More than investing on the equipment, manpower resources is crucial and should be given the same attention. IT success can be measured not only in terms of facilities’ speed and capacity but also on the people behind the well managed use of information technology to meet business objectives.
The number of IT professionals may soon be insufficient to cater to the requirements of businesses. IT managers should be prepared to face this challenge. Pinoy IT managers compete with huge multinationals who can afford to pay attractive salaries for talents. With this happening, it has become expensive to maintain IT professionals. How should Pinoy IT managers address this dilemma? In an industry such as education, IT is important, but it may not afford to expend so much as the cost of education may also increase. Hence, managers must find ways on how to attract manpower the economical way.
As an HR Officer for 6 years, here are some of my suggestions:
- The IT manager should be hands-on, this is sometimes the problem of staffs, they are bombarded with the leg work and the team leader gets the reward. An IT manager who knows how to perform every job in the department can better manage the group and the work assignments.
- Recruit new IT graduates with good academic background and train them to do the job. New graduates are usually more eager to learn and stay in the job and since it is their first job they will try to prove that they can excel. This can be done by coordinating with registrars of reputable universities for list of graduates and their contact details
- In order to keep existing IT staffs , they must be continuously motivated, the key is to know what motivates them and as much as possible be given to them. They must be also included in decision making to make them feel their worth in the company.
- Existing IT staffs should also be trained to do multi tasking. In an IT department with limited budget for salaries, it is wise to keep few talented employees and pay them within standards or higher than many employees who do same jobs.
- Hire staff on project basis, this will save the company from having to pay employees regularly even when the workload is below normal while making sure that it has the right number of people to work on a project until it is accomplished.
What differentiates a Pinoy IT Manager from the rest? Aside from his strong intellectual capacity, he is innovative and has good management skills that can make him successful even with limited resources.
