Companies in many industries are facing concerns with skill shortages, particularly with 4 Million Americans quitting their jobs in July 2021 alone. The war on talent is affecting the tech services industry, including large SIs focused on ERP implementations like those in the SAP and Oracle ecosystems. For enterprises embarking on major DOP programs, if talent strategy isn’t already an elevated criteria in your partner selection, it should be.

Customers are already feeling these pain points. Forrester completed two recent Wave evaluations on Oracle Implementation and SAP Implementation Services where we evaluated talent strategy. We spoke with 73 customer references across the 16 SIs evaluated and their concerns reflected the byproduct of those headlines: when asked If you could improve three things about your SI, what would they be? one of the top responses was high staff turnover and their partner’s ability to retain talent. The SIs are reacting, putting talent acquisition and retention at the center of their talent roadmap. Here is a glimpse at some of the ways SIs are fighting “the war on talent,” and providing solutions to your talent questions:

SIs Are Responding To Key Client Concerns About Talent

Leading SIs Go Beyond Technical Skills To Nurture High Performing Teams

Some SIs are going above and beyond to retain talent and offer superb customer experience. A few shining examples worth highlighting:

• Addressing burnout and employee wellness. It’s no secret that high employee burnout from long hours impact the SI talent pool and the social isolation brought on from remote work is exacerbating the problem. Some SIs are focusing on ways to improve employee well-being, engagement, and fulfillment. Digital honors programs and merit increases are some ways SIs are improving employee motivation and engagement. In terms of employee well-being, programs to support childcare, subsidies to support remote work and well-being, and additional flexibility and time-off – like no meeting Fridays!- stand out.
• Skills-based hiring. Many companies are shifting to skills-based hiring, an approach that moves away from traditional job postings to focus instead on filling internal skill gaps. Some SIs are extending this to staffing projects as well, ultimately creating greater flexibility, agility, and faster staffing. In practice, they are building out an understanding of their skill repository, setting up a skill codification mechanism, level of expertise marking, linkage of skill data to their training system, and developing an overall comprehensive employee skill record.
• Focus on diversifying their enterprise apps practices. Diverse teams lead to better customer outcomes and SIs are beginning to put DEI and culture at the forefront of their hiring practices, alongside traditional requirements like skills and background. Soft skills and cultural fit rose in customer importance when discussing strengths and weaknesses of their partners. Diversity programs, like centers of excellence for diversity, women in technology, and university partnerships, are helping bring diversity to SIs project teams. For the first time ever, Deloitte published their “DEI Transparency report,” which publicly released data on the composition of their workforce representation and talent lifecycle data such as recruitment, development and advancement, and retention strategies.

While services firms rely heavily on people, the focus on employee experience as a differentiator isn’t unique to the industry. For tech execs concerned with both your services partners talent strategies, and your own; or looking for ways to minimize burnout and maximize employee motivation and engagement – see these reports from colleagues on retain and attract talent.

The People Leader’s Guide To Burnout

Stop Burning Out Your Best People

Unpacking The Hype About The Great Resignation

 

This blog was co-written with Senior Research Associate, Kara Wilson.