IT professional premature turnover in information technology transformation programmes telecommunication industry

Abstract

Voluntary turnover for IT professionals continues to be a key issue for industry locally and globally. The information technology industry is experiencing a diminishing pool of IT professionals, which is mainly due to the fast growing technology markets, which have resulted in a growing gap between the demand and availability of IT professionals. Major organizations continue to invest in new technologies therefore require skilled resources to implement these application solution in the form of IT Transformation Programmes. The IT professionals are important to the successful implementation of these programmes. The high turnover in IT skills tends to have a huge impact on these particular projects. This research seeks to establish the factors which lead to premature turnover of IT professionals on IT Transformation programmes, with a specific focus on the impact of pull and push factors. Further to this, the study seeks to understand and explore the influence of shocks on scripted turnover decisions of IT professionals in IT Transformation programmes. The study found vast differences in factors that lead to turnover intention for IT professionals in IT Transformation Programmes. The differences could be explained by different dynamics of the requirements or characteristics of the career itself, labour market and demographic factors of the individuals involved. This usually leads to IT professionals leaving projects prematurely. The results showed that none of the shows that none of the respondents left the programme after it ended. Pull factors accounted for more turnover decisions as opposed to Push factors for IT professionals.