Words of wisdom from professional recruiters and consultants
Network World, 9/23/96John Wallin, CEO, TechKnowledgE, Irvine, Calif.
How to keep staff happy: ''Take care of them. Cash will help keep people around, but they've got to have interesting work, too. It's a combination of keeping the work interesting, having current tools around and paying people above average.''Why people change jobs: ''It's usually a couple of things. In our business, the work ends - a project is completed and there isn't another challenge worthy of whoever is involved. There's also personality conflicts, or chemistry - somebody just doesn't like who they work with. Sometimes there's not much you can do about it, but good communication can help clear up problems.''
Julie Ann Reynolds, vice president, advanced technology practice, Korn/Ferry International, Boston.
Signs that an employee will grow quickly: ''We watch how they manage their career path, and we then do a lot of referencing to check what others perceive them to be. There are a lot of self-starters out there who just love the technology. They sleep five hours and they're on the Net the other 19. They develop skills on their own as welll as on the job.''Why people change jobs: ''Opportunity. Opportunity for financial advancement, an opportunity to build equity in their career by broadening their skills - in this case, mostly technical skills. And then an opportunity to move into management.''
Frank Schoff, president of Management Recruiters, Cedar Mountain, N.C.
How to convince upper management to spend more on IS salaries: ''A local market salary survey, even if it's self-initiated, is one of the best tools you can use.'' Using a local professional association, or even your own human resources department, you should poll at least 20 area companies to get a fix on the salaries they're paying. Offer to share the results with those who help. ''That's probably the best indication of what the market demands.''How to know whether to retrain or recruit: ''First, determine if the person has a desire to be retrained. Simply having a training program and trying to turn an apple into an orange may not work. And remember if you invest money in retraining you're also likely to have to increase that person's salary to market rate, or you'll eventually lose them.... I don't think in today's corporate world people will be eternally grateful to the point that they continue to work for less money.''
Gerard Cunningham, partner, Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group
On managers who expect they can replace a given staffer with another at less cost: ''What they're saying is they're replacing mid-level people with lower-level people and paying them less. That's going to get harder to do. In highly targeted areas, the demand curve will force up the base pay and the replacement cost will be equal to or higher than the averages people have seen in the past.''On the number of network IS staffers with 4-year college degrees: ''That is increasing because of the visibility communications is getting now. A few years ago, you didn't see user-oriented communications stories on the front page of the business section of the Journal. Now you're seeing that because there is more recognition of the dependence we have on communications and the importance of managing communications costs.''