IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done (12 page)

2.
Your customers tell you.
The IT department’s customers can be one of a variety of groups: they can certainly be outside customers, but they can also be (sometimes exclusively) internal customers. In either case, if you solicit feedback from your customers about what their IT needs are, you may hear about specific technical services that your department can’t provide without either (1) getting more training for current employees or (2) hiring someone else to do the job.

3.
You find out on your own because you are a
proactive
manager.
Learn to address training needs before they become problems. If you do this, you’ll save yourself tremendous time, money, and effort over the long term. You’ll anticipate your department’s needs for Ruby on Rails developers and start running the ads months in advance, knowing that particular talent is hard to find. You’ll budget for a new Help Desk support analyst in advance, before the seasonal sales cycle kicks in and all the calls come in. And you’ll send your people for training in Windows network administration, for example,
before
the project to upgrade starts.

Certification

Most IT Managers don’t have the luxury of sending people to training just for the sake of training. As such, few IT departments are willing to sponsor their employees for training that leads to vendor or technology certification. This is simply because managers know that some of the classes in a certification program these days are fillers—they are of little or no use to a specific employee’s job responsibilities. Of course, there are exceptions. Some managers may use certification, or training in general, as a way of rewarding highly valued employees or for those employees whose responsibilities are very specialized. Also, while sending an employee to the requisite classes doesn’t guarantee certification, the employee still has to pass the exam. (Note that some companies won’t pay the exam fee if the employee doesn’t pass, which creates a nice incentive for the employee to work hard to pass it on the first try.)

Different certifications have come in and out of fashion over the years. At the start, in the early 1990s everyone wanted to be a
CNE
(Certified Novell Engineer). Years later, network certification became the most popular, such as Cisco’s CCNE. Beyond that, security and project management became the “it” certificates to have (
CISSP
and PMP). The value of certification is discussed in more detail in
Chapter 3, Staffing Your IT Team
on
page 65
.

What If the Employee Takes a Training Class and Then Uses His New-Found Skills to Find Another Job?

Be Honest about This Problem

One effective technique is simply to address the issue with the employee beforehand, while you are still making a decision about whether they should go to training. As is often the case in business situations, bringing the topic out in the open can go a long way toward easing everyone’s fears. Just discussing the issue doesn’t create any legal arrangement, of course, but it should let both sides know where the other stands. As a manager, you can openly express your concern about the possibility that the employee will “take the training and run.” You hope the employee will reply that the job is much bigger than one skill set, they like the environment, they would work here for free they like it so much, and so on. But if they don’t, if they hedge or are evasive, or blurt out a series of negative statements, you’ve probably got a problem that a training class isn’t going to solve.

Employee Agreements

Some companies have a policy that says an employee has to sign an agreement to reimburse the cost of training if she resigns within X months of taking a class. Of course, many employers and employees are hesitant about even making such an agreement because it creates somewhat of a non-trusting, non-supportive relationship. Before asking your employees to agree to something like this, make sure you discuss the issue with your HR department—there is probably an existing policy about it.

Because the IT world is so fluid, this situation works the other way, too. Employees can spend months on certification programs for a company and then the company changes direction. For example, one IT Manager had his entire Oracle database certification paid for but the company decided (at the last minute) to stay with Microsoft SQL. He eventually left to go to an Oracle shop.

Nontechnical Training

When considering IT training, you generally think about technical training. It’s important to remember that some of your staff may also benefit tremendously from nontechnical training as a way of expanding their horizons, such as the following:

•
Time management (for those who have trouble staying organized)

•
Business writing (for those who have to prepare memos and reports)

•
Presentation skills (for those who have to give presentations to groups)

•
Interpersonal skills (for those who need help with communications or conflict management)

•
Supervisory skills (for those who have a staff to manage)

•
Project management (for those responsible for keeping projects on track)

•
Leadership skills (for enhancing management skills)

Nontechnical training can have tremendous value. Employees may not appreciate it as much as technical training, but
you
will value it. You can tell an employee that you’re sending him to a nontechnical training class because you have hopes to move him up in the organization and he needs to increase his skill set, or you might tell him that his deficiencies in these areas are holding him and/or his team back.

Your HR department can be the best source for nontechnical training information. Training options are now more flexible and more accessible than ever before; in addition to the explosion of night and part-time schools, companies that provide on-site training, online courses, and the myriad of different media-based educational options make getting trained much more convenient.

Maximizing the Value of Training

If you send employees for training, it’s because you see the need. It’s then up to you as their manager to make sure that they’re putting these skills to use. You should review the course curriculum to get a feel for what the employees should be able to do after completing the class. If an employee isn’t using the skills learned in a class, it could be because the selection of that particular class was a poor one or that you haven’t challenged them to use their newly acquired skills. In addition, consider the following training ideas.

•
Have the employee who went to training give an informal training session to the rest of the team. You can then see how much the employee learned and give your entire team some of the benefits of the training.

•
Have the employee formally train employees who didn’t attend the training; if the employee goes to the initial training with that goal in mind, it can add value to their experience as well as save the company money.

•
Consider on-site training where the content can be more contextually specific to your organization and your configuration, and more employees can attend.

You want to be sure that your employees are aware that you have expectations for the money you spend on their training and that you see it as an investment in them and the team.

2.3 Employee Performance

While employees are your biggest asset, they can sometimes become a large liability, too. As discussed earlier, one of your key roles as a manager is to keep employees focused on their tasks, objectives, and priorities. However, in addition to this, you’re also responsible for employee performance reviews, dealing with disciplinary problems, and terminations.

Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are probably the single most important discussion you’ll have with members of your staff. Although performance reviews are traditionally a once-a-year event, some companies are now doing them twice a year. Regardless of the frequency, a professionally done review should be approached the same was as your taxes: Do the work in small bits all year and you will be ready when the big moment arrives—eliminating any chance of surprises for you and the employee at what is discussed. The end result should be the formalization of 12 months of regular discussion, feedback, analysis, and evaluation. This should be your overall goal as a manager when working with the reviews of your employees. The annual review process gives you a chance to document the employee’s accomplishments, dedication, commitment, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.

Performance reviews are often used to resolve two other important employment issues: rewarding good performing employees and addressing poor performing employees.

Poorly written evaluations make both of these tasks even more difficult and the costs of failing at this are high:

•
Mishandled terminations can (and often do, these days) end in lawsuits.

•
Mishandled reviews of good performers often lead to their changing jobs to get what they should have received from you.

•
Poorly done reviews can leave an employee feeling demoralized, worried about her job, and discouraged, when what you had really intended to do was offer some motivation, encouragement, and constructive criticism.

•
Ineffective reviews of poor performers may lead them to think that all is fine, and they can just “stay the course.”

Many companies have evaluation forms that have been developed by the HR department. Some forms are generic, whereas others are designed to reflect the company’s mission, values, and goals. There are also many offerings of applications that allow you to put the whole process online. Other companies have no forms and leave it up to each manager or simply rely on a memo-style format. However, a form generally won’t help you since a useful evaluation should really consist of descriptive narratives, specifics, examples, and commentary—not merely checked boxes.

No Surprises!

Neither you nor your employee should be shocked when review time comes around. For example, you should not suddenly discover that the employee finds your project assignments to be lacking in clarity, and they should not suddenly discover you strongly resent the hours they spend on Twitter and Facebook. In both cases, the problematic behavior can’t be corrected if the person isn’t aware it is a problem. Any negative comments that you include in the review should be items that you’ve discussed with the employee multiple times in the course of the year. If they are a superstar employee, you should’ve acknowledged their work and achievements throughout the year; and they should know that, in general, the review is going to be a very positive experience. If the employee is struggling, they should be aware of that before the formal evaluation because of conversations you’ve had with them. In either case, a little work on your part throughout the year will richly reward you when it is time to do reviews. The last thing you want to hear from your employee during the review process is “this is the first I’m hearing of that” or “I wish you had told me sooner so I could’ve worked on correcting it.” You can even consider doing informal reviews once or twice during the year.

Key Areas of Evaluation

Some of the areas that you want to consider when reviewing an employee’s performance include:

•
Quality of work

•
Flexibility

•
Creativity in solving problems

•
Communication skills

•
Innovation

•
Going above and beyond the requirements of the job

•
Coordination, interaction, and collaboration with others (particularly those they don’t have direct authority over)

•
Accountability

•
Ability to complete assignments in a timely manner

•
Ethics and compliance

•
Ability to pick up new skills on their own

•
Ability to work with and enhance the work of other staff members

•
Ability to manage short- and long-term projects

Quality of Work

Is this person providing excellent, just mediocre, or subpar work? Not every staff member will give you spectacular performance. But your needs as a manager may be such that this person fulfills certain other critical functions: they may be a team member who keeps others enthusiastic about the project, sets a good example for keeping focused, or has a deep knowledge of company operations and history and provides long-term perspective to decisions.

Flexibility

Most roles have job descriptions, some job descriptions are even written down(!), but almost no job description adequately anticipates the real-world demands of the position. (See the section
“Position Descriptions”
in
Chapter 3, Staffing Your IT Team
on
page 74
). It’s important for every employee to understand the real goals of the department and how he can help achieve those goals. Changing market conditions, changing project demands and priorities, and changing technical capacities all require employees to be flexible about their tasks. Has this employee adapted well to the fluid requirements of the job?

Creativity in Solving Problems

Along with flexibility about their job descriptions, good employees are often resourceful and creative in solving problems. Five new employees started Monday, but only four laptops were delivered; a creative employee might find one in the test lab to tide them over. The rush order for two new servers needs a manager’s signature, but she called in sick today; a creative employee will find a manager from another department or the manager’s boss to get the order started.