Scaling the Heights Wed 31 Jan 07

Last Friday Dan Morrill over at the ITtoolbox had a very interesting post (Vertically Challenged) on how IT experts often get stuck in a position by being too good at their job.  I'm sure you've seen the situation, Joe is such an expert that we can't afford to promote him since we can't find anyone with his skill level to replace him so we promote someone else instead.   What eventually happens in these situation usually falls into three not very appealing scenarios.

1. Joe eventually leaves us for "greener pastures" leaving us with a large gap in our organization.
2. Joe stays but over time becomes increasingly bitter and disruptive until we end up taking some sort of disciplinary action.
3. Joe becomes so narrow in the focus of his expertise that when we change technology we no longer need Joe's skills and get rid of a long-term faithful employee.

So what should IT managers and employees be doing about this?

We as IT managers have a duty to our employees (and our company too) to make sure our employees learn new skills and have opportunities for advancement.  But this doesn't mean that you as an employee should sit back and wait for you boss to do something.  Ultimately, the only person responsible for your career growth is you!

So let's start with some things that you can do to take charge of your own career.

• Keep current - Keep your skills up-to-date and learn new technologies as they come out.  Being the best Cobol programmer in the company is job security only as long as they have Cobol programs.  As one technology is switched out for another make sure your skill can survive the switch.  Don't let yourself become technically obsolete.
• Get involved, learn the business - Don't just sit in your cubicle.  Get involved with your customers and learn the business.  This not only makes you more valuable, it can also open up opportunities.  I once had three of my best people recruited by another department into non-IT positions.  Their willingness to learn and get involved was a key factor in this.
• Make sure you're heard - Don't be shy about letting your boss know you are interested in advancement.  Ask what you need to do to improve your promotability.  Sit down with them and map out possible career paths, training and assignments you'll need to complete to progress down those paths.
• Volunteer - Stretch yourself.  Volunteer for assignments that present learning opportunities and can give you more breadth of experience and a chance to improve your skills

As managers there is also a lot we need to do.

• Provide regular training -  Make training available on a regular basis to keep your employee's skills sharp and to teach them new skills.  Not only does this help the performance of your department it is a key employee retention tool.
• Provide a mix of opportunities - Move people around and let them get exposed to all areas.  This provides not only learning opportunities but keeps people interested by providing variety in their assignments.  It also can help to reduce the reliance on that one and only person that knows the XYZ system.  In essence you are creating security through knowledge backups.
• Recognize there is a learning curve - As Dan Morrill pointed out in his article, when an "expert" leaves his position the new person will have a learning curve.  This is no different than when the current expert started out.  The learning curve for the new person is no reason to not promote someone.  Look on it as way to develop talent.
• Develop a mentoring program - Dan had a simply excellent suggestion to overcome the new person learning curve problem.  Require that the person being promoted mentor the new person and include it in their annual performance goals.  Not only does it help shorten the learning curve but it can help develop supervisory skills in the person that was promoted.
• Develop dual career paths -  Work with your Human Resources group to develop dual career paths.  One path is technical for those that are not interested in managerial roles but still want to advance in a technical role.  The other path is a managerial path for people to develop into supervisory and managerial roles.  Just because someone is not interested in a managerial role shouldn't cap their advancement opportunities.  In some engineering an IT roles the supervisor may earn less than the employee due to the value of the employee's technical expertise.

Being an IT person in a company where IT work is not the company "product" (e.g. manufacturing, food, banks, medical etc.) is a natural limiting factor in career options.  The steps above can help overcome this limitation somewhat and will at least maximize the opportunities within the IT organization.  By doing this we can improve employee satisfaction, morale, retention and recruitment.  We as managers will only succeed if our employees succeed.

What steps have you found useful to help your employees advance?

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