The IT Staff of the Future: The Importance of IT Business Alignment for Staff Development Katherine...

The IT Staff of the Future: The Importance of IT Business

Alignment for Staff Development

Katherine Spencer Lee

Executive Director

Robert Half Technology

Robert Half Technology | www.rht.com

What We’ll Cover

• The blurring of IT and business

• Why IT staff need soft skills

• Evaluating your team’s soft skills

• Helping staff build soft skills

• Recruiting employees with strong soft skills

• Obstacles to overcome


Business Alignment• IT is embedded in many functions that run

today’s organizations, regardless of industry, such as:– Accounting– Operations– Sales/Marketing

• IT staff must:– Collaborate with cross-departmental colleagues– Speak a neutral language– Understand the unique needs of end users– Think strategically– Take a service-minded approach


Business Alignment

• New legislation has brought IT to the forefront of organizations

• Much of compliance burden falls on IT staff

• IT staff must – Understand concepts that fall outside IT– Be able to work across all departments


Business Alignment

• Continuing to prove cost effective for firms to outsource purely technical roles

• Yet, companies are still short of skilled staff• IT staff must

– Coordinate projects– Assess risk– Determine budgets– Assess applicability of technology in marketplace– Manage vendor relationships


Business Alignment

IT Department Then• Functioned as a

separate “silo”• Little interaction with

other departments

IT Department Now• Integrated into

virtually every department

• Constant collaboration with other groups


The Soft Skills Your Staff Needs

• Communication skills

• An understanding of business fundamentals

• Project management skills

• The ability to collaborate


Communication Skills

• Effective communication skills allow your staff to:– Describe technology in “plain English”– Describe the nature of training end-users

will need– Describe technological capabilities to

management– Speak to a wide variety of groups for sales

or training purposes


Communication Skills

IT Professionals Then• Communicated “tech

speak” with each other

• Less interaction with other departments or external customers

IT Professionals Now• Must communicate

with outside professionals

• Must talk “business” with others

• Communication built into planning process


An Understanding of Business Fundamentals

• Allows your staff to:– Contribute to the decision-making and

planning processes– Anticipate operational needs– Remain flexible– Apply relevant technology to business and

affect the bottom line


An Understanding of Business Fundamentals

IT Then• Technology drove

business• IT didn’t address

needs of marketplace

IT Now• Business drives

technology• IT projects are only

initiated if there is a true business need


Project Management Skills

• Allow your staff to:– Remain on time and on budget– Hit key milestones throughout lifecycle– Maximize company resources– Ensure projects align with corporate

strategy– Develop solutions with companywide

compatibility– Ensure consensus


Project Management Skills

IT Then• Jump right in and

get to work as quickly as possible on a project

• Limited vision on resource availability for projects

IT Now• Proactive planning

to ensure best use of resources

• Strategic mindset to identify potential shortfalls

• Resources allotted strategically


The Ability to Collaborate

• A strong sense of collaboration allows your staff to:– Diffuse tension and approach sensitive

situations with tact– Build consensus– Motivate groups toward a common goal


The Ability to Collaborate

IT Professionals Then• Worked almost

exclusively with other IT staff

IT Professionals Now• Regularly work with

a variety of non-technical professionals

• Get buy-in from other departments throughout process


Evaluating Your Staff’s Soft Skills

• Develop competency models

• Look beyond tasks

• Focus on attributes needed to complete those tasks

• How do task requirements and skill sets align?



• What qualities should be included?

• Look to your team’s top performers

• Consult customers



• Network engineer

• Which soft skills are required to best align IT goals with strategic business demands?


Helping Your Staff Develop Soft Skills

• Show staff how their products are used• Have personnel meet with cross-

functional managers of other teams– Marketing– Technical support– User interface design– Development– Localization


Helping Your Staff Develop Soft Skills

• Provide training in non-technical areas

• Leverage in-house resources

• Encourage staff to enroll in business-training courses

• Provide tuition reimbursement or flexibility


Recruiting Staff With Soft Skills

• Look within your organization– Existing IT staff– Staff from other areas– Work cross functionally



• Don’t overlook those who lack strong technical skills

• Pose questions that allow you to gauge soft skills

• Pay attention to the candidate’s actions during the interview(s)



• Recruit non-IT professionals– Many not aware of opportunities in IT– Attend career fairs– Network outside IT industry– Join general business associations


Overcoming Obstacles

• Lack of enthusiasm– Show staff the benefits to the business– Show staff the benefits to their careers



• Lack of qualified candidates– Show prospective employees your firm’s

career-advancement plan– Point out that IT managers are frequently

tapped for other operations



• Lack of progress– Base performance reviews on attainment

and utilization of soft skills– Solicit feedback from other departments


The IT Staff of the Future: The Importance of IT Business

Alignment for Staff Development

Katherine Spencer Lee

Executive Director

Robert Half Technology

The IT Staff of the Future: The Importance of IT Business Alignment for Staff Development Katherine...

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