Retaining experienced information technology (IT) professionals is important for organizations, given the challenges in keeping the valuable knowledge and the high cost of sourcing for replacements. Particularly, indirect costs occur when there is a gap between employees leaving and finding replacements as well as time for the new employee to descend learning curve for technical and organizational knowledge. This report includes the main industry trends in IT professional turnover, and recommendations on best practices for organizations to monitor, control, and decrease turnover in IT positions

Jin, Yin

English

DigitalCommons@ILR

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DigitalCommons@ILR 
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Spring 2014 
What Strategies are Most Effective for Attracting, Engaging and 
Retaining Experienced Hires in Technical Roles? 
Yin Jin 
Cornell University 
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What Strategies are Most Effective for Attracting, Engaging and Retaining 
Experienced Hires in Technical Roles? 
Abstract 
Retaining experienced information technology (IT) professionals is important for organizations, given the 
challenges in keeping the valuable knowledge and the high cost of sourcing for replacements. 
Particularly, indirect costs occur when there is a gap between employees leaving and finding 
replacements as well as time for the new employee to descend learning curve for technical and 
organizational knowledge. This report includes the main industry trends in IT professional turnover, and 
recommendations on best practices for organizations to monitor, control, and decrease turnover in IT 
positions. 
Keywords 
human resources, employee retention, retention, attracting technical employees, retaining experienced 
technical employees, technology industry best practices 
Comments 
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Jin, Y. (2014). What strategies are most effective for attracting, engaging and retaining experienced hires 
in technical roles?Retrieved [insert date] from Cornell University, ILR School site: 
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/student/65 
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Yin Jin 
April 10th, 2014  
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
 
Research Question 
What strategies are most effective for attracting, engaging and retaining experienced hires in technical 
roles (i.e. Information Technology)? What are some industry best practices? 
 
Introduction 
Retaining experienced information technology (IT) professionals is important for organizations, given the 
challenges in keeping the valuable knowledge and the high cost of sourcing for replacements. Particularly, 
indirect costs occur when there is a gap between employees leaving and finding replacements as well as 
time for the new employee to descend learning curve for technical and organizational knowledge. This 
report includes the main industry trends in IT professional turnover, and recommendations on best 
practices for organizations to monitor, control, and decrease turnover in IT positions.  
 
Causes of IT Professional Turnover  
In addition to common exit reasons including salary increase, co-worker relationship, overall job 
satisfaction, and leadership support, the factors below have specific contribution to IT professional 
turnover.  
1. Job-task changes: IT professionals are more likely to seek positions that increase in level of challenge, 
and directly contribute to the broader view of the IT environment. Also, IT professionals tend to seek 
positions that provide a better fit for their talents and interests.  
2. Work exhaustion: Insufficient staff and resources, changes in technology and business environment, 
unrealistic deadlines, expectations and needs of users and unclear objective all lead to burnout and 
exhaustion of IT employees. Particularly, changes in technology and unrealistic deadlines are the most 
frequent complaints found among IT workers. 
3. Job opportunities: Although a weak labor market has limited the quantity of turnover, organizations’ 
most skilled IT personnel are still coveted and valuable resources. With solid technical skills and 
corporate experience, these IT professionals are also those most equipped to leave their firm and find 
new work. In addition, access and proficiency in internet significantly increase IT workers’ exposure to 
the market when they start job searching. 
 
Best Practices for Retaining Technical Professionals 
1. Flexibility in management styles may be much more effective than popular methods of flextime, 
telecommuting, and casual dress. At Baxter International Inc., an American health care company with 
good technical employee retention credit, workers can choose among three career tracks: become 
world class experts in their fields, manage complex projects (e.g., designing artificial hearts or 
developing blood substitutes), or manage a technical portfolio (e.g., a range of drugs and devices related 
to kidney disease). 
2. "Keeping current on technology" is No. 1 workplace concern of technical employees, and to resolve that, 
organizations can combine in-house and external resources to meet their training needs. For instance, 
Hewlett-Packard's resident fellowship program, available to R&D workers who have shown special 
promise during several years with the company, allows employees to return to school full-time to get a 
master's degree while drawing a salary and receiving grants for books and tuition.  
3. The opportunity to do exciting and significant work especially with talented colleagues reduces 
turnover of technical professionals. At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, one of the United 
States Department of Energy National Laboratories, employees are challenged by technical complexity 
and cross-team cooperation. As a result, the feeling of “make a difference in the world” helps to increase 
the employees’ job satisfaction.  
4. The management team of Saphikon Inc., a sapphire crystal maker, has a real respect for technical skills. 
Some degree of freedom in project selection is a common job-satisfaction factor among the employees. 
The culture of trusting employees’ technical capability is an ideal fit for curiosity-driven professionals. 
 
Recommendation 
During the research interview, HR managers oted that current HR interventions for 
attracting, engaging and retaining IT professional inside the company include: employee referral, education, 
employee development communication, monetary incentive and rotation program, which covered most 
aspects of technical workers’ retention practice. The below recommendations can be added to  
technical position retention concept. 
Make training less technical. Many technology organizations provide high-quality training on technical 
topics such as requirements management, database design, and programming in a range of languages. As 
critical as these skills are, some institutions are also experimenting with new types of training; specifically, 
providing training that helps technology personnel to understand the actual business operation, which is 
possible by showing the technology’s value and tangibility that provide invaluable context for interacting 
with nontechnology managers. Such training can include information about the company’s customers, 
products, strategies, and market position, as well as its operations.  
Support technology passions. The best people in technology shops have a passion for technology. They 
are excited by the opportunity to use innovative technologies to solve problems. With all the focus on 
top-down management of IT project portfolios, individual innovation and experimentation are easily 
discouraged or lost, and organizations can prevent stagnation by encouraging or rejuvenating employees’ 
passion for innovation. For example, companies can help engineers “recharge” after a long and grueling 
project by allowing them free time to work on ideas they are passionate about. 
Facilitate outside exposure. Technology is a community that extends far beyond any individual company 
or institution. By providing time and opportunities for managers and high performers to participate in 
industry conventions and functional groups, companies can lead technology shops to expand their high 
performers’ horizons and help them to feel connected to a broader technology community. 
Conduct exit interviews. By asking departing employees why they're leaving, what was positive or 
negative about their work experience, etc. management teams are able to adjust their retention program 
accordingly. Efforts should be made on those retention programs actually works.  
Transfer knowledge. Turnover rate cannot be 0. In order to control the cost of knowledge lost and lower 
productivity due to turnover, organizations need to consider knowledge transferring programs such as 
building a community of practice to retain the technical knowledge inside the company.  
 
Conclusion 
Although organizations cannot control every aspect of retention, they can use variety of methods to 
significantly improve their retention rate and prevent turnover. Technical professionals ask for special 
attention to their unique needs such as respect for technical skills, challenging work description and 
flexible management. Employers who specifically work on those aspects will benefit from a loyal and 
well-motivated technical talent pool. 
 
Cited Reference 
 
1. Retention: What are some innovative ways to retain high-tech employees? . (2012, 8 31). Retrieved from 
http://www.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/Pages/retainhigh-techemployees.aspx 
 
2. De Long, D.,W., & Davenport, T. (2003). Better practices for retaining organizational knowledge: Lessons 
from the leading edge. Employment Relations Today, 30(3), 51-63. Retrieved from 
http://search.proquest.com/docview/237054582?accountid=10267 
 
3. Barcus, S. A. (2008). The impact of training and learning on three employee retention factors: Job 
satisfaction, commitment and turnover intent in technical professionals. (Order No. 3381138, University of 
North Texas). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , 69-n/a. Retrieved from 
http://search.proquest.com/docview/304538331?accountid=10267. (304538331) 
 
4. Ang, S., & Slaughter, S. (2004). Turnover of information technology professionals: The effects of internal 
labor market strategies. Database for Advances in Information Systems, 35(3), 11-27. Retrieved from 
http://search.proquest.com/docview/196634520?accountid=10267 
 
9. Dinger, M., Thatcher, J., Stepina, L. P., & Craig, K. (2012). The Grass is Always Greener on The Other Side: 
A Test of Present and Alternative Job Utility on IT Professionals’ Turnover. IEEE Transactions On 
Engineering Management,59(3), 364-378. doi:10.1109/TEM.2011.2153204 
 
5. Niederman, F., & Sumner, M. (2004). Effects of tasks, salaries, and shocks on job satisfaction among MIS 
professionals. Information Resources Management Journal, 17(4), 49+. Retrieved from 
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA177274214&v=2.1&u=nysl_sc_co
rnl&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=71ea98ee6a0e0aaaf1aa9c7bbf6aeb58 
 
6. Joseph, D., Kok-Yee, N., Koh, C., & Soon, A. (2007). TURNOVER OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 
PROFESSIONALS: A NARRATIVE REVIEW, META-ANALYTIC STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING, AND 
MODEL DEVELOPMENT. MIS Quarterly, 31(3), 547-577. 
 
7. Amaram, D. I. (2005). Issues in Recruitment and Retention for the IT Workforce. Journal Of American 
Academy Of Business, Cambridge, 6(2), 49-54. 
 
Recommend Reading 
 
1. (2012). Technical talent management: Sourcing, developing, and retaining technical talent (best practices 
report). Retrieved from 
http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-base/documents/technical-talent-management-sourcing-developing
-and-retaining-technical-ta  
 
2. Paramkusham, R., & Gordon, J. (2013). INHIBITING FACTORS FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN 
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS. Journal Of Global Business & Technology, 9(2), 26-36  


What Strategies are Most Effective for Attracting, Engaging and Retaining Experienced Hires in Technical Roles?

Retaining experienced information technology (IT) professionals is important for organizations, given the challenges in keeping the valuable knowledge and the high cost of sourcing for replacements. Particularly, indirect costs occur when there is a gap between employees leaving and finding replacements as well as time for the new employee to descend learning curve for technical and organizational knowledge. This report includes the main industry trends in IT professional turnover, and recommendations on best practices for organizations to monitor, control, and decrease turnover in IT positions.What_Strategies_Are_Most_Effective_for_Attracting_Engaging_and_Retaining_Experienced_Hires_in_Technical_Roles.pdf: 765 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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