IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done (11 page)

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Make changes in personnel to reflect the needs of the jobs your team must perform. Need more people? Ask for them, and do so with concrete, numerical evidence of why you need them. Is one person on the verge of burning out because the company has overworked her? Shift that person’s responsibilities. Is one person over his head in his job? Look for other places within the department that this person can contribute more effectively. (Care needs to be taken when doing this, because the employee may not understand.) In general, the IT world isn’t for the fainthearted.

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Be aware of how much different people can give. Some employees can only deliver 40 hours’ worth of work in a week, even if they are at their desk 60 hours. Others can easily double their efforts, for short times, in response to specific needs. Often, running at top speed isn’t the best way to get there. Be sensitive to what motivates your employees, as well as their needs and limitations. Be aware that people can only be pushed, or even push themselves, so far. Recognize when they can be pushed further and when you have to insist they take a break. Do this well and you’ll be rewarded with a far more productive and motivated team.

Managing Remote Workers (or Teleworkers)

Technology has ushered in a global economy and the ability for employees to get their work done from anywhere in the world. In the past, working remotely may have meant working at home because a blizzard closed the roads or to take care of sick child. Today,
teleworking
may mean working from home full-time, certain days a week, or working in a different office from your boss and peers. Teleworking is used by employees,
outsourcing
companies, and contracts and consultants. These workers may be as far as around the world, or as close as around the block.

The trend for teleworking is growing because it provides a number of benefits:

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Improved work/life balance for employees

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Cost savings for employee (e.g., commute) and employer (real estate)

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Reduced environmental impact

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Considered a perk for (some) employees so it is easier to attract and retain talent

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Ability to recruit from a geographically wider talent pool

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Increased productivity

Telework Findings

A survey by WorldatWork released in 2011 reported that U.S. employers offer four types of telework, and many offer more than one kind of telework program at a time:

• Ad hoc telework (e.g., to meet a repair person, care for a sick child) (83%)

• Telework on a regular monthly basis (at least one day per month, but not full time) (58%)

• Telework on a regular weekly basis (at least one day per week, but not full time) (57%)

• Full-time telework (every regularly scheduled workday) (37%).

“Telework on a regular or full-time basis might be even more common if not for certain obstacles getting in the way of telework for many,” said Alison Avalos, research manager for WorldatWork. “Nearly four in every 10 surveyed organizations say that resistance from top management or the lack of jobs conducive to these arrangements are keeping them from offering all types of telework programs.”

Other results:

• Full-time telework is more commonly offered by large corporations (20,000 employees or more).

• Telework locations vary, but “home” is most frequent. Nearly 70 percent of organizations that offer at least one type of telework say employees routinely work from home.

• Telework programs often are featured in recruitment. Organizations with telework programs are more likely to feature those programs when attracting talent, indicating that organizations use these programs to distinguish themselves as an employer of choice.

Source:
www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimComment?id=48318

The key thing to remember about teleworkers (also known as remote workers, mobile workforce, work-from-home staff, etc.) is that it is more challenging to develop and maintain effective relationships with them because you won’t have the very important in-person, face-to-face interaction with them. That’s not to say that you can’t have an effective relationship with them, it just means that you have to work differently at it to do so.

Some guidelines to help you with managing teleworkers:

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Work with other departments (HR, Legal, etc.) to develop clear and consistent policies about teleworking. This can include what the company will do or provide, what is expected of the employee, what expenses will be reimbursed, etc.

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Make sure you understand—and convey this to your team—that there are a wide range of telecommuting options. Some employees need or want only one day a week (some companies offer four 10-hour days as an alternative solution to this issue) and some companies are fine with only occasional in-office days (as the rise in “hot-desking”—the practice of taking any desk that is available that day—demonstrates).

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Ensure that the employee has access to the appropriate tools to do the job (hardware, software, connectivity, etc.).

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Make sure that you and your team have access to tools to facilitate collaboration and communication with remote workers. This can include instant messaging (with voice and audio), webcams, web conferencing, video conferencing, etc.

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Consider telephony solutions (like call forwarding, VPN phones, soft phones) so that your remote workers can be reached just by dialing their extension, and not having to look up their home phone number.

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Make the effort to regularly talk (not just e-mail or IM) with your teleworkers. A regularly recurring appointment for status updates is ideal, in addition to the ad hoc chats.

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To help the teleworker feel that he’s part of the team, be diligent about sharing information with him, at least as much as you ask for information. This can even include what other team members are working on, even if completely unrelated to the teleworker’s projects.

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Include non-work topics (e.g., family, weekend activities, etc.) in your discussions with the teleworkers to help make up for the loss of small talk that helps develop relationships with people you see in person.

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Encourage, and directly ask for, feedback, advice, and suggestions from teleworkers. In fact, the number one pet peeve about teleworking, as reported in a 2011 report from Microsoft, was “cannot speak face-to-face” (source
www.microsoft.com/presspass/download/features/2011/05-18Remote.pptx
).

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Be prompt in responding to a teleworker’s queries, just as you would for the employee who poked his head into your office to ask you something.

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At meetings, use a speaker phone to ensure that the teleworker feels that he’s part of the group discussion, make sure he has copies of all documents in advance, and actively include him in the discussion by specifically asking him for feedback and comments.

While it’s important to develop the skills and habits to effectively manage teleworkers, you, as an IT manager, need to be particularly knowledgeable about the subject since any sort of teleworking program at your company will rely on you, your department, and the technology solutions you bring to the table to help make it a success. And, don’t forget, it’s entirely possible that
you
could be the remote worker. If your boss is in another location, she may be relying on these very techniques in managing you!

2.2 Employee Training

Training is always an issue for managers. Although they know that it’s a perk that employees often enjoy and it improves employees’ skills, they are also concerned about the cost, the employee being away from his full-time responsibilities, and the fear that the employee will use the newly acquired skill to seek another job elsewhere. However, a few days or a week at a training class can serve as a respite for a hard-working employee as well as increase his skill set and usefulness to the organization. Some companies provide tuition reimbursement toward a degree.

Because learning new skills is such a critical part of working in IT, providing training is an important part of managing an IT staff. There are so many IT classes offered that it wouldn’t be difficult to have someone spend more time at training classes (and trade shows) than they do at work. As a manager you have to balance a few items when doling out training:

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Cost

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Need

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Employee morale

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Scheduling demands

Cost

There are two issues associated with the cost of employee training:

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The cost of the training itself

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The cost of having the employee away from her full-time responsibilities

Often, the second issue far outweighs the first. The expenses for an employee to attend a training class vary greatly. Some classes are offered either locally or online, and may only be three hours in length. However, many training options include cross-country travel, which requires hotel, rental car, and travel expenses that can inflate the cost of the class by a factor of two or more.

Despite those variances, the real cost issue is often the expense of having an employee away from work for a period of time. Can you spare this individual for an entire week? Sometimes several people are sent to training together. Can you spare all of them? Sometimes contractors can fill in for staff members who are at training; in this case the costs are fairly easily measured. But other times, some of your other employees or people from other departments need to fill in; the “cost” of these solutions, while not always visible, is often much higher than a week in a hotel.

When thinking about the cost of training, it is important to remember that it is generally less expensive to train an existing employee than it is to recruit a replacement. In other words, training can be a relatively inexpensive tool to retain an employee and a more cost-effective way of improving the team’s skills (as opposed to going out and recruiting for those skills).

Need

What is the short- and long-term value of this kind of training for an employee? Often the needs are well defined: Joe needs a Database Administrator class because he will be helping out Maria. But other times, the issue gets cloudy: Mark wants to take a class on programming for mobile and tablet devices, but that isn’t his exact responsibility right now and it isn’t clear that the company is going to be creating apps for those markets anyway.

“Need” may appear to be the clear deciding factor, but often the value of taking a training class is unclear. If that is the case, you should use some of the other criteria listed in this section to help you decide whether or not to agree to have an employee take a training class.

Scheduling Demands

This is probably the most difficult issue to deal with. Many of your own staff will find the issue difficult, rightly recognizing that a week away from the office means a week of catching up when they get back. Who will cover for them? If they are overburdened right now (as many IT people are), how are they ever going to make up for a lost week’s worth of work? The answer is pretty simple: Evaluate the short-term costs versus the long-term gains. See the previously mentioned three items; if the direct costs aren’t overwhelming, if the employee (and your department) needs the training, and if their morale will be improved, go for it—and have them go for it.

Remember that the traditional five-day instructor-led classes are just one option. Making use of shorter (and more content-targeted) classes, as well as online instruction (either interactive, or view-only) have proven to be very popular, effective, and cost efficient.

Employee Morale

Many employees view training as a reward. It provides them with concrete, resume-enhancing skills, sometimes lets them “get out of the house” by traveling to a warm spot in midwinter, and often allows them to interact with professionals with the same interests and questions.

In addition, sending a staff member to a trade show or training course can be an excellent way to motivate employees. Both you and your employees need to aggressively monitor your skill sets to make sure they are current and useful.

Also be aware that sending one person to training can occasionally cause a second person to feel resentment. One of the challenges any manager faces is how to juggle multiple responsibilities, such as how to manage multiple people. Make sure you spread the “wealth” around so that feelings like these have no basis in fact.

How Do You Know When Your Employees Need Training?

There are three principal ways to identify when an employee needs training.

1.
They tell you.
IT people are deluged by training class offers and by situations where they are aware of their technical shortcomings in one area or another. Asking the boss for a class or two is a common request. (Asking for a weeklong class on a cruise ship in the Bahamas is less common, but not unheard of.) You should consider an employee’s request for training as a positive indication that they are interested in learning and doing more for the company. (It could also be an indication that they like being out of the office or are looking to beef up their resume.) In addition, look at your employee’s goals. Are they asking for the training to meet the performance goals and development plan you both set together?