Ways to Make Your IT Staff Unpoachable

防止IT技术人员被挖走的五大措施

IT企业中的人员流动，尤其是IT技术人员极大的流动性，是上层领导很头疼的事。如何才能挽留住核心IT技术人员，是每个IT企业的领导者所一直探索的问题。著名作家Pam Baker发表了一篇《5 Ways to Make Your IT Staff Unpoachable》，文中特别指出挽留IT核心技术人员可以采取的五大措施。现把该文进行了编译，全文如下：

在全球经济的萧条见证了各地成千上百万的工作陷入IT部门之后，现在，竞争的焦点则集中在大量高级人才的雇佣上。难点是：周围并没有太多的天才，而每天关键员工流向“狩猎者”的威胁正在加剧。

 “现在硅谷的人才争夺战中，很多领导者相信，与Google和Facebook竞争是不可能的。他们把流失到这些巨头公司的重要团队成员视为一种给予。” Talent Acquisition（位于TriNet，是一家美国最大的私人HR外包公司）公司董事长Lee-Anne Farley表示。

 “然而，硅谷的应聘者都在寻找更多的薪资和一个职称。”她表示。挽留住现有职工同时吸引更多天才加入的关键在于要知道IT人士真正想要的是什么，他们离开的动机又是什么。

提升与惩罚机制

“经历有提升或惩罚经历的同事将离开这个企业。”IT和工程服务提供商Technisource公司的区域副总裁Sean Ebner说，“你希望忽略惩罚，你渴望阻止提升。”

Sean Ebner还表示“惩罚”可能是一条很模糊的职业发展道路：糟糕的工作环境、富有挑战性或不合适的领导阶层、模糊的公司前景、在公司里无法获得新的技能和经验、差劲的工作/生活平衡。

“提升”代表着更好工作环境：更具有魅力的企业、更加清晰的职业道路、更好的薪资待遇、更好的工作/生活平衡及对新技术、新方法有更多接触。

要想成功抵御因“提升与惩罚机制”而造成的企业人才流失，就要从重新定义公司中IT员工的地位着手。

“你应该像对侍真正合作者那样对待IT员工，而不要只停留在表面的雇佣关系上。”LoyalNation公司CTO Daniel E. Abney表示，改变公司文化，使IT员工不再被当作为承担一切事故而随意抓来的替罪羊，及一旦有事需要完成时而被随意招换的一个局外人。

 “很多时候，一个企业的IT军队常被当作公司里一个单独团体。”Abney说，“这样的结果就是，如果把他们视为一个被雇佣者，那么他们就会做一些被雇佣者的事——一直在其他地方寻找更好的薪酬。”

当薪资在招募和稳定策略上起着关键作用时，一些公司在比率的计算上往往会出现偏差。“当衡量一个天才员工所应获得的报酬时，你应该首先思量一下如若从竞争对手中挖一个此类型的人才时你愿意为此付出多少。”Ebner表示。你会付出招募费用或签约奖金吗？当衡量一个员工年度所应获得的薪资增长水平时，可以思考一下这个问题。“如果你付给员工一个满意的薪酬，当其他公司通过降低他们希望通过跳槽而获得的额外收入而吸引他们加入时，你的员工就会不为所动。

糖果 VS. 糖精

然而，薪资并不是天才IT员工在做职业决策时所要衡量的唯一因素，甚至也不是最首要的考虑因素。你不能忽略薪资水平，很明显，你最好合理提供。但你可以发现一些更有创造性的方法，以成功击败那些试图提供更高报酬的公司。只是不要期望这是件容易的事。

“现在，不像汹涌发展的21世纪，每个人好像都明白，薪水和足球桌永远都不会成为世界上最高、最好的。” Blue Elephant Consulting公司的IT资深管理顾问Jim Anderson博士表示。

很显然，其他一些事情也会控制着去或留的决定。“很多IT管理者正面临的挑战是他们已经离开这个技术行业很长时间了，他们并不清楚对于现代从事IT工作的IT技术人员来说什么才是最重要的。”他表示，“IT开发工作人员并不善于表达使他们留下来所需要的条件是什么，所以IT开发人员对了解此事也毫无帮助。”

然而，企业的责任应该是创建一些雇佣附加条件，以吸引激进的员工。经济的萧条已经告诉你的IT候选雇佣者，工作安全永远都只是一个神话，唯物主义是一个不太满意的生活追求，在工作之外有实在的生活。换句话说，雇佣提供了实实在在的“糖”，解决了生活变“甜”的需求，这是真实的物质存在，而没有昨日所得中蕴含的那糖精般的苦味。例如，获得了很多的薪资，但你却没时间去消费它。

令人惊讶的是，如糖般的交易并不是过于昂贵而无法实行。“给他们一些玩具。”Marianne Carlson建议说，他是网站设计和网络营销公司Emcie Media的创始人及首席顾问。“从你工资总额的预算中拿出一大部分去购买小机械器具、游戏和其他的极客类玩具。让IT团队因为拥有他们所喜爱的玩具而保持心情愉快，他们将依靠你为他们提供这些玩具。”为了让你现有员工或招聘的新员工为你工作，它是你生存所需的东西，是唯一与你公司相关联的东西。（如果你的竞争对手提供了相同的奖励措施，天才员工仍想为你工作还有什么别的原因吗？）为了帮助你开始这个创造性的工作，这里列举了五个策略：

让他们入股公司。把入职你公司工作可以获得的利益说清楚。创建一个有吸引力的雇主品牌，提供有挑战性的工作、机会和明确的报酬，不仅仅只有金钱。

换句话说，在公司获得成功时给他们一些股份。“例如，我们经常看到一些客户案例，他们对员工的挽留工作做得很好，在这些公司里都有很明显的自豪氛围。”Farley表示，“授权和所有权是其中的关键，所以应该鼓励这种文化，员工在其中可以拥有公司真正的股份，并逐渐感觉到他们正在创造自己的未来，同时意识到他们在所工作领域是十分优秀的。”

提供一种生活，而不仅仅是一份工作。工作/生活平衡在工作环境中越来越重要。“当有工作精英加入时，对此可以给予更多的口头同意”，Ebner建议，“让同事可以定期地通过公司提供的工具远程工作，是帮助他达成工作与生活间平衡的一个很伟大的方法，同时他们还会意识到公司对他们及他们的需要多么重视。”

灵活的工作时间表是很好的刺激方法。允许雇佣者去处理他们的生活细节及兴趣。给他们时间去呼吸、去娱乐。他们的生产力也会大大提高。记住，经济萧条导致很多天才同时干着几个人的工作，这些年他们已经过度劳累且收入不高。给他们一个休息的时间，允许他们重新生活，他们将最不可能更换工作。

提供学习的机会。在现在的环境中，几乎每个人都意识到他们需要管理自己的生涯。“确保你可以为天才IT同事提供学习新技术、新方法的机会。”Ebner表示。“在IT行业，时刻站在最新技术的前面对生存和提升相当重要。如果一个企业不能提供这种机会，高级技术天才将离开去寻找这种机会”

让他们去完成。“让他们完成这些事。我从IT行业前线得到的头号抱怨便是他们对所完成每一项工作从未满意过。” Anderson表示。工程要么在半路取消，要么就是在即将结束时“球门”被移走了。IT人员需要能够感觉到他们所完成的项目。

让他们去创造。现在很多企业正试图创新，然而他们又在遏制员工的创新，这是非常可笑的。允许他们按规定的方法做，一切都要从公司的利益出发。

“很多技术很牛的IT员工很具有创造性，他们憎恨对创新性的遏制。”法国Sargent & Trayler公司创始人兼高级搜索顾问Chris Sargent表示，“有时，这意味着他们可以在他们正常的雇佣之外做他们自己的事。只要没有牵涉到公司的直接竞争或不存在侵犯公司权力等问题，这绝对是被允许和鼓励的。”

你也应该考虑为那些顶级的IT天才提供他们自己工作的预算。“顶级技术天才很讨厌从以前工程中匆匆忙忙迁移一些旧模块来完成一个项目。”Sargent解释说，“所以允许他们进行充分的计划，从而提出一些让他们确实感到满意、对所做工作感到自豪的东西来。”允许这些天才对其他活动做出贡献。“例如允许员工选择一个开源项目，并为此做出贡献。” Anderson表示。除了工作还做了很多事情，员工会自我感觉很好，如果公司实际上用了这些应用，那么雇佣者和员工都会从中受益。“花在开源项目上的时间需要来自工作时间，不要告诉他们利用下班时间或周末来做这些事情；公司在该项目中也不得不做一些表面的工作。”他补充说。需要记住的一个规则是你正在试图吸引和挽留的是人，而不是机器人或苦工。为他们提供过好生活、自豪工作及进行创造的途径，这样你不仅可以留住天才员工，公司也可能获得你想像之外的利益。

Ways to Make Your IT Staff Unpoachable
by bakercom1 on 07-18-2011 07:15 AM
When it comes to hiring practices, the tables have turned – capsized, actually. After a global recession saw thousands of jobs lost in IT departments everywhere, now the race is on to hire swarms of top talent. The trouble is: There isn’t enough talent to go around, and the threat of losing key staff to “poachers” is growing daily.

“In the current war for talent in Silicon Valley, a lot of leaders believe that it is not possible to compete with the Google and Facebook phenomena and take it as a given that they will lose key team members to these giants,” says Lee-Anne Farley, Director of Talent Acquisition at TriNet, the largest private U.S.-based HR outsourcer.

“However, Silicon Valley employees are looking for more than just money and a title,” she says. The key to retaining existing employees and attracting new talent lies in knowing what IT people really want and what motivates them to move.

The Push-Me-Pull-You Mechanics
“Associates will leave an organization through either a push or a pull scenario,” explains Sean Ebner, regional vice president of Technisource, a top IT talent firm. “You want to eliminate the push and you want to protect against the pull.”

Ebner says a push can be a poorly defined career path, poor work environment, challenging or inappropriate leadership, poorly defined corporate vision, inability to develop new skills and experiences within the company, or a poor work/life balance.

A pull is the perception of a better work situation, a more attractive organization, more defined career path, better compensation or benefits, better work/life balance, and more exposure to emerging technologies and methods.

Successfully building a defense against the push and pull mechanics behind an organization’s brain drain begins with redefining the IT staff’s place in the corporation.

“Go out of your way to treat IT staff  like true partners, and not in the surface-only marketing sense,” says Daniel E. Abney, CTO of LoyalNation, a firm that creates customer and employee loyalty and rewards programs. Change the culture so that the IT staff is no longer seen as a handy scapegoat when things go wrong or as an outsider that is only summoned when something needs to be fixed.

“Too many times the IT arm of an organization is treated as a separate entity within the company,” Abney says. “As a result, if they are treated like a mercenary, they tend to behave like a mercenary – and always look for the extra dollar somewhere else.”

While pay certainly does pay a central role to recruitment and retention strategies, some companies miss the mark in rate calculations. “When viewing a talented associate’s compensation, view it in the context of how much you would be willing to pay to bring in that type of individual from a competitor,” says Ebner. Would you pay recruiting fees or a signing bonus? Keep this in mind when considering an associate’s annual merit increase. “If you are paying your associate well, it takes away some of the allure another company might be able to present by lessening the amount of additional compensation they could expect by leaving.”

Sugar vs. Saccharin Deal Sweeteners
However, pay is not the only consideration your IT talent weighs in their career decisions. It isn’t even the top consideration. You can’t ignore pay rates, obviously, and you had definitely better be in the ballpark, but you can find creative ways to compete successfully against companies that are willing to pay more than you can afford. Just don’t expect that to be an easy task.

“This time around, unlike back in the roaring 2000s, everyone seems to understand that salaries and Foosball tables aren’t going to be enough to keep the best of the best,” says Dr. Jim Anderson, an IT management consultant at Blue Elephant Consulting.

Something else is clearly needed to sway the decision to go or stay. “The challenge that a lot of IT managers are running into is that they’ve been out of the trenches for so long that they’ve lost touch with what’s really important for the Gen X/Y/millennials who do the IT work these days,” he says. “It doesn’t help that IT workers aren’t very good at expressing what it would take to make them stay, either.”

Thus, the onus is on the company to create employment sweeteners that appeal to workers who have changed radically. The recession has taught your prospective IT employees that job security is a myth, materialism is a less-than-satisfying life endeavor, and there is indeed life outside of work. In other words, the employment deal needs to be sweetened with real sugar, that is honest substance, and not with the saccharin-like bitter aftertaste of yesterday’s offerings, i.e. of the “Here’s Lots of Pay But You’ll Have No Time To Spend It” variety.

Surprisingly, the sugar-ilk deals don’t have to be overly expensive to work.

“Pay them in toys,” suggests Marianne Carlson, owner and lead consultant at Emcie Media, a web design and Internet marketing firm. “Set aside a significant amount of your payroll budget for gadgets, games, and other geek-toys. Keep the IT team happy with the toys they love, and they’ll come to rely on you to supply them.” 

In order for your retention or recruitment offer to work, it must be something you can live with and something that is uniquely associated with your company. (Why else would talent want to work for you if your competitors offer the same incentives?) But to help you get started in the creative process, here are five poaching-proof tactics.

Stake Them to the Company. Make the benefits in working for your company crystal clear. Create an attractive employer brand and offer challenging work, opportunity, and reward in terms other than just money.

In other words, give them a stake in the company’s success. “Examples we typically see of clients that have done a really good job of retention is where there is a tangible atmosphere of pride, being a recognized part of decision-making, and being more than just a faceless number,” says Farley. “Empowerment and ownership are key to this so encourage a culture where employees have a real stake in the company and genuinely feel that they are building for the future, and recognize them as being excellent at what they do.”

Offer Life, Not Just a Job. Work/life balance has become increasingly important in the workplace. “Pay more than lip service to this when dealing with top talent,” advises Ebner. “Enabling associates to work remotely periodically using firm offered tools is a great way to help them achieve a balance and recognize that the organization values them and their needs.”

Flexible work schedules are great incentives. They allow employees to attend to life details and interests, ranging from time off to meet the plumber to getting off early to attend a concert. Give them time to breathe and play; their productivity will increase. Remember, the recession caused many talented people to do the jobs of several people. They have been overworked and underpaid for years. Give them a break, allow them to live again, and they’ll be highly unlikely to ever change jobs.

Offer Opportunities to Learn. In today’s environment, just about everyone recognizes that they need to manage their own career. “Ensure you have opportunities for talented IT associates to learn new technologies and methods,” says Ebner. “In IT, it is critical to survival and advancement to stay ahead of the newest technologies. If an organization does not provide that opportunity, top talent will leave to find it.”

Let Them Finish. “Let them complete things. The #1 complaint that I get from the front lines of IT is that they never get to have the satisfaction of completing a task,” says Anderson. Projects are cancelled half-way though or the goal-posts get moved just as they reach the end. IT staff need to be able to feel that they completed a project. “A big party needs to be thrown, and lots of meaningless awards need to be given out to everyone,” he adds. “They all say that these things really don’t matter, but they do.”

Let Them Create. It’s comical in a sad way that companies today are trying so hard to innovate yet they throttle their staff’s attempts to create. There are several ways to allow them to do so and all to your company’s benefit.

“A lot of very skilled technical IT people are actually very creative and hate to have this creativity stifled,” says Chris Sargent, founder and Executive Search Consultant at Sargent & Trayler in France. “Sometimes this means they do their own work outside of their normal employment. As long as this isn't in direct competition or infringing on copyright issues etc., this should absolutely be allowed and encouraged.”

You should also consider giving top talent their own personal work budget. “Top technical talent hates running a network that is cobbled together from loads of old pieces of equipment,” explains Sargent. “Therefore allow them to plan fully and deliver something that really satisfies them and makes them proud of their work.”

Allowing talent to contribute to other activities also helps. “Allow staff to pick an open-source project, for example, and contribute to it,” says Anderson. The staff will feel good about doing more than “just work” and if the company actually uses the application, then both employee and employer benefit. “The time spent on the open-source project needs to come from work time. Don’t tell them to do it after hours or on weekends; the company has to have some skin in the game,” he adds.

The one rule to remember is that you are trying to attract and retain human beings, not robots or slaves. Offer them a way to live their lives, work with pride, and create and you will not only retain a talented staff but the company will likely benefit far beyond your dreams.