September 28, 2010, 10:49 AM — The potential for losing tech talent is on the rise these days. Thanks to an uptick in IT hiring and an increase in retirements among baby boomers, your A-team employee lineup may be in danger.
Rather than being caught without star performers, tech management must constantly think in terms of bench depth and grooming the key players of tomorrow, CIOs and other experts say. But with so much on IT managers' plates these days, it can be hard to make succession planning a top priority.
However, while "succession planning" or "bench strength" may not resonate much with IT managers, the concept of "risk mitigation" does, says Diane Morello, managing vice president of Gartner's executive leadership and innovation group in Stamford, Conn.
When put in terms of what's at risk -- the smooth operation and future development of IT systems that are indispensable to the company -- IT managers become more willing to make the time to identify rising stars and provide the necessary training, education and mentoring for tomorrow's leaders. And once that priority is established at the CIO level, Morello says, succession planning more easily becomes a priority throughout the rest of the department.
IT especially vulnerable to talent loss
At Prudential Financial, CIO Barbara Koster is keenly aware of the risk to the IT department's credibility should some key talent retire or be hired away.
"Succession planning in the IT department is critical, because you want to make sure the business is always prepared and protected. We can never be in a position where we're leaving the business worried about getting the support they need," says Koster, who is based in Newark, N.J., and manages some 2,200 tech employees in the U.S. "You want the business to feel very confident that you have it covered."
Succession planning is particularly important in high tech because the field is so specialized, CIOs say. The high level of technical expertise often required for IT jobs limits the potential talent pool when managers are looking to hire internally from another department.
And often IT leaders will find that a proportion of workers with a certain set of skills -- Web development, system architecture, network design -- aren't interested in developing the soft skills and other nontechnical qualifications required for a management position.
"IT skills and people skills don't really go together, so it becomes hard to identify and develop those soft skills," says Dan McCarthy, a corporate leadership developer who writes the Great Leadership blog.
To be sure, high performers who don't want to move into management are still essential to the organization, and management experts say the key to retaining such employees is to ensure that they receive support and training in the latest technologies and are given interesting, challenging projects.
As for the employees who do show leadership potential, McCarthy and other industry watchers recommend that IT managers scout them out early in their careers and begin bringing them along accordingly. Here are some other tips for adding depth to your IT bench.
Go deep to identify talent
The key to maintaining departmentwide continuity and reliability is identifying not just the stars of tomorrow, but going a few levels deeper to scope out employees with the potential to step up to the plate years from now.
At Prudential, as part of the company's succession planning and management program, IT and other managers are instructed to look for three types of rising stars: next-generation leaders who currently exhibit the required skills to take the next step into management; emerging leaders who have good technical skills and, with grooming, could become leaders within a few years; and employees who work well with management and in teams -- those with soft skills that can grow into full-blown management potential.
Equally important is recognizing those skilled workers who want to advance in the company, but not through management -- for example a junior Web developer who wants to amass the training and experience to become a senior Web developer, or an application developer who is looking for a new challenge and wants to learn different IT skills. While these employees aren't on the management track, they still require care and feeding.
