Best Practices in IT Team Management

Success demands dynamism. That's why all successful teams have dynamic

leaders. A leader with vision and fortitude to propel the team through turbulent

times. But what good is a leader without an equally dynamic and responsive group

of people. All this is utopian to even think of in modern-day enterprises,

pressed as they are with changing business dynamics, technology and the ever

compressing global community. Today, leave alone dynamicism, even retaining an

efficient, stable IT team in an organization is a key issue for CIOs. Due to

high attrition in IT, retaining talented manpower for projects is becoming a

major cause of headaches for CIOs. So, what are the reasons for this volatility?

Money is certainly not the primary reason, 'cause most organizations, in spite

of paying employees according to current industry standards, are still facing

similar issues. And this concern is shared by CIOs across all verticals. In this

story we try to find out answers to this and understand all issues related to

manpower management. We shall also focus on how we can find and retain the right

manpower for IT infrastructure team management? What's more we shall also

discuss measures organizations are taking to reduce manpower attrition. A point

that comes strongly across is that apart from good salaries, you need to explore innovative schemes to keep employees on board.

So, what measures can one take to combat/ease the stress in an IT team that

often works at odd hours, under severe work pressure? What are the measures you

can take to ensure work doesn't get disrupted, if a member of your IT team

leaves?

To find answers to the above questions we conducted an online survey to

understand what concerns key CIOs across the country had on this issue. In this

story, we also throw some light on the best practices they follow to tackle this

complex issue. In our survey, we segregated this issue into a series of concerns

that covered various stages of this problem. Around 42% of the respondents

confirmed that getting right IT manpower for the IT department is one of the

toughest jobs while recruiting manpower for their IT department. When asked

about the size of their IT teams, 34 % of the respondents said that they have 11

to 30 members in their IT team whereas another 25 % of the respondents had a

strength of 50+ people working in their IT teams, and only 11 % claimed that

they have IT teams of less than 10 people. By and large most of the IT teams are

maintained in-house, but due to the scarcity of skilled IT manpower, CIOs are

now looking forward to outsourcing IT infrastructure management. According to

the survey, 57% respondents still rely on in-house IT teams while 26% of the

respondents said that they maintain in house and outsourced teams in equal

proportions. Interestingly, only 11 % of the respondents said that they have

completely outsourced their IT infrastructure management.

Hurdles in recruiting IT manpower



Recruiting professionals in the IT department is not an easy task for a CIO.

Around 45 % of respondents said that paying competitive salaries is their

biggest hurdle while 28% said that lack of quality manpower is the biggest

hurdle. Only 5% blamed top management for their woes, reasons varying from an

insufficient HR department to time consuming procedures in getting requisite

sanctions. We found that most organizations need IT professionals who have

multi-tasking skills with desired experience on the latest technologies.

However, such kind of manpower is rarely found.

Catch 'em young



With rising business costs most organizations prefer recruiting fresh

manpower from colleges. This way they avoid paying exorbitant salaries to

experienced professionals. Moreover, freshers can be easily moulded into roles

that an organization wants them to play. We found that 34 % of our respondents

recruit fresh candidates from campus interviews and the remaining 66 % said that

they do not prefer hiring fresh talent.

Each system is well documented and there is a well documented methodology of handing over the charge to the new employee. Work does not get affected due to employee attrition.
	Jyoti Bandopadhyay VP-IT, Torrent Pharmaceuticals

Attrition



The attrition rate of IT manpower is the highest in BPOs. This is mainly

because people working in BPOs in technical positions have very limited growth.

These people are generally recruited to give technical assistance to their

clients through voice or Web based processes. On the other hand, verticals such

as manufacturing, education, BFSI and IT have lower attrition rates. Around 37 %

of the respondents said that they have only 10% attrition rate while another 22%

acknowledged that attrition rate in their companies is around 20%. On the other

hand 8% of respondents said that they have an attrition rate of 40% annually,

most of these belong to BPO companies. Clearly, BPOs are worst hit by attrition.

As regards retrenchment, only 8% of respondents admitted that they have in past

asked their IT people to leave while a mammoth 91 % of respondents have never

asked for retrenchment so far, which is quite a healthy figure. To reduce

manpower attrition, organizations have started taking corrective measures at

their end. Around 94% of respondents have started giving additional

responsibility, training, resized salary structure, created challenging job assignments with new technologies, tried job rotation, provided flexible

working hours and periodic performance based incentives to their IT manpower.

Only 5 % of respondents said that they haven't taken any measures yet to control

attrition rate.

Manpower retention issues



Retaining experienced manpower in organizations is another key issue before

CIOs, while managing their IT teams. A key concern is poaching. Competitors

always try to poach on talented manpower by doling out better salaries and

benefits. Secondly, work pressure and odd hour deadlines for IT teams are also

increasing day by day leading to depression and mental stress. All this drives

individuals to the edge, and finally they call it a day. Another key issue is

the level of job satisfaction as after a project implementation is over, people

feel that the job is not challenging enough. Some are frustrated to the extent

that they cease to see any growth or opportunity for them. Around 45 % of

respondents raised alarms that retaining existing IT manpower is the second most

serious issue while 34% said that it's the most serious issue for them. About

70% of respondents said that better salaries offered by competing companies take

away their talented manpower while only 5% respondents said that work pressure

is the key reason for quitting. Only 14% respondents gave reasons like

unsuitable postings and adjustment in work culture for their employees quitting

jobs. Overall, employees being offered higher salaries by competitors is the

primary concern for all.

Measures to combat stress



To reduce stress from the IT team, about 48% of the respondents adopted

flexible timings for their IT teams while another 20% took IT teams for outings.

Only 2% respondents said that they offer recreational activities like indoor

games, gyms, coffee houses, etc. A good 25% use innovative ideas such as

removing monotony from work, nominating employees for conferences, keeping them

motivated through trainings and encouraging employees to use recreational and

sports facilities available on campus. Strangely, none of the respondents opted

for the concept of working from home as a stress buster. This concept might be

gaining ground in western countries, but is not so popular in India. A few

organizations might have started it for their employees but in the survey we

didn't get any record for that.

Creating backups



For some organizations, IT functions are extremely critical. Therefore, CIOs

can't afford to lose a single member from their team even for a single day. However, if people leave, can they ensure that this would not hamper

their services in any manner? Do they have any backup plans? As expected, all of

the respondents claimed that they have devised various kinds of backup plans to

keep there IT operations running. We interacted with some of the CIOs and found

that they follow protocols that bind employees to the organization in such a way

that it doesn't hamper IT operations even if a person wants to leave. Listed

below are some of the precautions you could take to prevent disruption of IT

functions in case an employee quits from the IT team:



1. Make provision for sufficient notice period in the appointment letter
to ensure a smooth transition of assignments to peers and managers and well

documented project execution and management processes.



2. Before an employee leaves, a proper hand over to the next in-charge is
required, with both of them working together for at least a week. Always keep a

stand-by arrangement for key tasks.



3. A perfect documentation of the responsibilities and work, done by the
outgoing employee, should be asked for. Some organizations follow a strict

notice period policy (1-3 months notice is required before a person leaves).



4. Nowadays, team concept is gaining popularity, wherein jobs are handled
by a team of 2-3 persons. This creates automatic backups and when a new person

joins he can easily be trained by older employees. In addition, every new

endeavor is documented after implementation, which also supports the new joinee.

Job rotation amongst team members is another important concept and creates a

knowledge base to ensure that a CIO is not dependent on individuals.

IT staff is given sufficient inputs through team building workshops. 25% of our staff is entitled to job profile rotation. Our systems have been devised in such a way that there is lesser dependence on other teams.
	M D Agrawal, Chief Manager - IT Bharat Petroleum

Training manpower



These days enterprises from all verticals spend considerable amount of

budget on training activities to build motivation amongst the IT team. Around

37% of respondents said that they have a separate budget for training and should

spend around Rs 2 to 5 lakh.

Another 14% spend Rs 11 to 20 lakh while only 8% spend more than Rs 20 lakh.

Interestingly, 20 % of respondents said that they don't have any separate budget

for manpower training while 11% respondents acknowledged that they spend less

than a lakh on training their IT manpower. In addition, 20% respondents admitted

to conducting team building exercises either every month or six months or at

least once a year. Only 11% respondents said that they don't conduct such

exercises. Such an analysis shows that employers are pumping huge sums of money

for training and team building exercises in order to increase employee

motivation and productivity.

HR departments use innovative ways to motivate their IT teams, for eg,

conducting regular meetings of IT members across the organization and arranging

get togethers/outings. However, all this depends purely on the requirements that

are put forth by CIOs during review meetings.