Sidebar: It's the Agility, Stupid

As today's large enterprises adopt more technical and project-oriented business practices, it has never been more important for companies to implement employee IT training programs focused on enhancing staff agility.

Over the course of the past few years, US data management services provider One IT has implemented various innovative IT training models (upskilling, professional communities, leadership coaching and joining the dots) that it says have achieved tremendous success in broadening employees' skill sets and increasing IT efficiency.

However, COO David Butcher says one of the most successful has been to ensure that part of a broader IT transformation, all project work is now done in 90-day cycles. Rather than assigning employees to projects on a long-term basis, they are assigned to projects for periods of between nine and 18 months.

"In between project cycles we transition our IT employees from active projects into technical education and management training courses," Butcher says. "This process, which we refer to as 'upskilling', ensures that IT employees are constantly trained on the most up-to-date technologies while also giving them a regular break from high-pressure project work. Additionally, our new IT practices help maintain an appropriate work balance across the entire IT staff.

"Since implementing these new practices, we have realized a 17 percent increase in output efficiency. Moreover, our practice of not committing employees to years of service on a single long-term project has significantly decreased our reliance on expensive external contractors. Now, when we identify a specific skills need, we train an employee to fill it rather than hire a skilled contractor."

Butcher says this combination of sensible employee training programs and efficient project management processes can help any type of company maintain, and in fact enhance, the value of its IT staff to quickly adapt to future changes in technologies or business focus.

- S BUSHELL