To run a successful business, it’s essential to have an efficient IT team. As a business continues to prosper and grow, its IT team needs to do so as well. Without the necessary IT skills, departments will struggle. According to David Foote, CEO and cofounder of Foote Partners, there are a variety of challenges facing senior IT executives and CIOs regarding staffing and IT skills. The list is as follows:
- Constant skills gaps, difficulty hiring specialized workers with multidimensional skills and knowledge
- Inconsistency in job titles
- Tech gurus who don’t want to be promoted to management roles
- Market pay moving at different rates for workers in the same grade
- Shaky career paths and incentive plans that are no longer effective
- Poor job evaluation or none at all. Outdated and/or inaccurate job descriptions
- Compensation benchmarking is market-based vs. internal equity based
- Salary compression issues
- Managing for big growth: finding the best organizational models, staffing optimization strategies and human capital practices to get there
- Convincing senior business management to invest dollars in substantial changes in IT workforce pay and budget in order to execute predictably on strategic business initiatives.
These problems make it important for a business to build a strategy that will bring in new workers and keep them productive and engaged. To combat these issues, a business should start by focusing on IT roles, and not jobs. This means that companies need to reconsider their strategies and think about these four key IT roles: IT Architects, Project Management, IT Analysts and IT Specialists.
Companies struggling with outdated, inaccurate or non-existent job descriptions should reconsider the current descriptions. Afterwards, it needs to assess and reassess the company’s current IT skills. If there is a critical need or time restraint, companies should consider research consultants and service firms for IT support.
Training the existing staff is another factor in ensuring that your company has the best IT support. If a business decides to reach out to a third party IT consultant or company, then it can dedicate more time to training its staff or hiring new talent.
Next, building tech career paths help keep your existing staff motivated and educated. Clear and realistic career-paths are beneficial towards employee retention because it helps employees understand how to move up within the company. An example of this initiative is setting up a college recruitment program.
To conclude, it’s important for companies to keep employees engaged by staying current and thinking differently. Technology is ever-changing at a fast pace, so to keep up businesses have to continue to motivate and educate their employees.
Need a new IT support provider?
If so, contact Stratosphere networks, and let us see what we can do for you. We provide a broad range of IT services, including: 24/7 remote monitoring, proactive desktop and server management, email and virus protection, and backup and recovery, to name a few. For more information, call us today at at (877) 599-3999, or click here to use our contact form.
