widely acknowledged ICT skills shortage in the country, says Habib. The poaching of skilled staff has exacerbated the situation, hampering the company's retention efforts.

"It is important to contextualise this scarce skills challenge within the wider concern of approximately 10 000 vacancies, which exist across the country's ICT sector. Our vacancies, however, also stem from natural attrition and significant business growth, for which we require additional manpower," says Habib.

SITA is pursuing measures to reduce the level of vacancies. Filling the positions will enable the organisation to improve productivity and service delivery, and increase its revenue-generating ability, explains Habib.

"Our recruitment strategy is underpinned by a project management approach. This comprises the outsourcing of recruitment and selection response handling processes through increased use of ICT placement agencies, and aggressive advertising of vacancies in high-impact media. We will also undertake campus visits to tertiary institutions to market SITA as an employer of choice, and where appropriate, headhunt key skills."

SITA also continues to employ suitable graduates from its Youth Internship Programme (YIP) in available entry-level positions. The agency has invested R53 million in this programme.

"YIP seeks to raise the skills levels of unemployed ICT graduates through 12 months of on-the-job technical and theoretical training. This makes the graduates eminently more marketable for long-term career positions, both in business and government, where these advanced ICT skills are sought after."

Habib says SITA is working with Deloitte SA to identify critical workforce segments in the organisation, in an effort to develop a comprehensive talent management strategy. The project is expected to be implemented in October.

SITA is also looking to industry programmes to create a sustainable ICT skills pool.

It will host an ICT skills indaba tomorrow, focused on developing a strategy for ICT skills development in the country. Role players from industry, academia and government will be represented, says SITA.

"Additionally, we are developing plans to launch an ICT academy by March 2008, in partnership with government and industry, to address the dearth of ICT skills in the country across the public and private sectors," concludes Habib.