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Organizational Practices of an IT Department?
fbg111 asks: "I've recently joined a company, a regional airline, with an IT department that has grown organically (ie in response to immediate, rapid-growth-driven need, rather than according to any organizational plan). In the past five years the company has come to rely on IT, specifically the web team, for about 3/4's of its revenue. However, this unstructured growth has caused some problems, like this one: the lack of defined career paths and clear promotion 'triggers' makes techs feel 'stuck' in dead-end situations, and we tend to lose good people who find more transparent advancement opportunities elsewhere. I've recently joined the new CIO's task force for putting together a plan that addresses the immediate problem of defining career advancement paths and payscales. Does Slashdot have any ideas on this subject?"
"I'm particularly interested in industry best practices that cover providing breadth and depth of experience and training, dual (or more) career tracks that allow techs to go the management route or the technical guru route, and aligning promotion triggers and career paths with IT department & corporate goals, and anything else relevant to the matter. Do any of you have anything in particular to recommend?"
Well how to feel like you not in a dead end job.
If you do good work you get better pay, also the longer you work the better you should get paid. This way we keep the most salt of the earth of the workers, if they can get better pay elsewhere then they will go there.
Titles and advantages to the titles. If the person doesn't want to go into management positions they still should get titles that represent their status. Sr. Programmer or whatever. Besides just giving the name there should be some benefits of earning the title, other then pay, they should have higher priority on what projects they want to do, depending on their status. If they have 10 years of experience and have done a good job for you in the past they should get earlier pick on the more fun jobs and leave the more mundane to the less experience people who need experience (But depending on the person you may be surprised what jobs are quickly taken up early)
Say in policy as people advance they say in company IT policy should have more weight.
Job Security, the higher position the more secure you job should be from layoffs.
Improved Benefits, Like allowing to work at home during normal hours, Flex Hours, More vacation time. With ¾ of the business they should also get some commission on their work.
Constant training, allow them if they choose to keep their skills up with modern technology, that way you are not stuck with software on a dead platform with a near dead language and IT staff who is afraid of changing because they don't have training on newer tech.
The main trick is to figure out what do you want in a job and break it into priorities and the higher you are the more you get.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I hate to sound mercenary, but if you want your employees to feel valued and appreciated, say it with money. Other gestures can be very nice, but in the end most people come to realize that money is the only metric by which businesses measure value. If the IT department is as important to the revenue of the company as you say it is (which I find a little hard to believe, but let's assume you're right..) then the employees should share in the company's success.
And then there's the oral sex.
*shudder*
We think there's some sort of hierarchy with an advancement/promotion plan involving a Lovecraftian quagmire of Thunderdomes and quatloos, but scientific instrumentality can only accomplish so much.
Take it with whatever size grain of salt you want, but it is interesting food for thought for those in your position.
The first thing is to definite what jobs you have there. Web designer vs network engineer vs help desk level 2 or whatever you have. List out their responsibilities and required skills. Do this like HR, but make it seem important, don't over do it It's important to define the role as best you can and identify if the job that person is either completely unique or can be taken over by someone else. For example, if you have one DBA who manages the database for your system, and no one else really has his responsibilities or his skills then that's a specific job. If some guy is responsible for keeping an eye the email server but 5 other guys could do it, then his role is more broad, that of a generic IT tech.
Once you have a definition of their jobs, then create levels. Four levels is typical. Each position has levels for which for which the level gets both more responsibilities and more pay. First level is entry level. Second level is "certified" in that they've proven themselves over months or even up to a year as being good employee. 3rd level is senior in that they know the processes well, are fairly independent, and have high quality of work. 4th level are those few shining examples of great employees who do outstanding work on many different levels and would be very hard to replace.
Create paths to different groups to. For example, in a lot of IT departments, the path from a department that helps with desktop leads to network or server support as advancement.
Create requirements for each level to move from level 1 to 2. Some people use written tests to grade someone skills, others simply use management review. Some require a specific certification in a computer technology.
Finally, make sure everyone in IT starts out as level 1 and create a short term plan to have everyone move through the levels. This will help you figure out who's worth holding onto, and reward them appropriately. Be Prepared for a little backlash from those who don't warrant promotion, but if they don't warrant it, you have documentation as to why not.
And make sure you have guidelines for how managers should document everyone under their pervue so that they have a more standardized way of grading people and don't go off doing their own thing. When one manager grades easy and one grades hard, the people under the harsh manager feel left out while the easy guys get the money.
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