5 Insights from MENA Employers on Retaining Tech Talent

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Finding and hiring the right tech talent is not the easiest task. In fact, many employers struggle a lot with it. But when you finally get to have the right talents on board with you, how do you retain and convince them to stay longer at your organization?

Let us introduce you to 5 Golden tips to retain your tech talents, especially in the MENA market.

First things first
Why tech talents leave organizations?

 • Limited Skill Developments Opportunities
Many tech talents find themselves in a job where the learning and growing curve is limited. They join companies at first with big ambitions and spirit, and then after a few months, they find themselves with minimum value added to their skill level. This drives them to feel rusty and missing out on opportunities, so they start searching outside your organization. 

According to a report done by LinkedIn Job Switchers Report, 36% of tech talents leave their job as they want more challenging tasks to allow them to develop more skills, and 47%  remain in their job because they think their companies offer them a better fit for their skills and interests.

• Lack of Growth & Career Advancements
Organizations with no career development plans for their tech talents experience a very high turnover rate. It is very essential for talents to know where they might be in the following years at the same company because it impacts their performance a lot.

In another LinkedIn Report published in 2015, about 45% of tech talents were concerned about the lack of advancement opportunities, and 59% leave their companies for stronger career paths.

Mohamed Hassan, Co-Founder of EgyptianGeeks Community and CTO at Frontier Car Group, commented about that saying, “Hiring tech talents is easy, retaining them is difficult. Once they join the team, it's my role to work with them on their plan of learning & development and their career growth path inside or outside the company.”

So, it’s essential to have a career advancement plan with all the tech talents at your company.

• Bad Work Conditions & Compensation
According to the latter Report, 54% of tech talents stay at companies offering them good compensation and benefits, while 34% leave because they are unsatisfied with the benefits they currently receive.

As a business owner in the tech field, you need to be more engaged in the hiring process and be able to assess your tech talents’ worth accurately because it is a double-edged sword when you don’t. if you compensate them little for their worth, they will leave. If you compensate them higher than what they deserve, you are falling into the trap of inflating the salaries in that industry, which is another problem in the MENA market nowadays.

• Inflated Titles & Salaries
The rise of multiple tech startups and businesses in the MENA market has created 2 types of outcomes. One is the tons of jobs and learning opportunities offered to talents from everywhere. The other one is the mismatching salaries and titles being offered to these same talents.

Because the market is very hungry for tech talents and many companies seek to fill the gap they have in technical positions, they sometimes offer bigger titles or way too higher salaries to convince talents, even when they don’t exactly match the required skills or job description.

Not just that, but many of new rising companies don’t have the right assessment tools or systems to measure their talents’ real skills and worth, and thus end up inflating the salaries and titles in the market, said Islam Abdelroauf, Product Lead at Robusta Studio.

Sahar Salah, IT recruiter at Sure International Technology, also told TechieMatter that the inflated salaries have even created a bigger struggle for talents. It made them indecisive about job offers; they keep changing their minds after accepting offers, and even chasing the offer with the better money regardless of other important factors, such as the culture fit.

• Talent Migration
Some countries in the MENA region are still struggling with the economic instability they currently have. This instability has led many talents to search for migration or overseas opportunities to escape from the bad economy.

About that, Islam Abdelroauf told TechieMatter that although many companies cannot control the declining economy in their countries, they can definitely offer their tech talents competitive packages, support, and career advancement opportunities to overcome Talent migration.

For that same purpose, TechieMatter was created to provide professional technical recruitment services for employers who desire to hire & retain the right tech talents through it is own diverse network of highly-rated tech verifiers.

Now, How Can You Retain Your Precious Tech Talents?

As we mentioned earlier retaining tech talent is not easy but doable. So, TechieMatter got some tried insights from Islam Abdelroauf and Mohamed Hassan to bring you 5 Golden Tips to retain your tech talents for long.

1. A Constant or Periodical Feedback Session: Revisiting and rechecking your tech talents’ performance, career advancement plan, skills is crucial to help them develop more skills and translate their value addition inside the company through real numbers;

2. Learning Development Plan: Helping your tech talents gain more knowledge and experience makes them satisfied and loyal to your organization. This can be done by offering them a couple of courses they need, diplomas, workshops, or even conferences. Remember, the more they hone their skills and add to their interpersonal competencies, the more they will appreciate your effort and engage more in the growth of your company;

3. Mentoring and Coaching Sessions: Providing internal or external coaching sessions is essential to empower your tech talents and allow them to try new technologies and use them. It also helps them improve their behavioral and communication skills;

4. Financial Support: Gaining your tech talents full attention is not easy, so you must eliminate the many distractions and pressures surrounding them. This happens usually when you offer extra hand in their personal expenses, such as their children’s school fees;

5. Yearly Review of KPIs & Bonus Plan: Allowing your tech talents to see the impact of their work in numbers reflects greatly on their career growth plan. It’s important to appreciate them for their performance through a bonus plan and provide correction steps, if needed, as well. 

For more tips and assistance in your pursuit of hiring or retaining tech talents, you will deifnitely find all of that and more on TechieMatter.

TechieMatter is the fastest, most reliable, and hassle-free specialized technical recruitment platform in MENA that helps Employers to find their desired tech talents through a network of highly-rated tech verifiers.