Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

The channel still faces several challenges when it comes to skills and talent - such as finding, attracting and hiring the right people, and also retaining talent developed in-house.

CRN spoke to some of the biggest names in distribution to find out what the top distributors think of this challenge, what the big vendor layoffs means for talent in the channel and how they're tackling the shortage.

Tim Griffin, CEO, Exertis UK

"We've been recruiting across functional pillars, and a universal challenge that is not peculiar to us, but the industry, is around diversity and being able to hire talent that makes us stronger by being more diverse.

"I keep on referencing that the best person for the job isn't necessarily the best person at the job because we're building teams and these are a cocktail by definition.

"And actually, as a society, we haven't been very good at creating equality in the STEM environment.

"And as an industry, we haven't been very good at attracting diverse talent, so we've got more to do in those kinds of landscapes.

"At Exertis, we look to everything from the way that we advertise jobs to the way that we have panels and making sure they are diverse.

"We have what we call employee resource groups, designed to create communities within the wider community.

"And we have four or five ERGs that are designed to effectively make this a great place to work and enable people to feel comfortable to bring their whole selves to work and unleash their full potential.

"However, these are wider societal issues and I think those are long-term challenges to overcome both in society and the industry.

"So I wouldn't put a timeframe on those. But I actually think that the pendulum is already starting to swing.

"And I think there are a host of programmes, certainly if you think about what we're doing to develop our own channel. So we have everything from a pretty large-scale apprenticeship programme across pretty much every function in the organisation.

"We have significant training programmes, mostly sales, to hire for attitude and then train the other attributes that we require for a successful salesperson.

"And I think these kinds of programmes are good in the short term, but I wouldn't walk away from those long-term challenges either at societal or an industry level, we have to step forward otherwise we will never solve them and that's just horrendous prospect. Thinking about functional talent and diverse talent, we can't accept that is the status quo.

"We have to go and do things collectively to try and solve them at a governmental level and an industry level."

Read on for opinions from Westcoast, Westcon-Comstor, Pax8 and more.

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Alex Tatham, MD, Westcoast

"The vendor layoffs are creating a dynamic marketplace and space for people to move around to new areas of business. We've just hired a telecoms expert, for instance, who had been laid off. So, you know, there's opportunities there.

"And as for talent retention, I think that we're always looking at why people leave any business and you're trying to say 'well, have you got the right benefits package here? Have you got the right thing there?'

"The best thing I can say about Westcoast is that it is such a dynamic space, such a great business to work in. And such a driver of things that it feels as though that when people leave Westcoast, they leave fondly and have and have good memories of the business, and we always try to make sure that we look at talented people and try and keep them within the business."

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Lance Williams, chief product officer, Distology

"We've experienced some impacts from the vendor layoffs, but it's been minimal - largely we've seen our vendors take the opportunity to rethink and then eventually rehire with someone who is better suited to the challenge at hand.

"And I think there is an opportunity to broaden the talent pool and open opportunities out to those without ‘tech' backgrounds - what drives Distology's recruitment strategy in hiring based on core competencies rather than pure experience.

"In fact, just 15 per cent of the workforce comes from a ‘tech' background. More organisations should consider the value of transferrable and soft skills to help fill the gap.

"But for us, in the past 12 months, we actually have had very low attrition and no shortage of talent applying for our open roles. It's a welcome change to where things were, coming out of the pandemic.

"I do think that for the foreseeable future, in our specialism, there will still be a shortage in technical cybersecurity roles.

"The government schemes in education will take 10 years to have any material effect, the competition for talent is really high and it's driving salaries up.

"As for retaining talent, we had the bulk of the year without any attrition at all.

"We achieved that by working hard to bring a rounded employee experience through benefits programme, learning and development opportunities, challenging but achievable targets and associated rewards, and working hard to nurture a close community culture so that everyone feels supported, including an employee driven initiative to offer regular mental health drop-ins.

"We've seen some leavers in our sales team in the past month who left on good terms and for roles that are different to try their hand at something new.

"The team gave them a positive send off and we made sure they knew they'd be welcome back in the future."

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Debby Clement, VP of talent, Pax8

"The vendor layoffs are not necessarily a means of tackling the talent shortages, because what I perceive is many of the people being let go don't necessarily have the legacy skills missing in the channel right now.

"And people out of work are more concerned with getting back into work rather than retraining.

"At Pax8, we've made a massive investment in our internal programmes and I think this is where a lot of companies have maybe not kept pace with the investment that's needed for the future.

"So, we've got a talent enablement and development team. We've got a sales enablement team, we've invested heavily in that.

"So that's helping people mould together the way of working with the technology tools and with the collateral.

"But looking ahead, I don't think anyone can call how long the talent shortage will go on for because it all depends on how people are going to invest in themselves and adapt.

"And I don't think anyone can predict what's going to happen with AI and how that is going to influence the industry. So, I see various think tanks saying talent skills shortages are going to get worse. But then a lot of accommodating for the tech uplift is going to happen to fill those shortages."

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Rakesh Parbhoo, global CTO, Westcon-Comstor

"Vendor layoffs are always disruptive Because at the end of the day, our people have relationships with our vendors through their people and when those change or are laid off, they have to re-build the relationships we have to re-navigate the environment.

"Of course, what we have seen is that there is now talent available in the market and the benefit is that people want to come and work in the distribution side.

"So, I think it's bringing a pool of talent that have experience back into the broader channel, whether that is to work in distribution, work in the partner base or even sometimes in customers, that is an advantage that I think that we can see.

"In the past we have focused on creating a good talent development programme, focusing on internships and recruiting graduates into our organisation.

"I think that's helped us quite a lot because it was quite difficult for us to compete to hire more senior positions, especially if they've been working with partners or vendors and in certain markets.

"And so, building talent internally, I think it's been a big focus for us over a number of years.

"And I think that's helped us to make sure that we have an evolving talent base that sometimes leaves us and goes on to work in vendors, having learnt the distribution model.

"But then I think when it comes to retention, you compete on paying the highest salary, economically, but culture also plays a really important role. And I think we offer more than just a salary, through a good working environment that people enjoy.

"And they learn a lot and we invest heavily in training and skills.

"So I think we provide a very good culture and I think that that is the biggest strength when it comes to talent retention. I think more people are looking for that - especially graduates coming out of university are looking for something where they feel comfortable.

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Justin Griffiths, MD, Infinigate UK

"Hiring technical resources has continually been a challenge for us. But I think there's two threads to that.

"Technical resources within distribution have always been a challenge and I think they will continue to be because again, depending on the role that you play, putting it into practice can mean different things to different people.

"So our approach is to have slightly more of a hybrid where it's technically led, but where the commercial aspects are very heavily involved in the opportunity rather than purely technical. And that's been very successful for us.

"But there's no question there's still a skills shortage there. There are a lot of alliances-type roles and people out there in the market. Quota carriers are a little bit more challenging to find when the market is up-and-down because they, understandably, don't want to leave their position to take risks.

"But I think the technical aspect is still the biggest challenge in terms of the skills shortage.

"And I haven't seen any trends to suggest that it's going to end anytime soon.

"I think a lot of it will come down to people. The evolution of new organisations in terms of the role they play.

"We're trying to make sure that our technical teams are involved in the sales cycle, more than just purely technical.

"So there were a lot more immersed in the opportunities, which I think is adding value both to us and to them.

"If you've got very high-skilled individuals on the bench waiting to be utilised purely on technical conversations, and I think that's just kind of a different challenge, but I don't see the skill shortage changing in the next couple of years or less. There's more work to be done.

"Inviting people like graduates into the IT world to embark on this journey is one way.

"I think it feels like to me that people move into technical journeys through different paths, rather than than through a one-way academy approach to get people into our industry.

"We have skill-up programmes and platforms that we use to bring people in at entry level and give them a path and a career opportunity to have visibility of where they can go. And so, for us, retention is paramount.

"Hence why we have a lot of areas to try and make sure that we continue to retain and have a very clear development path in terms of career progression.

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Dave Stevinson, CEO, QBS Software

"We're a bit different from other distributors because we only provide software for the software delivery platforms and so our skill shortage is around software engineers and that's always going to be an issue for recruiting.

"We don't think it will calm down at all, even in a couple years' time. Because there's so many new tools coming out. Software's eating the world as there's more and more demand for software.

"As for talent retention, we have a human capital management department for areas called talent acquisition which takes care of training people, people ops with HR, talent engagement and retention.

"We constantly monitor our employee net promoter score. We constantly care about employee experience.

"So, we're just constantly measuring and promoting the employee experience across their entire lifecycle and we see tangible results.

"We have a retention culture and productivity, and that flows into our customer experience and our culture experience."

Vendor layoffs, training and the skills gap: Top distributors share their thoughts on talent

From hiring the right talent to retaining it, we ask the top channel distributors their take on the skills and talent shortage

Matthew Sanderson, SVP and chief exec, Ingram Micro

"With the skills shortage remaining an ongoing challenge in some areas, having quick access to experienced labour through the vendor layoffs could be an opportunity to continue to fuel growth and to retain talent within our industry.

"Finding high-quality talent quickly to meet business demand has been challenging at times in the last couple of years for our industry.

"We have tried to combat this by focusing on internal staff development and training, as well as promoting from within, whilst also looking externally toward other market segments which possess a similar skillset."