People power

Bangalore, Oct. 26: The information technology sector is facing a shortage of middle-level managers, where those with four to seven years’ experience fit in.

The problem is being felt in Bangalore, and especially outside it, as few in this category want to move to Chennai, Hyderabad or even upcoming Pune, where opportunities are increasing.

Gautam Sinha, CEO of TVA Infotech, which has been recruiting IT professionals for top-notch firms, puts this down to the dotcom bust at the start of the decade.

“The problem is partly due to the dotcom bust when IT companies kept off campuses for two academic years, 2000 and 2001. Another reason is the high attrition levels.”

The industry is brimming with talent when it comes to those with less than four years’ experience, with companies recruiting steadily at the rate of one lakh freshers a year.

“They are a young, mobile population looking for good salaries. But the problem is in the middle management levels. They are family people and not as mobile. And if they choose to take up assignments, they ask for outrageous salaries,” Sinha said.

Although the problem is expected to ease out over the next two years with the juniors moving to the next level, companies and recruiters are trying every trick in the book to retain talent and sustain their levels of growth.

“The companies are hiring those with three-and-a-half years’ experience and training them to be managers. We are also looking in-house and promoting people with shorter experience as managers. They are being put in charge of projects,” an IT company’s human resource vice-president acknowledged.

Sinha said companies have realised the importance of mid-career training in filling this gap. Infy, Wipro, TCS, Satyam, Cognizant and i-Flex have regularly been training a pool of personnel.

“The key to continuous growth is to have training across technology and management practices. A company cannot go to the market every time there is a vacancy, for that is costly and the time-frame does not allow it. In-house training is certainly helping,” Sinha said.

Another way is to identify team leaders and pay them more. Software salaries have risen by 15 per cent in the past year, but the hike hasn’t been uniform.

“The top 20 per cent are paid above market salaries. This is expected to go up further because companies will increasingly guard and protect these professionals.”

Compounding the problem is the high industry attrition rate — the average for the country is 20 per cent.

In Bangalore, where a third of India’s estimated 7 lakh IT population works, it’s a little higher because of better opportunities.

“But attrition rates have more to do with company size. The smaller companies have a rate of 35-40 per cent while in the larger companies it could be as low as 15-20 per cent,” Sinha said.

It also depends on the type of work. Attrition levels are very high in the IT services (such as banking services) because of more demand and opportunity, but the salaries in this sector are lower than in IT products (such as those who write codes).

Although there is no shortage at the entry level — Wipro and Infosys together added 15,000 employees in the last quarter — Nasscom has predicted a 10 per cent shortfall.

But the worry is more about quality than numbers.