Technology

BY LEE GIMPEL

KEEP I.T. HAPPY

Prevent techies from upgrading their career somewhere else.

Before everyone had a computer on their desk, companies didn’t need a horde of IT professionals. But it’s a rare enterprise today that functions without its techies. They handle websites, maintain databases and gently break it to Steve in Accounting that his monitor is “dead” because it’s unplugged. What would we do without these people? It’s not a rhetorical question: Replacing an IT professional is expensive, and the ripple effect of delays and frustrations costs even more. Keeping your techies has become mission critical. But what’s the best way to do it?

The first solution—and perhaps the easiest—is to throw money at them. You can use a salary guide to ensure that you’re paying at least the industry average, but David Foote of Foote Partners, an IT compensation consultancy, recommends looking beyond job titles to make comparisons. For example, one developer may be an SAP expert and one may be a general C developer, but both have the “developer” title and consequently appear to merit the same salary even though the market values them very diff erently.

Th ankfully, retaining IT employees isn’t always all about the Benjamins. Yes, it makes sense to keep pace with raises and ensure that your employees feel fairly compensated for their skills and experience, but people decide to stay with a company for personal reasons, too.

This oft en means giving employees the freedom to work in a way that suits them; if someone wants to spend more time at home with his or her child and can still be productive, why not allow telecommuting?

Retaining IT requires a concerted company eff ort. Too oft en an employee talks to the boss once a year about performance and goals and then there’s no follow up. Instead, managers have to understand that while IT employees work with machines, they are still people who have wants and dreams. When managers strive to boost employees’ career, it encourages them to stay. Foote describes one company that draws up detailed career development plans for IT employees, and then asks managers and co-workers in other departments to sign on and help out any way they can. This is a smart move; the one-two punch that a headhunter will use to poach employees is,

“Do you know where you want your career to be in five years?” followed by “Does your current employer understand and care about this—and will they work to get you there?” If the answers are “yes” and then “no,” you’ll likely be looking for a replacement soon. “A lot of companies flail around, off ering people money, time off , all that stuff ,” Foote says. “Not that it’s not important, but if the end game isn’t to develop that person’s career, nothing that you’re doing is going to ultimately retain people.”