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To potential clients, certifications can inspire confidence that contractors are qualified to contribute, manage or lead various projects.
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While small business owners indicate plans to hire in the next 12 months -- the most optimistic outlook since July 2008 -- they continue to indicate some concern around hiring today.
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Anyone who's been in the workforce in the past few years knows what a rollercoaster it's been. But things are looking up, according to a recent survey of IT professionals from Technisource. The company's latest IT Employee Confidence Index reveals that optimism levels have climbed above 50, after dipping below that critical mark last year. Overall, tech workers feel better about job security, employment-search prospects and the future of their organizations. "With the demand for IT professionals steadily increasing, confidence is rising once again," says Andrew Speer, president of technology solutions for Technisource. "We're seeing great demand for project managers, analytics professionals and .NET application developers, demonstrating that companies are opening their budgets and embracing technology implementation." And one-third of employees are actively looking for new employment, Speer notes, meaning CIOs and other tech managers must focus on the needs of IT teams to avoid unnecessary hiring and re-training costs. More than 245 IT professionals took part in the research.
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Big companies like Lenovo and IBM are looking at high schools to tap into the next generation of IT workers to build the next killer apps and staff the jobs of the future.
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Technology professionals have been pulled through the wringer of a struggling economy, but after two consecutive years of stagnant wages, compensation is — if ever so slowly —on the rise, according to the 2012-2011 Salary Survey from technology career site Dice. "Finally! Compensation has mustered some momentum, as more and more top tech markets are notching increases in pay," Tom Silver, SVP of Dice North America, said in a Jan. 24 statement about the survey. Dice also looked at whether bonuses were being handed out, and with how generous a hand, as well as how the top 20 cities for tech jobs are faring. Conventional wisdom holds that the tech world follows Silicon Valley. While by broad strokes the survey found that to be true, the more nuanced story is one of stiff competition with the highest salaries going to professionals with the "right skill sets and the right experience level," according to the survey. The most generously compensated skills were those that enabled enterprises to harness their data in actionable ways. When they can do that, added Dice Managing Director Alice Hill, "is when the tech department is no longer seen as a cost center but a strategic partner in meeting companies' goals."
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In Silicon Valley, annual tech salaries topped six figures for the first time since the survey began about a decade ago.
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Worried investors have for months been calling on BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion to replace co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. On Jan. 22, 2012, the company has finally done so, appointing Thorsten Heins as RIM’s President and CEO . Heins joined RIM in 2007 from Siemens Communications Group. After a stint as senior vice president for hardware engineering, he became RIM’s chief operating officer for product and sales in August 2011. As with any other company that has a change in leadership, RIM will undergo a quiet period of sorts as its new chief executive assesses some of the things that might be wrong with the firm, and sets out to change that. The company faces a Jan. 31 deadline to report the findings of a review of its management structure, according to Bloomberg News, and Heins has said he’ll be seeking a new marketing chief for the company. Among the 75 million BlackBerry users are many enterprises that have made deep investments in RIM products, so it’s fair to say you’re probably wondering about the fate of the firm at this stage, and how the leadership changes will affect the company’s future. According to the Wall Street Journal, Heins assured industry analysts that he isn’t looking to sell the company. Yet, some industry analysts are making dire predictions about RIM’s fate , which largely hinges on the new BlackBerry 10 platform and future products featuring the QNX-based operating system. Until then, RIM is relying on a product line running BlackBerry OS 7 to retain customers; the upside, of course, is that IT administrators and others who manage BlackBerry devices for businesses have several months before RIM wholeheartedly embarks on major changes. Here’s what you need to know about Heins and the future of RIM.
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Technology job cuts did surge in the second half of 2011, raising concerns about whether the upward trend will continue into 2012.
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The Era of the Virtual Employee is here, and managers who prefer more traditional, in-office work relationships may not get what they want anymore. Globalization, mobile technology and the continued decentralization of today's organizations have led the workforce to be more mobile. For CIOs and other managers, this means you'll need to adapt to managing workers who rarely, if ever, show up in the office. In his book "The Virtual Manager: Cutting Edge Solutions for Hiring, Managing, Motivating, and Engaging Mobile Employees" (Career Press/Available now), author Kevin Sheridan advises CIOs to embrace these changes instead of resisting them, and highlights the ways they'll need to adapt when hiring virtual workers. Success begins with the job interview. To help managers make good hiring decisions, Sheridan has listed several open-ended questions specifically designed for these employees, to give managers a sense of whether a candidate is a good fit for the “off-site” working life. Sheridan is chief engagement officer (CEO) of HR Solutions Inc. For more information about the book, click here.
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Today's young workers are extremely tech-savvy, and the technology they'll have access to is a major consideration for many as they join the workforce. Many are used to having 24/7 access to email and the Internet on their smartphones or tablets. And with extensive knowledge of the Internet and its many services, more are using Web-based applications for many of the solutions they use on a daily basis. As an employer, making sure you have the right technology on hand to both appeal to and keep your younger workers happy is an important consideration when plotting out your technology roadmap. Keeping workers helps reduce training costs over time, and it could also help you sell your CEO on some product purchases. You know that cloud solution you're dying to implement? Well, tell the CEO about your young workforce being able to take advantage of it to work extra hours, and it might just happen. Want to bring iPads to the office? Tell the top executive that it might just improve productivity. As your company tries to find an edge in a job market filled with educated Millennials, technology could very well be the differentiating factor that helps you attract and retain a young workforce. Here's why.
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The giant chip maker appoints a new COO, CIO and executives to run its PC and data center groups.
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Do you believe that IT leadership is only applicable to those with formal responsibility to manage others? If so, then you've fallen prey to the three false and highly limiting beliefs about IT leadership. These three beliefs are held by IT pros on all rungs of the organizational ladder.
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In this week's installment of CIOs on the Move, we cover executive changes at seven organizations, including new IT leaders for Aviva North America, Bank of America and United Continental Holdings. Information is provided exclusively to CIO Insight by the researchers at DiscoverOrg.
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CIOs and other top organizational executives foresee a global talent shortage looming for the next several years, according to recent research from Deloitte. The consulting firm released the results of its survey in a new report, "Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting Talent Strategies for the Uneven Recovery." When it comes to adequately appointing leaders and staffing key operations, the report says fallout from the talent shortage could be significant. In addition, retaining younger workers has emerged as a key issue for many organizations. Ultimately, companies that invest aggressively in talent management and development programs will reap rewards, the report concludes. "Today's top talent organizations are not sitting back and waiting for a slow recovery to solve their talent challenges," says Alice Kwan, talent services leader for Deloitte Consulting. "These executives are more likely to invest ‑ by a two to one margin ‑ across the board on talent priorities." More than 375 senior executives and talent managers at large companies worldwide took part in the research. For more about the survey, click here
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If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to sharpen your business and leadership skills or to read more books, CIO Insight’s winter book guide can help you on both fronts. This collection of titles explores a broad range of key issues facing CIOs today, examining leadership trends, business agility, corporate and executive transparency and the ever-present mandate to innovate. If you add these to your “must read” list, you can find out why C-Suite executives have less influence than they like to think they have, or how you can use smarter social-media strategies to elevate your “e-profile”. Others discuss ways to maximize the effectiveness of today’s business tools and how to manage projects from an enterprise perspective. Each offers insights and information that can be of value to the ambitious technology leader. For more information about each book included here, click on the link above the slide. And please note, all publication dates are subject to change.
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