Ten tips for a more socially responsible IT department

Many agree with the concept of a socially responsible IT department, but putting ideas into action requires a vision and careful planning. Here's how to get started:

1. Begin simply. Few IT departments have the time, energy or money to instantly create a comprehensive social responsibility initiative. Strategies are best approached in stages, starting with simple tasks and working up to larger projects. Start with an overall assessment, says Tony Leger, leader of architecture and engineering services in the office of the CIO at Nortel. A lot of managers in the IT space, for instance, don't know what all those servers in their data centers are doing," he says. They also don't necessarily know whether their monitors are running all the time or not, so ask questions on how and why things are running."

2. Form a committee. Staff buy-in is critical and works best when people are energized in a team effort. "If you begin a committee, or just sort of let people know that you're looking to make some changes, you'll find people willing to participate," says Kevin Roddy, vice president of information technology for 3rd Federal Bank in Newtown, Pa. "Then, if you can turn that energy loose, you can really gain from it, because people really believe in this stuff, and they really want to make it happen and they don’t mind putting in the time and effort it takes to get results."

3. Create a strategy. Like any other major IT project, a social responsibility initiative requires a detailed strategy and timeline. This is something the committee should work on and reexamine periodically, Roddy says.

4. Seek management support. An IT department launching a social responsibility effort needs input from top management for business, financial and moral support. Management interaction is also needed to ensure that IT's social responsibility plans seamlessly mesh with overall enterprise goals. "Help the CEO and CFO understand how techniques like teleworking, for instance, can save on real estate space, energy usage and so on," Leger says. "If you start bringing that cost opportunity up to them, you'll find there is quite a bit of interest on the executive level."

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