Over half of employers concerned about employee IT literacy
The Confederation of British Industry, the UK’s leading business organisation, today released its 2008 Skills Survey of 735 firms, employing 1.7 million people. In a press release issued in conjunction with the report, the CBI revealed, “It is striking that over half of employers (53%) lack confidence in their ability to find enough people with the right skills for their business.”
The report found that employers are particularly worried about their employees’ IT skills. Over half of employers (56%) are concerned about the ability of existing employees to use computers. Most firms (69%) are investing in training to raise IT skills of existing staff.
As Terry Doherty at Doherty Associates explains, “In this CBI study, it has been clearly reported that employees are not keeping pace with the rapid development of information technology. When you factor this into the current economic situation, now is an ideal time to outsource IT support. Sourcing IT staff can be difficult and expensive. Firstly, as the survey shows, there is a severe shortage of skills. Secondly, there is the fact that recruiters who are not from a technical background themselves will often struggle to vet technical candidates. Thirdly there is the cost – the average annual salary of an in-house IT Manager is in the region of £50,000. That’s a substantial overhead, especially when you consider that a company’s IT requirements will peak and trough over the course of that year.”
As an alternative to expensive recruitment and training, Doherty Associates offer outsourced IT support solutions that take all the hassle out of IT and free both employers and employees to focus on their business. Doherty’s clients have access to a complete, highly skilled IT team at a fraction of the cost it would take just to employ one full-time, in-house, staff member.
For more information, please call one of Doherty’s account managers on 0208 987 1150.