Abstract:
The software industry is one of the fastest evolving industries. The change is so rapid
that all the stakeholders, who interact with the software industry, need to be ready for
any change taking place, in order to survive in the global market. Since the software
industry is knowledge driven, employees are the driving force of its success. As a
result organizations need to make sure their employees are capable of handling or
facing any challenge within the industry. Today, most of the industries have
experienced skills gaps or skill shortage issues, worldwide and are trying to find
solutions to mitigate it. It has become a predominant problem to the software industry.
The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of the skills gaps, existing in the
Sri Lankan software industry, to the benefit of all the stakeholders. It is focused on
identifying factors that cause the skills gaps, their significance and skill deficiencies
exist among employees, for programming & software engineering, testing & quality
assurance and technical support job categories. Technology change, working
experience and acquired training level were identified as the major factors to carry out
a significant study of them, with respect to the existing skills gaps among employees
in the industry. Skills gaps were identified in terms of soft skills, technical skills and
core skills, according to each job category. Two questionnaires were used to collect
data from non-managerial and managerial employees. The sample is then examined to
get the results.
The results of this study indicated that technology change has the most significant
influence on the existence of the skills gaps among the three factors. Also it proved
that the lack of working experience and the lack of training level have impacted on the
existence of the skills gaps among employees, in the Sri Lankan software industry. In
addition to that the study revealed a set of skills (soft, technical, core) lacking among
employees, for each job category. Finally the study concludes with a list of
recommendations that organizations, individuals and the government can adopt, in
order to mitigate the skills gaps in the Sri Lankan software industry.
