That's an easy one: grow them.
This article lists 8 ways to bridge skills gaps in IT, and the first one is training. That's important and really requires some type of committment from the company. It's not something you find money for, but something that you should make a part of every worker's job. It's a big reason that I started End to End Training with Andy Warren and Brian Knight. We believe that training is important, and that it needs to be practical education for your job, not for a test.
I really like the idea of finding workers, grooming them, giving them a great environment in which to work, and trying to keep them around for 10 years. In today's mobile workforce that can be tough, but I still believe people are people and many of them would prefer to stick with the company they know if they're treated well. Just look at how many people stick around when they're not treated well. You know that you could keep many more with just a little effort.
I think there are good people to hire in the US, but there are definitely skills shortages. However my feeling is that you can teach a good employee the technical stuff; you can't necessarily teach the skilled technical guy to be a good employee.
That's why I think a good company should keep some positions open. If a good employee comes along, you want to hire them. I'm sure that you can always find work for them and train them in the skills you need. I know this sometimes makes management nervous that they'll hire 10 people they don't need, but how often do you find a great employee that's looking for a job. It's rare, and it almost always comes from word-of-mouth. I'd be surprised if you found more than 1-2 a year, if that, so it's prudent to keep the positions open, just in case.
The days of lifelong employment are mostly behind us, especially in the Information Technology world. At least that's my opinion given the changing nature of the business. With rapid technology changes, people either will not want to change technologies every time a company does and look for employment elsewhere, or they will enjoy the thrill and want to move faster than the company, and also look for employment elsewhere. These are generalizatons, so some employees will feel differently, but in looking at your entire staff, you can expect some amount of turnover in IT that is over and above what other departments might experience.
It's expensive to find new people, and good management (both technical and financial) will recognize this. That means be flexible and don't hamstring yourself with too many rules. Move people between jobs to keep them fresh and bring new ideas, tolerate failures, test people to see who might be a good leader, promote the excitement of youth, but temper it enough to keep it under control, and build a great work environment.
Most people would love to stick with your company for a long time and will with a little effort.
Steve Jones
PS: If you're thinking of attending the PASS Summit 2008 in November, and you should, be sure that you use the "SSC6" registration code when you register. We'll have a great opening night party you can attend and you get $100 off your registration cost. Until June 30, you save an additional $800 off the full price with early registration.
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
or now on iTunes!
- Windows Media Podcast - 32.5MB WMV
- iPod Video Podcast - 28MB MP4
- MP3 Audio Podcast - 5.8MB
Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.
I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don't like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you'd like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.