Making of a Successful CIO

IT Job DescriptionsSuccessful CIOs are utilizing sophisticated, aggressive hiring tactics to acquire the most desirable personnel wherever they may be, while at the same time putting extensive emphasis on retaining and developing internal talent. This is not easy given the current economic situation.

Developing an adequate in-house talent pool demands more than a simple training program for employees' development. Establishing a strong, predictable internal talent pipeline requires:

  • Clarity of role and expected performance
  • Management of employees at every level
  • Guided training, education, and career planning
  • Assignment of eligible staff to the most exciting projects to motivate them and ensure a satisfying work experience..

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Easier to cut salaries than to lay-off -- more options open

IT Hiring Resource Kit contains full job description and salary dataWhile companies certainly have laid off huge numbers of employees since the economy first started to implode, it appears many of them are doing everything they can to minimize the number. However, it is a lot easier to restore compensation and benefits than it is to re-hire and re-train workers when the economy improves.

According to a recent study companies that made permanent job cuts averaged an additional six cost-cutting measures. Meanwhile, companies that have avoided layoffs averaged less than three cost-cutting measures.

It would also be a mistake to assume that companies avoiding layoffs are doing so out of kindness. While forging good will is certainly part of the decision for some companies, many have simply cut to the bone already or never fully ramped up after the last downturn. Other companies may have more workers than they need for current business levels but are reluctant to enact widespread layoffs, knowing that a recovery will mean recruiting and training all new workers.

This may be why we have seen an increase in the number of companies cutting salaries and other perks.

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Top Five Factors that Impact Security

Security Manual TemplateEveryone talks about security, but it seems that security and data breaches are in the news more than ever. Janco has reviewed more than 100 instances of security and data breaches and found a number of core factors contributing to their occurrences:

  • Data volumes and velocity of change are increasing at an exponential rate. In many companies, data is so voluminous, so disorganized and dispersed so frequently that IT departments aren't sufficiently staffed to implement standard security standards. IT departments are reactive, not proactive.
  • IT departments tend to respond to problems after the fact versus identifying solutions before a problem occurs, largely due to a lack of resources.
  • Users do not want to change or add processes. There is a wariness toward deploying yet another set of rules and tasks to follow on each smartphone, desktop and laptop that might add procedures, hog processor cycles, require frequent updates and slow down users as they try to do their jobs.
  • Complexity of security compliance. Devising and implementing a comprehensive, viable security policy may get in the way of traditional business practices, requiring the involvement of not just IT but also human resources, finance and legal teams, and business unit managers.
  • Addressing 20% of the problem versus 80%. Many companies focus on intentional data leakage. In reality, though, most data leakage occurs when there is a lapse and simple, proactive steps (such as enciphering sensitive files on laptops and ensuring that only authorized individuals access sensitive information) could have prevented the problem in the first place.

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