IT Staffing and IT Staff Augmentation – Project-Based Staffing

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It’s next to impossible for IT employees to be experts in every skill needed to complete any project that comes up. To make up for this lack of expertise, many organizations hire outside temporary help. About 10% to 20% of workers on IT projects are contingent employees, according to David Van De Voort, a principal consultant with Mercer, a human resources and consulting firm in Chicago.

The task of staffing is typically an HR function, but the CIO oversees allocation of resources in the IT department, where it is often prudent to recruit specialized workers for specific projects. Establishing an efficient process for hiring and managing temporary workers is essential to the success of those projects.

One of the challenges in hiring temp workers involves finding the best contract workers and getting them up and running quickly and efficiently. Temporary workers aren’t cheap. According to Van De Voort, organizations fork over $3 for every $1 they pay a regular employee. Find the wrong people — or supervise them inadequately — and an organization is likely to waste a great deal of money in the process.

The upshot: It’s essential for CIOs to have an effective freelance-management system. According to staffing experts, a few key steps in the hiring and managing processes can ensure smooth sailing.Hiring

The first stage involves finding and hiring the right people. The more systematic the process, the easier it will be to locate the right freelancers quickly.

  • Designate regular sources Organizations often find freelancers from a few sources. Contingent staffing firms offer temps who specialize in IT skills. Some focus on specific areas of expertise, such as ERP applications or Java development. Because those firms are able to devote considerable effort to finding specific candidates with specific skills, they’re especially useful when the project needs only a few freelancers at a time.
  • Create a database of expertise An ongoing database of freelancers can list specific areas of expertise. “When you actually need the freelancer, you’re ahead of the game,” says Dora Vell, managing partner of Vell & Associates, an executive search firm in Waltham, Mass.
  • Clarify the job description While this step may seem obvious, doing it right can make a difference. Articulate specifically which skills are needed and the day-to-day duties will be performed, as well as the size and scope of the project, specific benchmarks, timelines, and other expectations for performance. Failure to do so often leads to hiring the wrong person. “We have to make sure we have every detail nailed down so we provide the right candidate,” says Kevin Knau, executive vice president of Hudson, a Chicago staffing firm.

Managing

Once the right freelancers are on board, they have to be supervised. While management of contract workers requires some of the same steps used when overseeing any employee, there are additional issues to consider, as well.

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IT Job Satisfaction in a Rut

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It’s getting tough out there for IT employees facing long workdays, short tempers and limited career options.

Computerworld — The Jet Blue flight attendant’s dramatic de-planing last week says a lot about workplace frustration, a problem that may be increasing in IT.

A few days before flight attendant Steven Slater released a rear chute and exited his career with a couple of cans of beer in hand, an organization of IBM users meeting at the Share conference in Boston held an informal discussion entitled “The Mythical 40-Hour Week.”

It wasn’t a gripe session as much as a chance to share notes about what’s going in IT workplaces since the Great Recession. What emerged was an insider’s view of the frustrations building among tech workers as work days lengthen, pay remains stagnant and career growth appears thwarted.

Those taking part in the discussion asked that their names not be used so they could speak frankly.

“You don’t know how many hours you work – it’s all about getting the job done,” said one IT worker. “There are lots, lots of people in IT who are expected to work far more than a 40-hour week,” said another. Sixty hour weeks are common.

Yet another worker described bosses who expect their employees to work late into the night if need be to fix problems and then be on the job the next day at the usual time. Even vacation time is no longer sacrosanct: one person said he expects to be contacted “more than a half dozen times” during his time off.

Even if companies are getting more unpaid hours from their workers in today’s climate, the companies themselves may be getting hurt in other ways, according to the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) in Washington, D.C. The CEB conducts ongoing behavioral surveys of employee attitudes, and many of its clients are Fortune 500 firms.

The willingness of employees to “exert high levels of discretionary effort” — or put in the extra effort to get a job done — remains at low levels, the CEB found in its most recent survey, completed in the second quarter.

This willingness to put in extra effort fell from about 12% of workers in 2007 to about 4% last year. It was the lowest level in 10 years. The latest CEB survey of nearly 20,000 IT workers said that percentage had changed little and is now at 4.6%.

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IT Departments: Bridging the IT Generation Gap

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Older generations learned tech. The younger generation lives it. Organizations that want to succeed need the skills of both.

InfoWorld — IT pros who grew up in the Baby Boom are dinosaurs who just don’t get it. Generation Y is full of Facebook-happy slackers with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. But beyond these broad generalizations lie some real differences between the generations of geeks who do tech for a living, from Boomers to Generations X, Y, and the Millennials.

“Today’s generation was born into a world where technology is about interaction, whether it’s playing video games or using social media,” says Larry Johnson, age 62, co-author with daughter Meagan (age 40) of “Generations, Inc.: From Boomers to Linksters — Managing the Friction Between Generations at Work” (Amacom, 2010). “They spent hours at it, the way I spent hours watching ‘Rin Tin Tin.’ So their brains are structured to interact with technology in an entirely different way.”

[ Looking to get the most out of your IT investments, see InfoWorld’s “20 more IT mistakes to avoid” and “16 ways IT can do less with less” | Find out which of InfoWorld’s IT personality types best fits your tech temperament. ]

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IT Staffing: IT Hiring Continues to Improve, According to Surveys

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Hiring for IT jobs continues on the upswing in the U.S. and Canada as recessionary gloom gives way to cautious optimism, according to various recent polls of employers, who cite networking, security, virtualization and database skills as among the most sought-after.

IDG News Service — Hiring for IT jobs continues on the upswing in the U.S. and Canada as recessionary gloom gives way to cautious optimism, according to various recent polls of employers, who cite networking, security, virtualization and database skills as among the most sought-after.

“Overall, employer confidence is improving,” said Tom Silver, senior vice president, North America, at Dice Holdings, which operates Dice.com, a technology and engineering careers website. “We hear that as we speak to our customers every day.”

The most recent edition of The Dice Report, which heard from 600 respondents across the U.S. who hire or recruit technology professionals, found that 71 percent expect to add more employees in the second half of the year than they did in the first. More than half of that 71 percent expect to hire 10 or more new IT staff members. Likewise, CDW’s IT Monitor has had similar findings in its surveys across the U.S. and in some areas of Canada.

The IT Monitor recently found that 37 percent of IT decision makers at large companies expect to hire more IT staff in the rest of the year, which is up 11 percentage points from a year ago — the size of the increase was “a much faster jump than I would have expected to see,” said Matt Troka, CDW vice president of product and partner management and acting CMO.

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After Pay Cuts, IT Workers May Seek Payback in New Job

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A Harris Interactive survey found that IT workers see an improving economy — and an opportunity to start looking for a better job.

Cross posted from Computerworld

Computerworld — It may be matter of debate whether the IT job market is improving.

Certainly, for Eli Lilly and Co.’s (LLY) IT workers who are facing a layoff, the state of the job market is clear. The pharmaceutical company last week said it plans to cut 340 IT jobs on top of 140 positions cut earlier this year.

Eli Lilly employs some 1,250 IT workers in the U.S. and said the IT cuts are part of an overall restructuring of more than 5,000 workers nationwide, a company spokesman said, confirming a report in the Indianapolis Star , hometown newspaper in the city where Eli Lilly is based.

Despite the woes in the Eli Lilly IT operation, national IT hiring indexes have been showing fluttering month-to-month increases , and a new survey conducted by Harris (HRS) Interactive found that confidence among tech workers in the economy is on the rise.

Harris surveyed 4,367 employed tech workers, including 241 in IT operations, in the second quarter of 2010 and found that 38% of the IT workers believe the economy is getting stronger, compared to 32% in the first quarter.

The survey, dubbed the IT Employee Confidence Index, was conducted by Harris on behalf of Technisource Inc., a national staffing and recruiting firm.

The breakout data from the survey could portent trouble for IT managers and companies now relying on fewer IT employees.

For example, the survey results provides evidence that many IT workers may already be preparing to look for new jobs over the next year.

Harris said that 61% of IT workers earning between $35,000 and $50,000 a year are "likely" to start looking for a new job over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, 27% of IT workers now making between $50,000 and $75,000 annually and 36% of those whose salaries exceed $75,000 are "likely" to begin a job search.

"In some areas, salaries were cut or certainly salary increases were suspended," said Sean Ebner, a regional vice president at Technisource. And, he added, "as cuts were made in IT, the remaining staff was asked to do significantly more without additional compensation. It really did create some pent-up animosity."

Ebner said the survey found more interest in seeking new jobs than ever before.

The willingness to look for new jobs doesn’t yet mean the job will be there. For instance, only 27% of IT workers earning between $35,000 and $50,000 indicated that they expect more jobs will be available to them.

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Dilemma: IT Staffing Solution- Staff Augmentation (part II)

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Here’s a continuation of my previous post about staff augmentation. Another consulting client had a very short term project that required a specific skill set that no one on her staff possessed. The intricacy of the project required that our engineer become part of the IT team and interact regularly with marketing and senior management. Handling that as a fixed priced project would not have worked for us or them. We were able to provide an experienced engineer to become a temporary part of the staff and complete the development in just a few weeks. That engineer had at his disposal our entire team of engineers and project managers to offer advice and guidance as the project progressed. This is another significant advantage to the client. The staff augmenting engineer of a solid integrator has an impressive team on their staff and can access that team at any time. Compare that to a new hire coming into the company. He or she may have contacts from previous jobs, or a network of peers in the industry but it is not the same as having fellow employees who have a strong vested interest in the success of the engagement.

Just as the engineer has an opportunity to bond more closely with the client, a big plus for the integrator, the client gains significant visibility with the integrator. I am a huge fan of tight, loyal, long term relationships between integrators and their clients. It is much better for both businesses in the long term. The very process of staff augmentation goes a long way in strengthening the relationship.

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Dilemma: IT Staffing Solution- Staff Augmentation (part I)

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“We interviewed for six months for this position, and then gave this guy six months to prove himself, but he just hasn’t worked out.” a frustrated client explained to me just last week. “Now the head of that team has given her notice, and will be gone in two weeks! It’s just extremely frustrating” she went on to say.

Unfortunately this type of problem is a regular occurrence for small to medium sized businesses trying to build and/or keep their IT staffs intact, happy, and motivated. This recession, which many IT managers had hoped would provide a much needed reprieve from the incredible challenge of finding the right IT talent, has brought little relief. It is just as difficult to recruit and keep exceptional IT talent as it has ever been. There is a solution however, that I have seen work well for many companies willing to think outside the box a bit. I refer to it as “staff augmentation, basically bringing in outside personnel to augment your current staff from time to time”.

You see, there are many solid IT integration companies that have talented IT engineers with a wealth of knowledge of a variety of networking solutions. These are very expensive people to keep on staff. For integrators, keeping these engineers busy on billable projects is crucial to their profitability. Utilizing this talent in staff augmentation roles on a regular basis has many advantages. The first and most obvious is that such an engagement is usually billed by the hour, making the engineer’s billable hours 100% percentage billable100%. The second is that it can provide a degree of stability for the engineer who can report to the same site, with the same hours, for a specific period of time. That can be a welcome break for an engineer who has been all over the map juggling a variety of projects. It also allows the engineer to form much tighter working relationships with key staff at a valuable client. From the integration company’s perspective it can be a real win.

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IT Staffing – Permanent IT Jobs ‘Returning to Growth’

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The IT jobs market is showing signs of recovery, particularly on the permanent side, according to Reed Specialist Recruitment.

Computerworld UK — The IT jobs market is showing signs of recovery, particularly on the permanent side, according to Reed Specialist Recruitment.

Andrew Gardner, senior divisional director of the technology division of Reed Specialist Recruitment, said that the number of available permanent jobs was picking up again particularly in SMEs, as well as in the financial services sector and in software houses.

“As part of the downturn, our permanent team took a mauling, but over the last five or six months, it has started to pick up again.

“We are now looking to build our permanent teams back up to meet the demand,” said Gardner.

Reed currently has a team of 25 in the permanent jobs division, and Gardner aims to recruit a further 20 in the next few months, which takes the total “slightly higher than we had before”.

Furthermore, Reed said its lead time between interviews and job offers has shortened to that of before the recession.

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IT Staffing – 8 Trends Driving IT Job Growth, Salaries

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Will job prospects for U.S. IT professionals fare better or worse for the rest of 2010? It’s hard to tell from the latest economic and employment data being released by IT career experts.

Network World — Will job prospects for U.S. IT professionals fare better or worse for the rest of 2010? It’s hard to tell from the latest economic and employment data being released by IT career experts.

Reports issued in the first week of June provide conflicting information about IT hiring, compensation and outsourcing trends. On the plus side, these reports say IT hiring will increase during the second half of 2010, and CIOs are more optimistic about their budgets and staffing levels than they were a year ago. However, IT salaries and benefits are still being squeezed from all sides, and it’s difficult to tell which IT skills are most in demand on a month-to-month basis.

“There’s more volatility in the market than at any point in time since we started tracking IT pay data in 1999,” says David Foote, CEO of Foote Partners, a consulting firm.

As evidence of the volatility, Foote points to the May 2010 U.S. Department of Labor National Employment Report, which showed a net loss of 100 IT-related jobs in May, following a gain of 8,800 jobs in April. Foote has been tracking ups and downs in employment in five key job categories – IT services, computer systems design, data processing, computer/peripheral equipment, and communications equipment – for the past six months.

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Tags: IT professionals, IT career, IT hiring, CIOs, IT salaries, IT skills, IT pay, IT services

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IT Staffing – Increased IT Hiring on Horizon, Survey Suggests

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Although companies such as HP may be slashing their workforce, a survey finds the majority of HR heads are planning on making IT hires in the next six months.

Although companies such as HP may be slashing their workforce, a survey finds the majority of HR heads are planning on making IT hires in the next six months.

More than three-quarters (78 percent) of human resources managers or recruiters who have responsibility in recruiting technology positions are looking to hire IT workers in the next six months, according to the 2010 IT Hire Intelligence Survey conducted by Monster.com, an online career and recruitment resource on behalf of technology services provider Technisource. In addition, the majority of survey respondents said they are confident that their company’s performance will improve across the same time period.

Among the key findings, 76 percent of respondents have confidence that their company’s performance will improve in the next six months, while 78 percent of respondents plan to hire IT staff in the next six months. When asked what technology-oriented positions IT hiring managers were looking to fill, applications and infrastructure positions took the lead.  

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Tags: IT Jobs, IT Hiring, IT departments, IT Budgets

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