The Covid-19 pandemic that the world is undergoing is causing a huge shift in the functioning processes of companies. Basically, companies are now looking to expand their online presence and to increasingly do business through e-portals. This is causing them to augment their IT staff to handle the newly expanded role of IT. This is resulting in a few challenges that can be easily overcome. They are –
This is the biggest issue facing companies who hire IT Personnel for their IT augmentation. But, believe it or not, the increased demand for IT personnel, as well as the longer duration of their required services, is actually ensuring better quality work as well as an adherence to laid down guidelines. Besides, all it takes to assure quality is stringent checking and an agreed-upon work plan. To sustain the tough times of COVID-19, quality service is the only key.
With rapid outbreak of COVID-19, work from home concept is on a rise. This also gives rise to new staffing trends like hiring people from other remote countries with ability to work as expected. With a rise in such trends, language becomes a real issue as most of the IT companies and personnel usually are from South and South-East Asia while the demand comes from Western Europe and America.
Miscommunication leads to mismatched expectations as well as increased dissatisfaction with the service received. This problem can be solved by simply understanding that a well thought out plan of action and a robust communication medium implemented from the very start of collaborations can more than makeup for any communication gaps.
We just discussed above that the latest staffing trends of hiring people from other countries to work remotely. Another perceived problem with this trend is the different time zones which result in a lot of wastage of time and resources. This problem can be easily solved by the simple implementation of rigid time tables along with almost daily communication between the parties involved. The key here is the regularity of communication as well as a little leeway.
Institutional memory is what a process develops after it has been implemented for a very long time by the same set of people. The core issues and resolutions are then understood in a manner which is easily reflected in the working of the individuals. This is lacking for those IT people who are hired for short term and considering that now projects will be long term, it seems to be a very relevant problem to ponder on, except that the solution is simply to hire the IT personnel for longer periods as well as to have all issues and their solutions thoroughly documented so that the next person on the project will have absolutely no difficulty in understanding the institutional memory for that particular problem and even add to it.
