“They pride themselves on keeping their skills up to date and being able to practice that.”
Despite being in Australia for 20 years, Ms Livesey said Cognizant’s culture was like a large network of start-ups, and that it had moved away from the traditional hierarchies seen in other companies.
Cognizant has doubled its headcount in the last 12 months, with three quarters of its new people coming from its acquisition of Servian, and 25 per cent from organic growth.
It also has around 2100 offshore workers supporting client delivery.
Ms Livesey said the pandemic had accelerated the momentum of technology adoption across its client base, which was driving the need for workers with digital skills.
The widespread shortage of developers and data scientists is hindering growth for Australian businesses and industry body Technology Council Australia predicts Australia needs an additional 260,000 tech workers by 2025.
Around 200 of the new hires will be sourced from Cognizant’s training programs and non-traditional pathways.
“Whether it’s a technology company or many corporations as well as governments across Australia, we’ve all been fishing in the same digital skill pond,” Ms Livesey said
“That shortage of digital talent existed before the pandemic and clearly has accelerated substantially over the last two years… It’s not going to be something that disappears once the borders reopen, or we return to a new normal.”
Ms Livesey said Cognizant has resumed bringing in talent from overseas but said skilled migration is unlikely to quickly bounce back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Australian has always been dependent on external technology and digital talent. What is critical – and I think the pandemic has highlighted it – is that we need to equally focus on how we’re building talent within our own country.”
The company is scaling its training programs with the aim of developing new talent pools outside traditional higher education pathways.
Cognizant will also hire eight to 10 interns per quarter in 2022 as part of its recent partnership with the Victorian Government’s Digital Jobs program.
In Adelaide, Cognizant will hire 50 trainees this year, largely school-leavers, who will work alongside experienced engineers.
“We are bringing through a whole new wave of talent that wouldn’t previously have had the opportunity to build those skills and also hone their skills on the job,” Ms Livesey said.
