How to Retain Your Top IT Professionals
Posted June 8th, 2011
How many of your top IT performers are simply biding their time, waiting until the economy improves before bolting to the next job? As the job market opens up, the first people out the door will be the ones with the most options – the best employees in your organization.
This could have a devastating impact on your company in more ways than one — disrupted projects, overruns on schedules and budgets, quality issues, and loss of corporate memory — in addition to the time and expense of having to find replacements.
How can you increase commitment and decrease turnover among your valued IT employees?
First, you need to understand why IT professionals tend to leave an organization. You may think the most important reason is money, but that’s not the entire story. It’s easy for IT workers to compare their salaries to others doing the same work, both within your company and within their industry. If they feel they are not being paid competitively, pay is definitely an issue. However, infotech employees also appreciate other perks, such as:
• Challenging work assignments
• Favorable work environment
• Flextime
• Stock options
• Additional vacation time
• Family-friendly values
• Everyday casual dress code
• Cross-functional assignments, tuition and training reimbursement
One recent survey found that the second most important retention factor for IT professionals is quality of management – how well the IT staff is managed. Many bosses in IT aren’t strong on mentoring and team-building. They often received promotions themselves because they were technically strong, and not necessarily because they had strong people skills or instinctive leadership qualities.
In order to ensure that your managers are giving the IT staff what they need, try to ensure that they are:
Communicating about Career Development IT managers need to communicate frequently with their employees about career development activities. This should include assessing an employee’s competencies in terms of technical ability, project management and process skills, innovation, and effectiveness.
Employees also want to learn business skills, interpersonal skills and communication skills. They know that companies are looking for well-rounded individuals, not just “techno geeks.”
Conducting Employee Surveys In other words, managers need to ask their employees what they like about their jobs, and what they need in terms of training and mentoring. The amount of training offered is a critical consideration in an IT professional’s decision to stay or leave.
Training is too often seen as a perk when it should be viewed as an essential investment in a company’s intellectual capital. In IT, change is rapid and nobody wants to become obsolete by working too long in an unchanging environment. Strong training, coaching, job rotation programs, and opportunities for experimentation send a clear message that management is seeking to establish a long-term relationship with employees.
In order to retain your top IT employees, take a look at your salary ranges to see if they are competitive, ensure that you are offering other benefits besides salary and insurance, make sure your managers are providing a challenging work environment, and see that career development and training programs are in place.
To find out more about how you can keep your IT team intact, or how we can help fill your technical staffing needs, contact Bayside Solutions today.
