http://cio.co.nz/cio.nsf/depth/DFC18A4D92BDED3ECC2576AF006BF91B

According to the story and recruitment and human resource outsourcing specialists Robert Walters, “the Asia Pacific is currently experiencing what is likely to be the fastest turnaround in the IT recruitment market in history. This is particularly evident in markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore, where job opportunities available through Robert Walters in IT have more than doubled in the last six months.”

The article contains a warning to employers that they need to constantly examine compensation models “to make sure they are being calibrated with a fast-moving market in order to stay competitive”.  They also need to prepare for a shortage of talent and examine how they plan to attract and then keep senior people.

In the New Zealand market last year I think we had two issues that affected the roles for IT professionals:

1. The recession
2. The change of Government, line by line reviews for government agencies and ,much overdue for some, reorganisation.

Private sector organisations, apart from consultancy companies were of course mainly affected by the recession.

The CIO article makes the point that banks are leading the hiring recovery and that  ”the level of hiring going on currently is competitive and bringing up compensation levels quickly, especially at the VP level.”

The Government sector has been slow to recover.  Some government agencies “froze” for some months; not helped, I suspect, by a  lack of direction by central government, and a lack of  IT governance knowledge.  This put, and continues to put, major pressure on the IT industry in Wellington. The issue is when the work to be done is prioritied which companies and contractors will still be around to complete it? 

Already the 2010 year has started off much more boyantly than 2009. It is as if organisations woke up just before Christmas and decided that their legacy systems did still need to be replaced, that they did need to add value to the business through new systems and processes, and that citizens still deserved to see efficencies in government, enabled by IT. In fact this investment will make them more competitive and better able to ride out the turbulent next few years.

I remain optimistic that if the right people engage on government-wide education, and then co-ordination of IT governance then we can meet both government and private sector goals for cost savings and IT enablement at a much quicker pace (see http://www.maxsys.co.nz/?p=517 by what we mean by IT Governance).  Of course, we at Maxsys can help with this.

So where will this lead us skills-wise. Well, I direct you back to the article written in 2005. I believe it still holds true and will do for many years to come.

In these recessionary times, some shortsighted organisations are letting extremely skilled and hard to replace IT staff go without I suspect an assessment of whether they will need them in the near future.

For a company in trouble I can understand the rationale to immediately cut costs, for others though, in recessionary times there are real benefits that can be gained from streamlining IT to better serve the business and add more value.

In some specialist areas, letting people go (intangible assets in some cases) may also have more long term effects and potentially affect an organisation’s ability to compete at a later date as these staff turn to other occupations or they gain employment with other companies.

At the same time as a recession we are also in the midst of a global IT skills shortage.  As well as making this shortage worse if people leave the industry, when projects are approved or things pick up, the IT personnel will not be there to recruit. This makes this a risky tactic.

The message: 

Think carefully about:

• How long you are delaying projects for
• How strategic your IT staff and systems are to your organisation
• Instigating a strategic planning exercise now to confirm which projects will add the most value in these recessionary times.

Project Team members with the Secretary of Transport and the award. Murray Wills on the far left.

 The Nielsen Norman Group, based in California, are recognised as world-leaders on corporate culture and the human-centered product development process.

The Intranet Design Annual is coveted by software firms, companies and government as the authoritative source for best practise in intranet design and user experience.

Nielson Norman Group have been releasing a “10 Best Intranets of the Year” list since 2001 and say that this is the first time a New Zealand designed solution has ever made the grade. The intranet is based on SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) and uses Liverton’s inSide product as a floor plan and organisation chart. More details on the awards can be found here. http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2008/awards.html

 The 10 best-designed intranets for 2008 list are:

• Bank of America, US
• Bankinter S.A.,
• Spain Barnes & Noble,
• US British Airways, UK
• Campbell Soup Company, US
• Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, US
• IKEA North America Service, LLC, US
• Ministry of Transport, New Zealand
• New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Australia
• SAP AG, Germany

According to selector Jakob Nielson, consistent design and integrated information architecture are becoming standard on good intranets, to be awarded a place in the 2008 awards list candidates had to show they could also deliver productivity tools, employee self-service, access to knowledgeable people (as opposed to “knowledge management”) and better-presented company news.

Murray Wills says that “it was a pleasure to be involved. It is nice to see an intranet which is loved by the users, and even better to see it internationally recognised”. “The site was a team effort by a lot of people and organisations, Maxsys, Provoke, Liverton, Beath, and the Ministry. He is full of praise for Stephanie Beath, an intranet useability expert who managed the project for the Ministry and came up with the original information architecture for the site. “Steph did a wonderful job, and her vision was contageous.”

Over the last year the intranet has been recognised as an exemplar, and that’s “just great, according to Murray.. It’s nice to see a good news story and New Zealand showing the world “yes we can!”

Murray