Teach the Children Well Nathan Conz

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina is focusing on long-term solutions to the industry's IT talent shortage with programs aimed at high school and college students.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina has long been out in front of the IT talent shortage issue that plagues the insurance industry. For example, the Columbia, S.C.-based carrier created its first Entry Level Training Program (ELTP) more than 10 years ago. But while ELTPs - programs that equip newly hired IT workers with the necessary acumen to contribute - have direct benefits to the company, BCBS of South Carolina (more than 1 million members) is taking a longer-term view with its latest programs, which focus on high school and college students.

In December 2008 the insurer announced a partnership with the University of South Carolina (USC; Columbia) and IBM (Armonk, N.Y.) to create the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management, which will aim to nurture IT talent and IT management expertise. Around the same time, the carrier also was preparing for its second annual Create IT Computer Camp, an educational event for local high school sophomores and juniors who are interested in IT. BCBS of South Carolina will cohost the camp with USC's College of Hospitality, Retail and Sports Management.

"Our message ... is that right now we have a large number of jobs and very few people available to fill them," BCBS of South Carolina director of staff resource management Lonnie Emard says of the new programs.

Emard describes the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management as an "IT greenhouse" in which the company and its partners will work to grow young talent in industries such as insurance and banking, among others. The consortium, which will feature a data center provided by IBM, will be located on USC's Innovista research campus.

As of press time the carrier was also set to hold its Create IT Computer Camp for 20 high school students from nearby Richland and Lexington counties over three consecutive Saturdays beginning Feb. 7. Students selected to participate will learn about IT architecture, application development and large-scale computing concepts from USC teachers and BCBS of South Carolina staff, according to Emard. This year 115 students from more than 35 local high schools applied to the camp, he reports.

"It has a little bit of an infrastructure and hardware bent," Emard says. "This isn't about coming together and writing some code or working on a small project. But it's a good introduction, and it's something tangible. Then we build on that."

Filling the IT Talent Pool

Both the consortium and the computer camp represent an evolution in how BCBS of South Carolina is addressing the IT talent shortage, Emard notes. The carrier's long-running ELTPs provide it with immediate returns, namely better-educated IT workers. The new programs, however, offer no such immediate results.

BCBS of South Carolina, Emard explains, has started to view the talent shortage as an issue that extends past the confines of its own business. ELTP programs might solve a part of the problem, but qualified workers are in such demand that the carrier sometimes sees its trainees hired away by other companies. "What we're finding is that, to be able to do this today, it is a 'rob Peter to pay Paul' proposition," Emard relates. "Our idea with the computer camps and other things to reach young people is to get more people into the [talent] pool. There's going to be an adequate enough supply so that we're all not going to cut each other apart to find [IT talent]."

Currently, however, universities are seeing decreased enrollment in the areas of information technology and computer science. Further, Emard says, there is a misconception among young people who are interested in IT that "mainframe technology is dead." That's particularly problematic for BCBS of South Carolina: Along with its processing-heavy Companion Data Services subsidiary, the organization operates one of the largest data center environments in the world, according to Emard.

"We ... have seen a problem in terms of being able to find quality hires. Even the ones who are coming out [of collegiate IT programs] are not necessarily geared toward the kind of programs that lend themselves to large-scale, high-volume transaction processing," Emard relates. "The kids just are not equipped or prepared, so we're having to invest a lot of money in [training programs]."

Copyright © 2009 United Business Media LLC. All rights reserved. Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina is focusing on long-term solutions to the industry's IT talent shortage with programs aimed at high school and college students.