People Powered: The New Millennium IT Organization

Software Magazine, April, 2001 by Maria Schafer

Understanding and managing both the changing workforce and the changing IT employee are the keys to transforming IT organizations from tech-heavy drains to business-savvy specialists.

"It ain't the technology, it's the people," to paraphrase the '90s mantra concerning the economy. And increasingly, the people powering the economy are tech-savvy. Let's face it, in major multinational enterprises, the technology is not only ubiquitous, it's largely the same across companies, with minimal levels of differentiation among businesses of similar size or scope. It's having the right people that matters, to innovate, facilitate, and drive the "business of the business" through the IT organization's capabilities to deliver products and services. Without the right people engaged in high-value activities that foster a competitive edge, a corporation is sunk.

And hence, more than ever, despite the well-publicized softening of the technology sector of the economy, companies large and small are looking to better understand and leverage their IT employees to give their organizations the edge necessary for the hyper-competitive market realities of the global economy.

At the same time, organizations are beginning to feel the change-inducing effects wrought by an increasingly larger percentage of "free agents" or contract employees in their midst. Contractors have always been part of the IT project landscape, whether because a hot project required skills that were unavailable internally, or because the speed necessary to deploy a key initiative required extra resources. The current environment, however, is witnessing ever-larger numbers of contractors working alongside full-time employees, which threatens to fundamentally alter the nature of the standard command-and-control paradigm familiar to most of us. With employees coming and going in a regular cycle, from contract worker, to full-time employee, and back again to contractor status (depending on such factors as job responsibilities, mergers, and the opportunity to work on "hot" projects), managers must begin to view employees more as service providers than subordinates.

Partner/Customer/Problem Solver

Who are IT employees today, and what skills are necessary for success in this new millennium?

Among the attributes currently in demand for IT personnel, none is more important than an overall understanding of business and business processes. A "techie" who is incapable of communicating and resolving business problems has limited value to an organization, whether he or she is a business analyst, systems programmer, networking specialist, or help desk associate. Being in IT today is about understanding the business issues clearly, and having the ability to deploy the right technology in pursuit of attaining business goals. Indeed, whereas the 19th and 20th century definitions of an employee centered on a hierarchical relationship of subordinate to superior, focused on task completion, with adherence to specific inflexible rules, the current paradigm requires IT employees to demonstrate their capabilities as:

* partners;

* customers (internally but often externally); and

* problem solvers.

These employees are:

* performance-driven;

* self-directed;

* business-focused; and

* team players.

And finally, it is critical for IT employees to be able to "turn on a dime" and engage in activities whenever the business imperative requires this. Organizational agility is a key goal for global companies, which must quickly respond to market changes. Thus, brick-and-mortar firms struggle to create robust business-to-business networks and marketplaces, with the staff available who can make such initiatives a success.

Managing Human Capital

An organization's efforts to have the right staff in place are enhanced by establishing processes for managing the human capital linked to projects, budgets, and overall business imperatives. This "human capital center of excellence" (see diagram above) enables a variety of IT employee processes to proceed, from allocating and developing resources to ensuring that legal compliance is met. Operations excellence is assured because IT employees know what they are required to do, and have the right tools and organizational support to do their jobs.

A large part of managing human capital is recognizing that not only is the IT worker changing, but the IT workplace is also changing.

IT today is increasingly a virtual profession. More than any other group of employees, except perhaps sales, technology staffers are increasingly virtual. META Group's annual survey results of IT human capital tends and best practices show that nearly 80% of respondent companies have employees who are teleworkers. Within the next three years, META Group expects that 75% of the Global 2000 (the largest 2000 multinational firms) will have specific policies for teleworking, with more than 30% of these firms using teleworkers as a way to reduce costs by 2004.

This represents a major shift in the use of telecommuting from a flexible work benefit to a perceived necessity, both for lowering costs associated with maintaining large groups of employees in centralized locations, and for enabling 24x7 global business and computing operations. Currently, most organizations offer telecommuting as an option offered on an ad hoc basis for a quality-of-life inducement to employees--providing greater flexibility for dealing with child or other home care, enabling disabled staff to work remotely, etc.