Hiring the Right Employee

IT Job DescriptionsHiring is the most critical aspect of a CIO's role.  For a CIO it can be fatal of they hire a new employee find out there is a mismatch. 

While the new employee looked impressive on paper and interviewed well, your new hire's style, approach, and behavior on the job are simply inconsistent with the values and expectations of your organization. The new employee's modus operand is foreign to their colleagues.  This results in:

  • Inadequate capability to perform in the job they were hired for
  • Poor relationship with co-workers
  • Poor relationship with managers and CIO

CIOs need to understand that capability does not necessarily mean an individual is a good fit. Capability refers to the skills, tools and experience that a person needs to successfully perform a job. It is no secret that most candidates exaggerate their abilities on their resumes and job applications.  Things to look for are:

  • Skills Definition - Good Job Descriptions - Do you know what skills are needed to perform the job and whether the employee possesses those skills? If they do not possess the necessary skills, how will the CIO help them to acquire them, and how long do you expect that process to take?  It is in everyone's best interest for the CIO to set appropriate expectations for the employee from the beginning. This is especially true if the job requires special technical capabilities.
  • Tools Definition - Good IT Infrastructure - Even if an individual has the skills and experience to do the job, do they have the tools to deliver peak performance? For example, a highly skilled and experienced web designer cannot build a website without adequate computer hardware and software. The tools do not have to be the most up-to-date, but a system that crashes can be incredibly frustrating and unproductive, even to the best performer.
  • Experience - Just because an employee has the skills to do a job does not mean that they has the experience to apply those skills in his specific position. This is especially true for recent graduates, outside hires from different industries and internal hires from different departments. While the required skills may be similar from one job to the next, differing applications and terminology may require that the new hire take time to learn the nuances of his new position.

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Cost Control is the Focus of Many CIOs and CEOs

The economic forecasts for the remainder of the year may be brighter -- but we are still in a recession. Many economists are calling for the economic downturn to last well into next yearand some even beyond. Because of these tough economic times, enterprises continue to focus on cost reduction and other forms of productivity improvement. To support the efforts Janco has identified several areas IT department can place their efforts.
They are:

  • ITSM - IT Service ManagementIT Service Management - Change Control - Help Desk - Service Desks Over the past several years, there have been significant improvements in the tools available to IT support organizations. These tools can help in the automation of support and the remediation of problems. By deploying these tools, enterprise can optimize the size and the responsibilities of help desk personnel. This is the area where there are opportunities for significant cost savings and service level improvements.

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  • Enterprise ArchitectcureEnterprise Architecture Optimizing the enterprise architecture to focus on operation's  support can provide enterprises with immediate cost savings. By rationalizing the operation's portfolio, enterprises can reduce the costs associated with having redundant support contracts, over supporting, or under supporting IT systems.  Enterprise Architecture has become a common practice for large IT organizations. For the first time there is a methodology to encompass all of the various IT aspects and processes into a single practice. However, realizing the full potential of enterprise architecture can be challenging.

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  • CIO Infrastructure ToolkitIT Infrastructure Management Infrastructure Management can provide enterprises with immediate cost avoidance as it can improve the utilization of the IT infrastructure. However, enterprises should not think that infrastructure management is limited only to computer hardware and software. Rather, infrastructure management also can provide benefits to the network and storage environment. To capitalize on the cost savings offered by infrastructure management, enterprises should investigate using an external IT services provider for developing the architecture, integration, and support for the IT operational environment.

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