20% of IT staff underperform

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 02 Oct 2008

SA's IT sector skills deficit is exacerbated by the fact that more than 20% of current IT workers are underperformers, says Siemens IT Solutions and Services.

“Underperformers account for 20% of a company's workforce,” says Aldon Dickson, business operations director for Siemens IT Solutions and Services. “You have to keep all your top performers and non-performers in check so they don't slip.”

Dickson notes that top performers tend to take initiative with projects and take charge of a situation, as well as have good ideas and drive to achieve tasks at hand. Underperformers are perceived as employees that need to be micromanaged.

“Every employee, even those considered to be underperformers, become more valuable to an organisation, especially given the considerable human and financial resources taken to recruit them in the first place,” says Dickson.

He explains performance management is the remedy for underperformance. Dickson says the performance management process facilitates the proper management of underperformers to become valued contributors by not downplaying or stifling the development of those who are perceived as other than “top talent”.

Facts and figures

Earlier this year, the Department of Labour compiled the first National Master Scarce Skills List for SA, which indicated the country has a critical shortage of nearly 40 000 ICT workers. The total figure of professional ICT workers needed is 37 565 and covers areas as diverse as sales, human resources and technical workers.

The results of an ICT skills survey, conducted recently by ITWeb and the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering, found the 'real' skills shortage going into 2009 could be as high as 70 000 practitioners.

Last year, then deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said government would “aggressively” target the ICT skills shortage through a number of interventions, including providing incentives for school students to study in science- and technology-related fields.

This is as the ICT skills shortage is seen as one of the binding constraints on the country's development, as identified under the deputy president's Accelerated and Shared Growth-SA initiative.