Peer to Peer Magazine

Keeping Your Staff Means Keeping Them Smiling Retaining staff is really about fostering a work environment that is challenging, satisfying and fun. Often those three contend with each other. We all know the ebb and flow between daily support and projects, and it is a constant war trying to find enough time in your day to address both. The stress of that balancing act can build within your team and can fray relationships and tear down departmental harmony. When the pressure cooker is boiling away, keep your team informed via meetings, give them opportunities to express ideas on how to handle issues and make them laugh. Acknowledging the stress of the moment, week, month, etc. is critical, and adding some humor along the way helps folks laugh off what can be long meetings about adding to the pile of work to be done. People feel better when they have a “say so” along the way and know that you are aware how hectic it is, even if you don’t have a “fix” for it. Make an effort to encourage communication across your team. Often, a project team might not appreciate the stress your helpdesk folks might be under — perhaps they’re fighting off an outage or degraded system. Members of my team know I expect them to go chat with anyone who is rubbing them the wrong way or overtasking them. If I sense that isn’t working, it’s time to get them in a room together and sort things out. Don’t let these kinds of issues, typically simple miscommunications, fester, because it is amazing how fast they become intractable. Involve your team in developing solutions to new projects or changes in SLAs even for the relatively simple stuff. Often the way they solve it is what you would have directed anyway, but you gain much more ground with them by asking rather than telling. This doesn’t work all the time — sometimes you have to be directive in nature and take command — but it does work most of the time. Keep the grapevine tame! Not always possible, because often you’re the last one to know when it is out of control. Still, try to be up front with folks on changes the firm has made and how these changes will impact them. Don’t let them hear this from other personnel and then be on the defense. It’s often the case that changes in other departments can affect your team’s friendships and business relationships with those departments, and these disruptions can quickly cause issues within your department. Hand out recognition among your team at meetings or on the spot when deserved. Often folks work through complicated support or project issues without a whisper of praise. Yes, it is their job; but it is human nature to crave approval, and it is your role as a manager to pass along recognition of work that goes above and beyond. As for discipline, make sure it is proportionate to the “crime.” If employees aren’t pulling their weight, are coming in late, etc., make sure you handle any infractions in accordance with firm policy and involve HR. Also, let the team members 68 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer who are adversely affected know that you are aware of these issues and that you’re working on them. If you keep these matters completely confidential, you’re only adding to a perception of unfairness. By the same token, make sure legitimate mistakes are handled with understanding and equity. We all have issues beyond our control, and after years of faithful service, no one should be treated harshly when there are extenuating circumstances. Being strict but fair when disciplining staff will be apparent and appreciated. If there’s a secret to successful staffing, it is to make sure you hire the right person for the right job. After that, ensure you cultivate an environment conducive to teamwork. Keep your team involved, solicit their input, praise their success and deal with their failures or shortcomings as they arise. You’ll know when you have a great team because it will be evident in the praise from both your user community and from the staff members themselves. ILTA Erik Goltzer is the Chief Information Officer for Miller Johnson, serving in the position since 2004. Erik oversees the Information Services Departmen, which manages the firm’s data systems, support operations, projects, records and risk mitigation sections. He is responsible for charting technology strategies focusing on expense control, reducing risk and implementation of technologies that have a measurable positive impact on revenue. He can be reached at goltzere@millerjohnson.com. Seek and Ye Shall Find Our website provides a Google-like search function which can help you find content that includes white papers, surveys, Peer to Peer articles, future and past webinars and events, a rich hand-picked collection of presentations from past ILTA conferences, vendor information and much more. The search feature is available in the top-right corner from any page on the site. www.iltanet.org

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