No Layoffs
-
No LayoffsThese days, that's quite a statistic. I know lots of small companies have never laid anyone off, but a 400 person IT shop? That is truly something. And more than no layoffs, they have a 97.9% retention rate! Now that's the kind of place for me.
This is kind of another career week with less about databases in general and more about your career. Yesterday's editorial was the 100 Best IT departments to work for and today I look at a related article, How Top Employers Keep IT Staff Happy.
Happiness is a funny thing. My wife loves chocolate, I prefer pizza and my kids all have their own favorites. A job isn't much different with each of us having our own perks and benefits that we prefer. However at the top employers, it seems they make an effort in a few areas that I think helps keep people content and wanting to stick around.
Trust is a big thing. Beyond hiring good people, you have to let them make decisions, take responsibility for those decisions, but not have devastating repercussions for mistakes. Training is another. After all we all are in technology because we enjoy working with hardware and software, which these days are changing rapidly. Giving people the chance to grow and learn new skills is important.
There are lots of other things you can do, but most of this seems to come down to treating people well and genuinely caring for them. We all want to feel we're a part of something and the best companies nurture that to ensure their people are happy.
Be sure you remember that the next time the junior DBA needs help or seems bored. Work with them and give them chances to grow and learn more, including making their own mistakes.
Steve Jones
-
Its gratifying to see that there are still some decent companies to work for in the IT industry. Far too frequently the decisionmakers have no concept of the true costs associated with turnover in the field. They fail to appreciate that a huge amount of business and process knowledge only exists in the heads of they employees. They also do not realize that a good technical person is like a master craftsman and hiring an apprentice to do a master's job will likely cost far more than the salary saved in the long haul.
Since the true value of a good technical person is not grasped by those making the staffing decisions, one can easily see the trend continuing in the hiring of cheap outsourced labor. If only there were more articles highlighting the virtues of talented, experienced staff rather than what a supposed "holy grail" cheap labor is perhaps our plight may not be what it has been for the past 5+ years.
Karen Gayda
MCP, MCSD, MCDBA
gaydaware.com -
How do you retain good people is very difficult? The big companies (liked Citibank) think they are so graceful that they offer you a job, aren't you happy already? Retaining good people is the last thing in their mind. They outsourced most their IT jobs to India. Of course the people with good skills would leave. Same as most big companies that offshore to other countries. I would not like to work for those companies. The worst is they even hire H1 visa employee as if there is no US worker qualify the job.
My company hired someone to do a working and personality profile for all IT people. I thought this was crazy. But then they had a session with the managers and the employees, they showed the profile of all the people, it helped the managers to understand their employees and their needs. I think it really help to retain the employees. Just liked you said you liked pizza and your wife liked chocolate. Everyone's work style is different. The manager now understands their employee's work style and helps them to advance their career.
Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply