The Hindu Business Line : Companies facing staff shortage at middle level

Although this problem has existed in the past, it is now pinching the companies harder in the wake of the industry’s strategy to reduce bench strength in a bid to improve productivity.

It is known that in a typical IT organisation a middle management employee — a project leader or project manager — handles 15-50 subordinates in his team. With companies reducing their bench strength (comprising mainly junior employees) to deploy as many employees as possible on new projects, these figures have skewed further.

“Top IT exporters are facing 30-40 per cent shortage of middle management personnel who can handle project execution,” says Mr Sanjay Teli, Managing Director, ESP Consultant India Pvt Ltd, an executive search company.

He attributes this to the lack of eligible candidates within companies and in the outside market. This can be linked to the IT industry slowdown in 2000-02 when fresher hiring was frozen and these candidates joined other industries.

Existing middle management candidates in the IT industry today are seeking new opportunities and open to joining other industries, says Mr E. Balajie, Chief Operating Officer, Ma Foi Management Consultants.

This scenario has led to IT companies hiring candidates off the market at about 30 per cent premium compared to last year, says Mr Senthil Kumar B., Manager, Business Development, Krownos, a year-old company that facilitates middle and senior level placements for the IT industry. “The requirement for middle and senior managers is on a weekly basis,” he says.

Krownos has placed over 200 candidates in the salary bracket of Rs 4 lakh - Rs 30 lakh. Besides external hiring, companies are also increasing their pace of internal promotions. “Typically companies promote 20-25 per cent of the workforce so as to build an internal reserve of senior people. But this year the figure has increased,” says Mr Balajie of Ma Foi.

Will the current pace and price of hiring project leaders and managers dent companies’ bottom line or affect the quality of project delivery? Human resources consultants do not think so as they feel the companies are large and profitable enough to cope with this scenario.

Ms Nandita Gurjar, Vice-President and Group Head, Human Resources, Infosys Technologies, told Business Line in an email that the company hired managers from the market “whenever there is a requirement” but did not see any “trend of paying a premium” for them.

IT companies including Wipro Technologies, Cognizant Technology Services, Satyam Computer Services, Aricent, HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services and Patni Computers did not respond to Business Line on this issue.