Attracting, Developing and Retaining IT Professionals

1
Attracting, Developing and Retaining IT
Professionals

• Presented by
• Eve Days Henry Daniels
• John Mayes Kelly Richter

2
Will Cover

• Current trends of employment for Information
  Technology professionals in the U.S.
• Attracting IT professionals to your organization
• Developing the skills and expertise of IT
  professionals within your organization
• Suggestions for retaining IT professionals with
  your organization

3
Main Thoughts

• Common sense
• pay well, interesting work, current knowledge
• Awareness
• Goals of organization and individuals
• Competition

4
Background on Interviews

• Robert Bence, CIO
• St. Louis County Govt
• Public organization
• 25 employees, plus 25-50 outsourced

• Michael Garcia, CPO
• Nexstar Financial Corp.
• Private organization
• 25 in St. Louis, 65 in Colorado

5
Current Situation

• As of 2000, there was a shortage of 400,000 IT
  professionals in the US alone (1)
• The US Department of Commerce estimates that the
  US will require more than 1.3 million new and
  highly skilled IT workers through 2007 (2)

6
Perception and Qualifications

• Nerds or Not? (4)
• Spectrum of skillswhat can you do for us? (5)
• Programming languages, database skills, operating
  systems, networking skills

7
Beginning the Attainment Process

• Tradition is not working any more (6)
• Recruitment from all angles (7)
• Recruiting Methods (survey of 150 executives from
  1000 largest US firms) (3)

Staffing/Recruiting 70
Posting Job on Company Website 57
Classified Advertising 35
Job Fairs 32
Electronic Matching Services 29
Referrals 21
Internships 2
8
What Organizations Are Looking Forand How They
Hope to Get It

• Characteristics of the individual (6)
• Agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness,
  emotional stability, openness to experience
• Stealing from the competitionGreener pastures
  (8)
• IT professionals with the most valued
  competencies are heavily recruited by
  organizations offering employment contracts with
  better salaries, along with signing bonuses,
  stock options and work culture inducements,
  including enhanced work arrangements and
  lifestyle accommodations.
• Government problems salary, image, and
  advancement (9)

9
What Organizations Are Looking Forand How They
Hope to Get It

• Human Resources as a partner (10)
• Managing legal risks, skills assessments, skills
  tracking, awareness of current trends
• Moving toward a business orientation (11)
• Blending technology and business

10
Attainment Recruiting

• R. Bence (govt)
• All positions open to public (required)
• General requirements

• M. Garcia (private)
• In-house services
• Specific requirements

11
What IT Professionals Need To Be

• Big Picture
• Skills (12)
• Interpersonal, technical, business
• Activities (13)
• identifying promising application targets,
  deciding the systems processes and modes of use,
  and assessing the systems risks and potential
  financial losses
• Aspects (11)
• Diplomacy political, interpersonal and business
  skills reconsideration of traditional avenues of
  career development

12
Salary and Education

• Computer Systems Analysts and Scientists in 2004
  (mean average) (14)
• Annual earnings 63,694 average 70,744 private
• Hours worked 2,079 average 2,083 private
• Hourly wage 30.67
• Education, 1999-2002 graduates in U.S. (15)

IT Bachelor Bus. Bachelor IT Master Bus. Master IT Doctorate Bus. Doctorate
1999-00 36,195 lt3 257,709 21 14,264 3 112,258 24.5 777 lt2 1,196 lt3
2000-01 41,954 gt3 265,746 21 16,038 3 116,475 25 768 lt2 1,180 lt3
2001-02 47,299 lt4 281,330 22 16,113 3 120,785 25 750 lt2 1,158 lt3
13
Developing Through Training

• Training is a consistently crucial factor in the
  field of IT. Due to
• Constant changes in society
• The ability to keeps costs low and stay
  competitive
• Organizations have found increases in employees
  job satisfaction, productivity and profitability
  (16)

14
To Train or Not to Train

• Benefits of Training
• Gives employees a sense of value and motivation
• Understanding how their role effects the
  organization
• Transfer learning to application
• Employee attitudes An individual might believe
  that acquiring object-oriented skills would
  likely provide a reward of being more marketable
  or earning a higher salary. (16)

15
Costs of Training

• Keeping up to date in respect to technology can
  be very expensive (16)
• Explicit costs additional funding for off-site
  training and on-site training
• In 1995, the average cost of retraining a
  programmer that earns 50,000 a year to be
  approximately 18,000 (17)
• Implicit costs Lost hours of projected
  productivity
• Potential for the training not to pay off,
  referred to as transfer learning
• Employee Attitude the individual might also
  believe that acquiring the object-oriented skills
  would be overly time consuming, requiring a
  significant amount of after hours study.

16
Transfer Learning

• Motivation to transfer involves the drive or
  inspiration of an individual to reassign
  knowledge gained from formal or informal learning
  to job-specific context
• Training is most effective when the employee
  feels that the employer will expect them to use
  that information in the near future
• The organization has a learning culture
• Trainees reported stronger transfer intentions
  when engaged in learning activities in which
  follow-up from their manager was anticipated or
  when employees were involved in training that was
  mandatory
• Other factors Environmental, the utility of that
  which was learned, peer support, supervisor
  sanction and support (16)

17
Learning Organization Oticon Spaghetti
Organization

• Overall objective Increase productivity by 30
• The organization only supported three roles
• Project managers with overall responsibility
  for projects
• Senior Specialists providing professional
  expertise in functional areas
• Coaches/Mentors mentoring and other HR-related
  roles
• IT professionals learned through experience
• diplomacy, political, interpersonal, business
  (19)

18
Developing Through Evaluation

• Benefits Evaluations are a very effective way to
  develop your employees. To get them off the
  wrong path and onto the right one.
• Cost Evaluations, when done correctly, are time
  consuming.
• Focus on a game plan for the future, instead of
  the past.
• When possible, get feedback from employees

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Developing Through Evaluations

• Be S.M.A.R.T.
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Reflective
• Time bound

20
Developing Careers Path

• R. Bence (govt)
• Primarily technical
• Silosfor now
• Career and phase

• M. Garcia (private)
• Management vs. technical
• Teams

21
Developing Careers Training

• R. Bence (govt)
• Budget issues
• Status quo
• Direct reports

• M. Garcia (private)
• Specific
• Tuition reimbursement

22
Developing Careers Performance Assessments

• R. Bence (govt)
• Annual
• Formal
• Future of assessments

• M. Garcia (private)
• Every 6 months
• Formal
• Coverage

23
Tommorows Jobs

• Between 2002 and 2012 total U. S. employment
  expected to increase by 14.8 percent
• Equates to 21 million more jobs
• Growth in professional, scientific, and technical
  services by 27.8 percent/1.9 million new jobs by
  2012
• (21)

24
Tomorrows Jobs

• Projections are that computer systems design and
  related services employment will increase 54.6
  percent. This increase amounts to more than a
  third of all new jobs in the professional,
  scientific, and technical services job category.
• 632,000 new jobs are expected in the information
  supersector by 2012. This job sector includes
  software publishers, internet publishers, data
  processing services and internet service
  providers.
• (21)

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What This May Mean To Organizations With IT
Professionals

• Continued high turnover rates for IT
  professionals (22)
• Turnover rates of 25 - 33 in 1997-2001 period
• Average tenure in IT went down from 18 months in
  1998 to 13 months
• Increased Competitiveness to fill IT positions
  (3)
• Poaching or brain snatching
• Headhunters
• Negative effects on innovation, productivity and
  competitiveness in world markets (27)

26
Turnover Percentages In Comparison(By Industry)

• Information technology 25-33
• Services 13.5
• Health care 12.8
• Banking and finance 13.2
• Insurance 7.6
• (23)

27
Turnover Percentages At the Best Companies To
Work For(24)
Rank Location Percentage
1 Wegmans Food Markets 6
2 Starbucks 12
3 Valero Energy 29
4 Cisco Systems 3
5 Whole Food Market 32
13 A. G. Edwards 9
14 Microsoft 5
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Managing IT Professionals

• Are IT professionals substantially different from
  other employees firms seek?
• Best practices for others good enough
• Differences IT vs. others
• IT skills and business skills
• Demand/supply constantly in flux
• Half-life of specific skills is short resulting
  in constant need for skill renewal and
  development
• (7)

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What Successful IT Organizations Do

• Study of 32 organizations to determine what
  successful organizations do to recruit, develop
  and retain IT professionals
• Successful organizations being those successful
  in IT use, business performance or managing IT
  human resources (7)

30
Sample Demographics (7)

• Staff of Companies Included in Case Study

Number of IT Employees Percentage of Companies
100-1,000 50
lt100 25
gt1,000 25
31
Recruiting Practices (7)
Practice Category Frequency
Sourcing 72
Skills Sought 8
Competitive Differentiation Elements 36
One-Time Inducements 6
32
Common Themes in IT Human Resource Trends

• Dedicated person or staff supporting IT Human
  Resource Activities
• Existence of diverse organizational cultures with
  two distinct dimensions being nurtured to some
  degree
• Productivity concerns dimension
• Interpersonal Dimension
• (7)

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Retention Practices

• Increased frequency of performance appraisals
  with financial incentives
• Work arrangements with interesting and
  challenging projects
• Work arrangements that allowed rotation across
  jobs and projects
• Use of cross-functional teams and modifying work
  spaces to accommodate team work
• Processes for identifying training and
  development needs and addressing those needs
• (7)

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Retention Practices

• Providing persistent and accurate counseling and
  feedback
• Flexible work arrangements
• Providing recognition and tangiable awards all
  through the performance period
• Birthday cards
• Welcome baskets
• Lunch or dinner out

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Detailed IT Retention Practices (7)
Practice Category Frequency (totaling 230)
Performance Measurement 19 instances
Compensation and Benefits Systems 44
Work Arrangements 27
Employability Training and Dev. 33
Longer-Term Career Development 9
Opportunities for Advancement 14
Opportunities for Recognition 15
Quality of Leadership 21
Sense of Community 32
Lifestyle Accommodations 13
Org. Stability and Employment Security 3
36
Using The Recruitment and Retention Practice
Categories

• Examine current practices benchmarking current
  practices against exemplary firms
• Helps to identify gaps in existing practice
• Use practice categories to determine set of
  practices to expend resources on to recruit and
  retain IT professionals
• (7)

37
Retaining

• R. Bence (govt)
• Autonomy
• Turnover
• Complaints

• M. Garcia (private)
• Autonomy
• Turnover
• Complaints

38
Retaining Attractions

• R. Bence (govt)
• Security
• Commitment
• Visibility

• M. Garcia (private)
• Variety
• Team
• Incentives

39
The Strategic Star (7)
40
Closing Thoughts

• Common sense
• pay well, interesting work, current knowledge
• Awareness
• Goals of organization and individuals
• Competition

41
References

• 1. Kakabadse, Andrew and Nada Korac-Kakabadse,
  Future Role of IS/IT Professionals, The Journal
  of Management Development 2000 19, 2.
• 2. Kamal, Mustafa, Information Technology
  WorkforcePlanning for the Future, Journal of
  American Academy of Business Sep 2005 7.
• 3. Amaram, Donatus I., Issues in Recruitment
  and Retention for the IT Workforce, The Journal
  of American Academy of Business Mar 2005 6, 2.
• 4. Kamal, Mustafa, Information Technology
  WorkforcePlanning for the Future, Journal of
  American Academy of Business Sep 2005 7, 2.
• 5. Athey, Susan and John Plotnicki, The
  Evaluation of Job Opportunities for IT
  Professionals, The Journal of Computer
  Information Systems Spring 1998 38, 3.
• 6. Witt, L.A. and L.A. Burke, Selecting
  High-Performing Information Technology
  Professionals, Journal of End User Computing
  Oct-Dec 2002 14, 4.

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References

• 7. Agarwal, Ritu and Thomas W. Ferratt, Enduring
  Practices for Managing IT Professionals,
  Communications of the ACM Sep 2002 45, 9.
• 8. Schambach, Thomas and J. Ellis Blanton, The
  Professional Development Challenge for IT
  Professionals, Communications of the ACM Apr
  2002 35, 4.
• 9. Pawlowski, Suzanne D., Pratim Datta and Andrea
  L. Houston, The (Gradually) Changing Face of
  State IT Jobs, Communications of the ACM May
  2005 48, 5.
• 10. Schwarzkopf, Albert B., Roberto J. Mejia, Jon
  Jasperson, Carol S. Saunders and Hermann
  Gruenwald, Effective Practices for IT Skills
  Staffing, Communications of the ACM Jan 2004
  7, 1.
• 11. Kakabadse, Andrew and Nada Korac-Kakabadse,
  Future Role of IS/IT Professionals, The Journal
  of Management Development 2000 19, 2.
• 12. Agarwal, Ritu and Thomas W. Ferratt,
  Enduring Practices for Managing IT
  Professionals, Communications of the ACM Sep
  2002 45, 9.

43
References

• 13. Pawlowski, Suzanne D., Pratim Datta and
  Andrea L. Houston, The (Gradually) Changing Face
  of State IT Jobs, Communications of the ACM May
  2005 48, 5.
• 14. St. Louis National Compensation Survey, June
  2004
• 15. US Department of Education
• 16. Ryan, Sherry D., A Model of the Motivation
  for IT Retraining, Information Resources
  Management Journal Oct-Dec 1999 12, 4.
• 17. Chabrow, 1995.
• 18. Egan, Toby Marshall, Baiyin Yang and Kenneth
  R. Bartlett, The Effects of Organizational
  Learning Culture and Job Satisfaction on
  Motivation to Transfer Learning and Turnover
  Intention, Human Resource Development Quarterly
  Fall 2004 15, 3.
• 19. Larsen, Henrik Holt, Oticon Unorthodox
  Project-Based Management and Careers in a
  Spaghetti Organization, Human Resource Planning
  2002 25, 4.

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References

• 20. Lacity, Mary and Joseph Rottman, St. Louis
  Regional Report on Trends in IT Workforce
  Development July, 2005.
• 21. U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
  Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook,
  2004-2005
• 22. Moore, Jo Ellen and Lisa A. Burke, How to
  Turn Around Turnover Culture in IT,
  Communications of the ACM Feb 2002 45, 2.
• 23. Why the Turnover Threat Is Real and What
  to Do About It HR Focus Aug. 2005 82, 8.
• 24. The Turnover Myth Workforce Management
  Jun 2005 84, 6.
• 25. Americas New Deficit The shortage of
  Information Technology Workers, U. S. Department
  of Commerce, Office of Technology Policy, 1997,
  pp.19-21, viewed October 21, 2005.