By Subrato Bandhu, Regional Vice President, OutSystems
The war for talent continues unabated. This is specifically true for the IT sector, as a surging digital economy has meant that the demand continues to be high, and employees today have more choices than ever before. This is corroborated by a report from staffing firm, TeamLease, which states that the Indian IT industry recorded 25.2% employee attrition in FY22 and that pain will continue as it loses talent to other industries. As a significant percentage of the employee base consists of software developers, IT companies have to think of a long-term strategy to address this serious issue. This is not only relevant for India, but organizations around the world are feeling the software developer squeeze, with more than 330,000 developer jobs open today and demand reaching more than four million by 2025, according to research firm IDC.
Understanding the root cause of attrition
A new report from OutSystems shows that attracting and retaining software talent starts with understanding what developers want — what motivates or annoys them, and how to keep them feeling challenged and satisfied for the long term.
The report findings show IT team and C-level executive insights for retaining talented developers, and opportunities to attract new developer talent as competition tightens. Key findings include:
● Developers love their jobs, but retention is a challenge: In India, 54% developers say they love their jobs, compared to the APAC region where 59% of respondents say the same. However, 59% of developers in India said they would “definitely” be with their current company a year from now (compared to 48% of global developers).
● Only 19% of developers in India say they are very satisfied with their salary/benefits, compared to 49% of global respondents. However, only 16% believe that there are abundant opportunities in the industry and that they could easily get a better position right now.
What can be done?
India today is undoubtedly a major technology hub and IT leaders have to start looking beyond just hiring talent with relevant expertise to meet their digital transformation and innovation goals. They need to recognize the need to adopt innovative digital solutions that will optimize resources, alleviate workloads, and supercharge productivity. In this context, adopting a digital solution such as a low-code development platform could ease friction, toil, and resource issues that continually test developer motivation and frustration.
Low-code development platforms offer many significant benefits. Of all the benefits of low-code development, the ability to accelerate the delivery of new software and applications is the most important. For example, low-code platforms offer features such as drag-and-drop functionality, pre-built user interfaces, and models for business processes, logic, and data models, which enable the rapid development of full-stack, cross-platform apps. Further, easy to implement APIs and connectors integrate with third-party tools that developers already use, so no time is lost due to a learning curve.
Low-code platforms also help enterprises pivot to new digital initiatives caused by abrupt market changes and new consumer and customer needs. For example, enterprises can deliver cloud applications that integrate with some legacy systems or take advantage of pre-built templates to speed up development. This enables junior developers and tech enthusiasts without a strong background to build apps as if they were full-stack developers. Similarly, it empowers skilled developers to work more efficiently, so they can focus on more complex, less mundane aspects of programming.
Keeping developers happy and motivated
The report from OutSystems cited above, validates the significance of low-code platforms for developers. The survey results indicate that low-code users – most of whom also use traditional coding languages alongside – experience greater satisfaction around workload, shorter work weeks, more career growth, and fewer other factors that contribute to burnout. More than half of low-code developers reported that they were very satisfied with both team productivity (59%) and the quality of tools at their disposal to complete their work (57%). Conversely, less than half of traditional code users reported similar feelings around team productivity (41%) and developer tools (36%).
More than 71% of low-code users said they were able to stick to the typical 40-hour work week, compared to only 44% of traditional developers. Additionally, 60% of low-code developers indicate they are happy with their salary and benefits, compared to 40% of traditional developers. Low-code developers have received an average of 3.5 job promotions at their current company, while traditional developers have been promoted just 2.0 times.
If one looks at the data above, we can correlate and map this to the key reasons why developers leave their jobs – work-life balance, career progression, and salaries. Data from the survey indicates and guides us on how low-code platforms can make a difference.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, companies could attract and retain developers with creative office spaces or free lunches. Now, with many employees working remotely by choice, leaders need to be much more thoughtful about how they support their teams. Some of the friction lies with pay and work-life balance, but in today’s work-from-home world, self-motivation and productivity are some of the toughest challenges — which can be addressed with low-code tools, processes, and support.
