Archive for the ‘it’ Category

What Should An IT Manager Look For When Hiring Employees?

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
CIOs Are Looking For Technicality Passionate Folks Who Are Enthusiastic

CIOs Are Looking For Technicality Passionate Folks Who Are Enthusiastic

Talk about confusing! IT managers are responsible for bringing the best and brightest into your organization. However, in the field of IT, just exactly what this means is difficult to pin down – we keep changing our minds! IT departments today look nothing like the IT departments of the 80′s, 90′s, and even early 2000. Once upon a time the best IT workers were those with the sharpest tech skills. Then they were told to become more like the business side of the business. Next IT certifications were all the rage (I blame Cisco for this), next they were told to get really good at one technology, oh, but don’t allow yourself to be pigeon-holed into just one technology. What’s a nerd to do?

In a recent set of interviews with CIOs that Deb Perelman over at eWeek did, she discovered that they weren’t really looking for specific skills such as SAP, Oracle Financials, or certain business skills when they did IT hiring. Rather they were looking for more of that touchy-feely stuff: enthusiasm, the ability to be flexible, and of course the ability to get things done.

What makes an IT worker different from workers in other departments at a company is that they need to be passionate about technology. Since technology is such a large part of the IT world, if an employee doesn’t love it and want to be constantly finding out more about what can be done with it, then there is a good chance that burnout will occur sooner than later. A love of technology does not mean that CIOs are looking for the classic “put ‘em in the closet” techie. The ability to relate to others and share information is now recognized as being just as important as technology skills.

If CIOs ran the world (and they don’t), then they’d be able to hire IT staffers who had lots of experience. What they are really looking for are folks who have done something over and over again so many times that it has become second nature to them. What would make such a person an even better find would be if they had good industry experience in the industries that a particular company works. A key marker of this type of IT employee is that they often move in and out of the IT department to other departments such as marketing.

We all know that IT departments at most companys have taken a number of hits over the past several years. Downsizing, offshoring, and other events have taken a toll on IT worker morale. CIOs realize this; however, they want / need their IT departments to be full of enthusiastic workers. It’s important to note here that this is not a discussion about having a more youthful department – young folks can be just as glum as older ones. Rather, CIOs want elements of flexibility and excitement to come back into their departments.

What about all those certifications that were supposed to be our ticket to lifetime employment? It turns out that CIOs don’t think that much of them these days. Instead, what they are looking for is experience and a history of executing projects successfully. These days it’s really all about your ability to get the job done.

CIOs realize that the job market for IT professionals will keep growing through 2016. Things are going to get tricky because the Baby Boomers are getting ready to leave the market and the Gen X/Y folks don’t have the numbers needed to make up for the exodus. What this means for CIOs is that they are going to have to start growing their own talent internally. All of a sudden that enthusiasm stuff starts to become a lot more important.

Do you feel that your department is filled with enthusiastic people? Do the people in your department have good IT instincts? Are you still thinking about getting more certifications? If so, what one? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Managing Millennials – Is It Worth The Effort?

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

How can IT managers work with the Millennial generation most effectively?

Quick review, here’s how the generations and their cool marketing names break down:

The Silent Generation (ages 63-81)
Baby Boomers (ages 44-62) – 80 million strong
Generation X (ages 27-43) – 59 million
Millennials/Gen Y (age 26 and under) – 80 million!

The Millennials have entered the IT workforce in large numbers and yet there has been very little written about how IT managers can deal with this completely new generation. Remember, these folks may have never seen a vinyl LP, may assume that phones have been wireless forever, and can’t understand why TVs need to have an antenna – the cable connection just goes into the back!

If you had to make some broad brush generalizations about the Millennials, they would probably look like this. Sarah Sladek who is the CEO of Limelight Generations says that the Millennials had the “…most provided for and structured childhood in history…” In a nutshell, these are the kids who got awards for just participating. Whereas the Gen-X crew is known to be self-sufficient, the Millennials are much more group activity focused. You can add to this a need for structure, feedback, encouragement, and a deep desire for instant gratification.

What’s fascinating is that although you might not expect it, Millennials actually get along in most cases very well with the Baby Boomers. One reason for this might be that many Millennials still live at home and the Baby Boomers that they interact with in the workplace remind them of their parents. However, they really, really, don’t want to be talked down to!

What’s an IT Manager To Do? Several things, including finding ways to relate, involve, engage, connect, educate, and promote job benefits to staff. A key SPOKEN realization of the Millennials is that they realize that they won’t be working for one company for 40 years. This means that more than any other generation now in the workplace, they need to know what their current job is going to provide to them right now. This means things like tangible certifications are very important to this segment of the workforce.

It’s All About Connections: This group of workers is interested in being mentored. They really want to learn new things and they realize that people who have done the job for awhile have much to teach them. That being said, interacting with their own peers is just as important . This means that a good IT manager will provide both types of opportunities: mentoring and peer networking.

Use The Internet: This generation grew up online. That means that they are very comfortable socializing and exchanging information online. In order to minimize the potential security issues that the use of external social networking sites can cause, IT managers need to establish internal social networks that everyone can participate in.

The Millennials represent the future of every IT department. It is our responsibility to adapt to their ways of learning and show them what it will take to succeed in the IT industry.

Do you work with Millennials now? How’s it going – does everyone get along or are there conflicts and misunderstandings? Have any special programs or changes in policy been put in place to adapt the workplace for this new generation of workers? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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After The Firings, What’s A Manger To Do?

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

How can a manager motivate a team after a round of layoffs?

Thanks to a sluggish economy, we’ve been reading about more and more layoffs, firings, staff reductions, rightsizing, etc. Your firm may have done one of these, be doing one, or just have started to think about doing one. No matter – letting staff go is can be one of the hardest parts about being a leader. There is a lot of information out there about how to let people go with dignity; however, there isn’t a lot of guidance on how to pick up the pieces after a big layoff. What’s a manager to do with those who escaped the executioner’s axe?

Since firing coworkers takes so much of a manager’s emotional energy, we can be excused for not remembering to take the time to adequately reassure those who are left onboard. Motivation is hard enough to do in the good times, re-motivation after a layoff is nigh impossible. As much of a challenge as this additional task is, it’s critical because studies have shown that the workers who remain quickly become unproductive and are unwilling to take on any risk now that they’ve seen what can happen to other workers. To top this off, all too often these disheartened workers end up leaving the company. Great – now you’ve gone from having to do layoffs to having to do interviews.

What’s A Manager To Do? A good place to start is to once again realize that every employee is an individual. This means that everyone will process the layoffs in their own personal way. A manager needs to let this happen. Dr. Warren Bennis is a professor of management out at the University of Southern California and he says that “Respect is the key word…” Layoffs often seems so cold and impersonal. It’s the job of a manger to work with the employees who remain and help them to understand why the layoffs are happening, acknowledge the pain that it is causing, and to let the employees know when the bloodletting will end. Having done all of this, then managers have to be able to sit back and listen. Allow the employees to react to the layoffs and realize that there are no right or wrong reactions.

What About Morale? Clearly one of the first victims of any layoff will be the morale of those employees who remain behind. One way that a manager can start to rekindle the light of motivation is to spend time with the remaining workers reviewing and discussing the organization’s goals. There are fewer people now and the key question will be how to achieve the goals with a smaller team. This is an important way to ensure that employees realize that they have a future with the company and they really will be better off once they are farther down the road.

Any Way To Future Proof An Organization? The ultimate question for any manager is if there is a way to prepare an organization for layoffs before they occur. The short answer is no. However, if a manager is able to keep the employees involved in discussions about how the business is doing, then there should never be any surprises if another round of layoffs occurs.

Have you been able to get a team of survivors motivated again after a layoff? How did you do it? What was your biggest challenge – team members or messages that the company was sending out? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Posted in employee, employee motivation, firing, it, layoff, termination | 2 Comments »

Staffing Flexibility Is Soooo Underrated!

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Flexibility is needed in order to ensure that you will be able to staff your IT department

If you thought that just barely getting by using skills to manage your IT staffing needs using both home grown talent as well as warm bodies that you purchased off the street was tough, just imagine how challenging it is when you try to move things up one level and adapt your IT organization to the uncertainty in demand for IT talent. Just think about that for a moment: how would your life be different if instead of running around trying to fill holes in your organization as they occur, you could actually be ahead of the 8-ball and be ready for changes as they came?

Here’s a fundamental thought that will help you to solve this staffing problem once and for all. It’s based on lessons that our supply chain friends learned the hard way a long time ago. Instead of trying to stock your IT department with every body that you think that you might need both today and for the next x number of years, instead do what the supply chain guys do. Bring in small batches of what you need more often. This will allow you to not have to attempt to predict your staffing needs so very far out.

For a good example of how the current IT hiring/staffing process is broken, take a look at how recent college graduates are brought into the organization. Most firms do almost all of their new graduate hiring right after the students get out of college. This means there is a wave of new recruits that enter the firm in June. Even if you allow for some new-hire orientation and perhaps some training, the firm still has a need to carve out a substantial number of new-hire spots all at once. If the company is struggling in the current quarter, then this can be especially difficult.

A different way to handle this issue would be to take this single large problem and divide it into two smaller parts. Not all college graduates really want to go to work immediately after finishing 4, 5, or 6 years of intense schooling. Some would more than willing to delay their start date by 3-6 months. If this was done, then the firm would only have to process half as many new recruits at a time. More personal attention could be paid to each incoming employee and better fits for talents and interests could be made. Having fewer number of new hires to place but having them more often makes the staffing challenge much easier – you never have too many or too few. Retaining non-working students for 3-6 months can be as simple as agreeing to pay them 1/2 salary until they start working full time.

Long and expensive training programs present the same challenge. A two year management training program could be broken up into four 6 month programs. Each smaller program could have its own goals and forecasts. The benefit of doing training this way is that should an employee in training decide to leave the firm, then the entire training program expense may not have been spent on them.

Finally, within IT organizations different programs are often allowed to maintain and run their own talent management programs. The end result of this is that all too often, one program will have too many potential managers and another will have too few. Since there is no centralized way to communicate these supply issues, the firm generally just deals badly with the imbalance. If talent management within the IT department was centralized, then this issue would not occur.

So now we have an understanding of where to find IT talent and we now know how to deal with fluctuation in the need for IT talent, I guess the next thing that we should talk about would be how to improve the Return on Investment spent on developing employees…

How does IT staffing work at your firm? Do you seem to have waves of new employees sweep in every so often? Is your department set up to handle this flood of talent? Have you ever tried to manage the process by adding fewer new employees more often? What was the result? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Posted in employee, employee motivation, it, personnel, staffing, training | No Comments »