Best places to work in IT

Steven Bandrowczak has a big issue with information technology staffers who don't know how to mingle beyond their own department. That kind of "us and them" mentality is not only antisocial, but also self-defeating, says Bandrowczak, Avnet's CIO.

To counter that attitude, Bandrowczak will send Avnet programmers and marketing executives out on trail rides together. He sometimes teams network administrators with sales managers for a night of bowling. And once a month, he hosts "Breakfast with Steve," where he briefs IT staffers on important non-IT business issues at the Phoenix-based company.

When it comes to making sure his staff is clear on company direction, Bandrowczak leaves nothing to chance.

Anything "to try and get a sense of commonality" between the electronic distribution and material management company's many separate business divisions, Bandrowczak says. The payoff: better communication, productivity, and morale for his staff and the rest of the company.

The "us and them" mentality Bandrowczak is challenging at Avnet is hardly an anomaly in corporate America. IT professionals and their managers often find themselves relegated to their own, somewhat isolated corner of the corporation, waiting to be called on when in-house technology goes wrong or upgrades are required. The result: IT staffers are often dissatisfied with their jobs.

That's exactly what Questar, a full-service research and consulting company, found. The Eagan, Minn.-based research firm specializes in employee and organizational behavior and recently analyzed how its own employees from different departments communicate with one another.

"When Questar employees from outside IT talk to our IT support staff, which is on a pretty regular basis, it is usually with a sense of urgency because something has gone wrong," says Jennifer Mattocks, a Questar consultant. These exchanges, Mattocks has found, tend to be "more negative" and less empathetic than interactions between employees in other departments.

That isn't the case at Avnet, AirGas, or Solectron, all deemed Best Places to Work. In fact, the one thing all three companies have in common is they actively push cross-divisional team-building.

Cross-divisional teams, as defined by those companies' CIOs, could involve activities ranging from exercises designed to mix staff and managers from different divisions to the formation of teams of employees from different units who work together on IT deployments. These CIOs see team-building as a way to eliminate communication gaps.

On average, 61 percent of employees at the companies on this year's Best Places list work in cross-functional teams with business staff.

How do the employees feel about it? For them, team-building can result in greater job satisfaction, a more exciting career path, and a greater sense of purpose.

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