Best Practices in IT Team Management

Retaining talented IT manpower is one of the biggest challenges for CIOs across all verticals. And remuneration is not the only reason for a high attrition rate. So, what are the options before CIOs to reverse this trend? Here, we explore some of them

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

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

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