Staff development

Being a training and development IT guy, my opinion might be a bit skewed. But here goes

When investing T&D dollars in your internal resources you are helping to promote a sense of worth/belonging in your IT resources. I believe that ASTD http://www.astd.org/ (American Society for Training and Development) developed a paper on the ROI on training internal resources, and the benefits the company realizes over the short and long term.

You have to ask yourself a couple of questions:

1 ? Are the future endeavors (projects) long term (1+ years) or short tem (less than a year)?

Short- Term

If they are short-term projects you might want to look a bringing in IT contractors. By doing this you save on new employee hiring costs. Plus, the contractor hits the ground running and no training is required.

Long-term

If the projects were expected to last longer than a year, then re-training your internal resources would logically be the best solution. Again, saving you dollars on new employee hiring costs and at the same time increasing your internal moral and turnover.

2- Are the skills something that can be taught in a realistic amount of time?

What I mean by this is that note everyone has the ability to be a Systems or Business Analyst, some skills are out of the scope of certain employees. IT plumbers (networkers) and programmers in most cases have a different mind set. Programmers in most cases are very analytical and visual learners, and IT technicians are usually more kinesthetic (like to touch things to learn) and tactile learners. Different mind sets different skills?..

One of my VP?s once told me that if he wasn?t helping me to add something onto my resume every 6 months then he wasn?t doing his job

My 2 cents

Using existing staff - if it can be done without over burdening them - would be my preferred method. The reasons are as follows:

1. Reward good performance - promotion and/or expanded responsibilities to allow existing employees to continue to grow.

2. Known asset - An existing employee is a known entity, while a future employee has many unknown potential problems. Why hire a potential problem employee when you know you have a loyal and dedicated employee without any (significant) problems?

3. Attitude versus skills - It's easier to train an employee with a great attitude a new set of skills than it is to change the bad attitude of a skilled person. Personally, I hire for attitude, and train for skills. It seldom works the other way around.

4. Existing employees have a better knowledge of the core business and how new technology endeavors might be customized to meet the current or planned business model. They already understand the foundation on which new things will be built.

That's my opinion.

In the IT business future projects or endeavors always run the risk of being cut or cancelled so why would you hire staff you may or may not have a use for..

Keep your current staff educated and up to speed... should a project arise that is beyond their capabilities than that is what consultants are for. I have worked with many good consultants who were more than willing to take time to educate me and that is win / win for everyone..

If your current staff leaves for some reason you couldthan replace them with more qualified staff but I think you need a good idea of what they need to be qualified for since technology is ever changing and by the time you get good at something it is obsolete...

In most cases, it only makes sense to develop existing staff. Sometimes, though, the existing staff is so stuck in the "we've always done it this way," mindset that you need to bring in new people.

The challenge, then, is how long do you keep the existing staff, especially if the old ways are going away. I've seen situations where bringing on a new person was enough to wake up the older folks, and they got on board. Sometimes, they just got left in the dust - and the cold.

The best answer is to have a project team that includes existing staff, and some new blood. The exact mix will most likely be decided on the skills needed, use suitable existing staff where they have the skills or can develop them in time. But you should include some new staff with good general skills etc to provide new ideas and concepts, and also question WHY current things are done the way they are, few existing staff will review the why of the existing.

If the project is small and short,it matters little who does it, but long term or large projects will need new ideas and knowledge of the existing system.

The best organisations train up existing staff and then use one or two 'specialist' advisors on contract to provide the new blood. Sometimes you can use inhouse staff as externals by loaning them to projects in other areas of the company/corporation either operational areas or regional areas.

Toni,

I think it is better to develop your own staff. They already have a certain loyalty to you and have bought into your firm’s vision. So, they can go out and passionately sell your firm’s vision instead of simply peddling boxes and services, which are really commodities.

By hiring external people, you bring in some more mercenaries, whose loyalty lies wherever there is more money. Look at the ultimate professional service firm, as many people call it: the US Marines. They bring in some pretty shy people, and turn them into some of the finest soldiers in the world.

If I were you, I would “grow” my own people. Help then, nurture them, push them beyond their best, so when you go to “war”, thatis, doing client work, they will truly represent your beliefs and values upon which you started your firm.

Go MAD (Make A Difference)
Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan - Dynamic Innovations Squad
Helping professional service businesses to attract "Ready toBuy" clients from first contact to signed contract. www.di-squad.com, e-mail: bald.dog@di-squad.com. FREE Booklet: Why Most Service Firms Grossly Undercharge for Their Services?

When recruiting you need to ensutre that the staff have the right fundamental skills - That is to be able to learn and to enjoy the work. When I find a new employee then these are key traits - there is no point in trying to train a word processor operator to program in C++ for example.

Meanwhile once you have this employee on board then their knowledge needs to be kept up to date. As technology advances you need to be able to use the latest techniques where there is a business benefit. The only way of assessing that benefit is to have knowledgable staff - and the only way to guarantee that is to maintain employee training.

ALSO - in some situations you need a new recruit FAST - in such a situation there is no time to train them - you have to hire the right skills and sometimes this does cost more.

I hope that this helps.