14 July 2005

Incompetent contractors causing headaches

It is not commonly known that the gap between a good IT contractor, or developers, and a bad or indifferent one is ten-fold, something employers too often fail to factor into their payment and productivity expectations, said Org Geldenhuys, a director of Pretoria-based executive search and IT recruitment company, Abacus Recruitment.

"Development work is not just about meeting deadlines and getting the job done. It is also how the job is done and it must be remembered that there is a literal chasm between a good developer and a bad one. Poor developers, in fact, can cause serious problems for companies. They can create additional risk such as designing unstable software of software that is flawed and bug-ridden. These frailties might only come to light weeks or months after the project is completed, causing severe problems for the company. At the same time rates are currently on the increase - certainly in the UK - and employers are having to foot these larger bills. Although contracting rates are not increasing here at the rate they are in the UK, South African companies face similar quandaries. What needs to happen," said Geldenhuys, "is that employers should put systems in place that more actively check the actual performance of their contract workers. Companies really need to measure skills."

Speaking to UK on-line publication, www.contractorUK.com, Kurt Ramman - with more than 15 years' of contracting skills - said that he is "appalled" at the complacency and inability of companies to measure skills.

Painting a somewhat different picture, Jeff Brooks, Resourcing Services Director of IT recruitment agency, Parity, said it should not just be about a person's technical merit, but also about their attitude.

"It's an attitude of mind," he stated. "Are contractors, for example, performing skills transfer to permanent members of staff, turning up on time and not clock watching? It's not just about ability to code, but also, do they give value for money?"

Geldenhuys did concur, saying that while it was still critical for employers to make sure they are assessing contractors accurately - and then monitoring their performance - it is also important to take cognisance of the "softer issues", such as temperament and attitude. But these skills are naturally very difficult to measure. And yet they could make or break a project. "A contractor with the right technical skills but the wrong attitude - especially with regards to working as part of a team – could also have a negative affect on any outcome. But many of the monitoring measures put in place by companies are simply not good enough."

Quoted in www.contractorUK.com Ramman proposes a clever strategy to 'catch out' the ones who try to bluff these monitoring systems. He suggested giving them a highly complex test that nobody, including the interviewer, understands.

"The interviewer then discusses the test with the contractor, and determines if they are honest, if it rattled them, or better still, to see if they claim to understand it."