New projects, service expansion on the cards for some Australian CIOs: Robert Half

Eighty four per cent of the Australian CIOs surveyed for Robert Half’s 2014 Salary Guide are expecting the businesses they work for to expand this year due to new projects, growth into new markets or service expansion.

The survey, conducted in December 2013, found that 78 per cent of the 100 CIOs surveyed were confident about Australia’s economic prospects.

Fifty eight per cent of the CIOs indicated they expected new projects would lead to business expansion; 47 per cent believed penetration into new markets would lead to this expansion while 45 per cent believed products or services expansion would cause it.

Due to this business growth, 38 per cent out of the 100 CIOs surveyed said they are looking to add new IT workers. Specialist IT skills in demand include virtualization, application development and security. When it came to software skills, CIOs said that they needed people with experience in areas including HTML5, SQLBI, SharePoint and Sitecore.

Engineers with experience in Citrix, Active Directory, Exchange and Windows 7/8 were also sought after.

In order to retain and attract IT staff, 55 per cent of CIOs indicated that they would increase salaries for staff in 2014.

According to Robert Half Asia Pacific managing director David Jones, CEOs need to think about what they can offer their IT staff besides remuneration.

“Initiatives include providing a more positive office environment such as flexible hours and telecommuting,” he said in a statement.

The report also found that 84 per cent of CIOs in Australia are confident in their company’s growth prospects for the year ahead – up from 77 per cent in 2013.

Robert Half’s report follows a lt;igt;Hudson Report: Employment Trendslt;/igt; released today which found that ICT has the strongest contractor employment outlook with hiring intentions at 29.4 per cent for the first quarter of 2014.

According to Hudson ICT director Tim Davis, this is the first time in years that the intention to hire ICT contractor staff (29.4 per cent) is higher than the intention to hire permanent employees (25.2 per cent).

“What’s really driving demand for IT [contractors] right now is business transformation projects,” he said in a statement.

“Organisations are using innovations in technology to identify ways to reduce costs or increase revenue, which goes a long way towards explaining these results.”

Davis added that the Coalition government’s Federal Budget may also be having an influence with organisations using contract workers until the Budget delivers “greater clarity” on whether to invest in permanent staff members.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

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