I'm, in a show of naivete, surprised at how challenging it can be to post something on a regular basis. Regular being defined as something more frequently than once a week (or longer). Something being defined as reasonably intelligent and useful. So, working to get back on track.....
People. The most important predictor of a healthy, strong IT organization is the quality and energy of the people. Seems like a "motherhood and apple pie" kind of statement but what are the metrics we can use to indicate that quality?
Turnover is often used as a measure as are employee satisfaction survey results. While those can render good indicators of employee satisfaction, I don't think it's a very good measure of quality. At best I think you come up with clues about quality or its lack.
I look at turnover as a target range to strive to keep turnover within over a period of time. Too low, say below 5%, and we likely aren't being aggressive enough about managing poor performance. Too high- above 15% depending on location and industry- and we're likely losing talent and knowledge plus spending too much time in backfilling those positions.
Employee satisfaction surveys? Necessary for getting insight into how employees are feeling about their work, the company and their peers. Look for the trends and the outliers.
But here's a couple of key indicators I use that can tell a lot not just about the quality of individuals but the IT organization as a whole including perception by the business.
- How many people, especially from the leadership team, have moved from IT into the business in the past 3, 6, 12, 18 months? And into the business in what capacity?
- How many people from the business have applied for and been given key positions within IT?
What do you think? What's your experience been? What other kinds of Rules of Thumb do you find useful?
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2 comments:
Good post.
From my experience I have seen individuals from IT move into different business roles but I really have not seen the opposite flow very often. Maybe at only at very senior level have I seen some one come into IT and that was really to run IT from a business perspective.
Other indicators of the quality of IT personnel I like are visible signs of active learning. Do they pursue outside education? Do they take manuals/texts home? Do they participate in outside seminars? Learning is such a large part of being effective in the IT field it is nice to see professionals improving themselves.
Hi Jim, I like the "visible signs of active learning" metric. I've often found that you can tell a lot about the health of your organization by just listening. If there's a definite buzz on the floor, that's a good thing. People are motivated and energized. Look at what people and teams have on the walls in their work areas. Are they fired up about technology generally? If they aren't digging in and debating the latest technology it's unlikely that they are going to be a really high performing team.
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