Perda de conhecimento em projetos de software devido a rotatividade de profissionais de TI: um estudo na Universidade Federal de Viçosa - UFV

Abstract

Knowledge is considered one of the most important strategic assets for contemporary organizations. Prusak (1997) highlights that ‘knowledge and intelligence are connected: intelligence is necessary to generate knowledge and knowledge provides the basis through which intelligence can be applied.’ Intelligence comes from people that, supported by Information Technology, execute, manage, and make the best decisions for good performance of organizations, whether public or private. Research shows that the turnover of IT professionals has become a critical problem and the deficit may reach half a million by 2025, reflecting a significant acceleration of the demand in that sector. Furthermore, 53,000 people graduate every year in Brazil – a third of the projected demand – and almost 50% of those already hired in the last 12 months have had two additional job offers, which are considered and may represent the voluntary departure from the current organization in the short or medium term. The turnover of IT professionals brings several costs, minimizing and containing its damages has become a difficult and recurrent challenge for Human Resources, not only for economic reasons, but especially for the management and preservation of the main immaterial asset directly responsible for the success of any organization: knowledge. This paper presents a study about knowledge loss and retention at Federal University of Viçosa, where the turnover phenomenon for the position of Information Technology Technician in 2021 and 2022 was considered relevant. At the end, recommendations were proposed to deal with the main problems that emerged from the studied context. The main goal is to contribute with improvements for the IT projects developed in the organization, preserve institutional memory, and avoid eventual public resource loss.