Oh, come on.
You mean you don't look forward to confronting problems like this every day?
Posted on 01/30/2006 11:05:05 AM PST by 2Jim_Brown
CHICAGO, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Training and education of experienced IT professionals already established in the workforce is becoming a major concern, one certain to be on the consciousness of senior management at corporations all over the United States in the coming year, experts tell United Press International's Networking.
A survey, released last week by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a trade association for the IT industry, based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., in suburban Chicago, indicates that workers are taking the initiative to get the new training and skills they need for their careers, and that employers, thus far, are not providing guidance as to what skills they want for the future. By Gene Koprowski
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
I used to work for an IT services company that always had the "I agree to not quit for six months" contracts for me to sign whenever I requested training.
My senior mgmt has said that I have to pay for the class, they will re-imburse w/i 30 days (takes 60), and I have to pay it back if I leave or get laid off during the 1 year period after they re-imburse me. And they wonder why folks are seeking certs the way they used to.
As an IT guy, might I suggest two retention issues:
1. We are lead by CIO's that have their technical backgrounds in etch-a-sketch technology. That leads to mandates like, "Pull out everything that isn't from Vendor X" even though there is no rationale for it (aside from the fact that Vendor X has great "conventions" in nice places). They are clueless as to the tech issues involved, and quite frankly many can't run a PC much less an empire of PCs. How can the value of an IT tech be valued by such people?
Might I calmly suggest IT training for CIO's?
2. There is a burnout factor. Fact it, the current IT people got in when there was a radical change in IT technology every 2-3 years. Now, we're in a mature environment, where the pace of change is much slower. I've known quite a few IT people who decide to quit IT to run a bicycle shop, or manage apartments, or whatever.
Oh, come on.
You mean you don't look forward to confronting problems like this every day?
I agree with #1. Every place I have worked has had the IT who is a 23 year old graduate from some 2 year mail order college dictating to 15 year plus degreed ( some graduate degrees ) developers on what software we need and such and how we should set-up our stations and networks.
They come in and act like they are God's gift of tech when all they can do is hook up a CAT5 and install Windows and Norton. They do their thing and leave and we change everything back like we had it.
We have one now who cannot add more VPN ip addresses to our router but we ( software engineers ) are not allowed to touch it when we set it up to start with or we are in violation of company policy.
"We have one now who cannot add more VPN ip addresses to our router but we ( software engineers ) are not allowed to touch it when we set it up to start with or we are in violation of company policy."
Ahhh, you just stumbled on my #3 item to consider.
Right now, IT geeks are forced to sit in on endless meetings talking about HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, QS/ISO and corporate policy. We are not longer tech geeks, but rather compliance drones. We are subjected to meetings that would bore accountants.
Worse yet, we can't fix things that are broken, since we will either 1) violate a company policy made by someone who never did our job, and 2) purchase software that will violate the exclusivity agreement our CIO signed while at a convention in a really nice resort.
Sarbanes-Oxley=The IT Full Employment Act.
"Sarbanes-Oxley=The IT Full Employment Act."
Agreed.
HIPAA=license to steal (even better than Y2K).
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