To help build authenticity, be clear on the specific values that have guided your career and that you expect others to embrace.
Early on in our careers, we are schooled in the importance of the elevator pitch, so that we can deliver a concise answer if somebody important we meet in passing asks, “What are you working on?” or “What do you do here?” The succinct sales pitch is also an essential skill for entrepreneurs taking turns in front of an audience of investors: they have to be able to capture their killer idea in a dozen or so words.
But in our consulting work with senior leaders, we find there is a specific type of elevator pitch that executives often overlook. It’s the answer to the questions “So what kind of leader are you?” and “What should we know about your leadership style?” Having a thoughtful reply at the ready could be a factor in landing a promotion. But more crucially, providing clarity about your leadership style will help you to build trust with your team. Think of it as your personal leadership brand—what you stand for, including the values that guide your behaviors as a leader, and what you expect from others.
It’s not that people don’t have anything to say in response to these questions. Some will volunteer that they believe in “servant leadership,” or that they are results-driven or believe in excellence and integrity.
And they’re not wrong. It’s just that they use phrases that are so general and at such a high altitude that they don’t provide anything concrete in terms of the behaviors that people can expect from them. The sentiments get muddled with corporate mission statements and purpose statements that often default to a version of “making the world a better place,” a cliché that can easily be skewered. (Think of the HBO series Silicon Valley, a satirical look at life in the tech startup world.)
From offering meaningful work to embracing hybrid environments, CIOs whose organizations have established virtuous IT recruiting cycles share tips on how to consistently attract IT talent.
As the war for IT talent rages on, some companies seem to be staying out of the trenches, even when it comes to the most sought-after skills.
CPA firm Plante Moran fills open IT positions in 48 days on average — from job post to onboard date — even for the hardest-to-fill roles in application development, data analytics, cybersecurity, and cloud engineering. That includes several rounds of interviews and testing to ensure a good fit. By comparison, most employers in 2020 took an average of 69 days to fill a tech role, according to a survey by recruiting cloud platform iCIMS.
Owens Corning often hires outstanding IT talent, even without an open position. “If an exceptional technologist approaches HR, or an IT staffer offers a great referral, we just go ahead and hire them, and often when we don’t have a role that we’re shopping,” says CIO Steve Zerby. “We build roles around people; we don’t put people in roles.”
These and other nontechnology companies have created a virtuous recruiting cycle in which IT talent is likely to seek out its opportunities, rather than the organization constantly having to do the selling to top candidates.
Attracting great talent requires more than a great compensation package, although IDG’s IT Salary Survey 2021 shows that tech workers most often seek new jobs for higher compensation (61%). But they’re also seeking career advancement (47%), interesting work (38%), and personal fulfillment.
Those asks are most often found in IT teams who lead the business instead of follow, with great leaders and managers, access to the hottest technologies, a visible career path, and a culture of excellence, open dialog, and of feeling valued and appreciated.
Rich Gilbert, chief digital information officer, Aflac
“People are looking to be part of something great,” says Rich Gilbert, chief digital and information officer at Aflac, which has been named a Fortune most admired company for 19 years and is listed as a top innovator in the insurance industry. “We don’t pay the highest on an IT salary chart, but we have talent that’s knocking on our doors because it’s the total package — the compensation, the rewards, the recognition, the engagement, and feeling part of something that’s bigger than any one person.”
CIOs from some of the best places to work in IT explain how they’ve created a virtuous recruiting cycle that brings top talent to their door.
They offer meaningful work with backing from executives
One of the attributes that attracts IT talent to Plante Moran is the tremendous support and respect for the IT team from top-level leadership, says CIO Paul Blowers. “It’s so important to IT talent that they be part of an organization’s strategy, to be entrepreneurial, to run with ideas and to be part of the company’s mission,” he says.
Paul Blowers, CIO, Plante Moran
The IT team is considered a business partner in the organization, not overhead, says Joni Propst, director of digital project and portfolio management. “We are in charge of setting the strategy for technology, and we drive it with the full backing of the firm.”
They hire great people, who attract great people
Talented technologists want to work with other talented people. One strategic hire can often have a cascading effect on tech recruiting. Navy Federal Credit Union CIO Tony Gallardy built a mission-driven IT culture that takes care of its employees. He convinced Sovan Shatpathy, who never worked in finance, to join as CTO in June 2020 to help lead its digital transformation. Shatpathy’s reputation as a leader and innovator helped attract at least eight technologists to the team who had worked with him throughout his career at Amtrak, Cisco, and Oracle. “Mission, culture, and taking care of people sells in the market,” Gallardy adds.
They attract diversity with diverse leaders
The same virtuous hiring cycle holds true when it comes to a diverse and inclusive workforce. Six years ago, Owens Corning struggled to attract female talent to the IT organization. But that changed after Zerby appointed two IT directors who are female. Today, one of those women is a vice president, and about 40% of Owens Corning’s IT staff is female, up from 20% in 2015. “There is no doubt that they make this a less daunting place to work,” Zerby says. “People like to see people who look like them, and that has made a difference” in attracting diverse IT talent, he adds.
The number of IT professionals seeking a more diverse workplace doubled this year, from 5% in 2020 to 10% in 2021, according to the IT salary survey.
Insurance giant The Hartford attracts talent by supporting employee resource groups for Asian Pacific, Black, Hispanic, LBGTQ+, military, women, mature professionals, and young professionals. Through these groups, “employees are empowered to weigh in on business opportunities, enable talent outcomes, and build stronger relationships with one another,” says CIO Deepa Soni. More than one-third (35%) of IT managers are women, and one-third (33%) are people of color.
They expose tech talent to the hottest technology
Most technologists want an opportunity to work with and learn the hottest new technology, and they’ll seek out those organizations who can offer that to them.
Deepa Soni, CIO, The Hartford
Plante Moran, for instance, formed a joint venture with three of its largest competitors to invest in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and robotic process automation. “The R&D center allows us to really push the envelope on innovation and gives our IT staff a chance to work on new and innovative things, and then to implement and execute on them,” Blowers says.
Aflac renamed its IT organization “digital services” to reflect its role in setting the business strategy and its partnership with the business to deliver solutions. Its enablement program trains tech workers in mobile and web development frameworks, such as Ionic and Angular, and certifies workers as Scrum masters, Scrum product owners, and full stack developers. “Even though people come in with great skill sets, we’re continuously building on that and investing in our people,” Gilbert says.
Home healthcare company Amedisys has been working with a security startup to improve ways of safeguarding healthcare devices in the home. In July, the company announced plans to acquire Contessa Health, which will give IT staff exposure to Contessa’s healthcare technologies and its analytics platform.
Midsize firms tap their own hiring magic
Midsize companies such as Amedisys have also become IT talent magnets by leveraging their regional reputations and lean operating models. The company, based in Baton Rouge, La., hired 18 tech workers last year during the pandemic. Many came as referrals from within the IT department who spread the word about its culture. “Enterprise IT in Louisiana is traditionally a small pool, but we’ve built a reputation as an organization that is doing new and exciting things,” says CTO Keith Blanchard.
Keith Blanchard, CTO, Amedisys
With 124 people on the IT team, “it’s a pretty small shop,” says CIO Mike North, “and we like it that way. That’s part of the magic — staying lean enough to make sure you hear everybody, and everybody feels like they’re a part of something.”
Blanchard knows firsthand how small but cohesive tech teams can be preferable to large ones. He returned to Amedisys for the CTO role four years after he left the organization to work for a software giant. Now Blanchard says he better understands the value of a smaller IT team. “We respect and value the opinion of everyone that’s part of the team,” he says. “They can suggest something that can then catapult an entire business line or a new approach or a new way to tackle things. That’s exciting. [IT professionals] are looking for a chance to make a difference.”
They build a strong pipeline
Organizations that attract top IT talent say that many of their best hires come from contract engagements and connections with universities and training organizations.
Mike North, CIO, Amedisys
When Navy Federal hired several contractors to help migrate to its new digital platform, some asked to stay after spending time with the group. “It’s amazing the people we get out of the contract pool” by making them feel like full-time employees, Gallardy says. “It’s about inclusion.” He regularly invites contractors to town halls, holiday parties, and virtual get-togethers, he says.
Navy Federal’s military affiliation also attracts veterans and military IT talent, as well as their spouses who work in the tech space. The credit union also taps talent from other parts of the organization through its talent optimization program. “We know there’s tech talent in the credit union that doesn’t work in IT,” Gallardy says, so he developed an assessment process to identify employees with IT skills, and those people can enter a nine-month program to integrate into the IT team.
They offer a hybrid work model indefinitely
Organizations will have to maintain a hybrid work model to keep their recruiting pipelines full, these CIOs say.
“I don’t believe you’re going to be able to attract top IT talent at large scale without having a great staff experience that’s a hybrid experience,” Blowers says. “We want to tell future talent that we offer a fantastic virtual experience, the ability to work remotely and still feel engaged and connected to our culture, but also an in-office experience that allows for the rich, in-person experiences to meet people, build relationships, be mentored, and grow in your career. You have to listen to your staff.”
by Henning Piezunka, INSEAD Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise
Collaboration with a partner is not strictly a two-way affair; instead, prospective partners take the entire competitive landscape into account when forming ties.
In the movie Jerry Maguire, a sports agent played by Tom Cruise is fired from his top agency after openly criticising its impersonal approach. He is forced to go it alone, but all his clients desert him, preferring to continue to be represented by a large, established organisation. That is, all except American footballer Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding Jr), who feels his career could use more personalised attention.
While movie-goers know that, indeed, things end well for Tidwell, an important question remains: When striking a partnership, is it better to be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond? In a paper published in the Academy of Management Journal, my co-authors* and I looked at the particular case of developers and publishers of PlayStation2 (PS2) video games, at a time when self-publishing of titles was not yet an option and developer-publisher ties were necessary to commercialise a game. We found that the level of experience of developers and the relative uncertainty they faced in terms of getting personalised attention from a publisher were driving much of their decision to seek a certain “pond” size.
Two conflicting goals requiring a trade-off
Akin to the book industry with its authors and publishing houses, the video game industry involves developers that propose game concepts and initial development, and publishers that provide late-stage development and access to markets. Out of the 163 PS2 games which have sold more than 1 million units, only 30 were published directly by Sony, the manufacturer of the console.
|Even as concerns over the Delta COVID variant continue to rise, many organizations are confident the worst of the pandemic is behind us and are rapidly planning for the long-awaited “return to work.” While some CEOs are expecting that to mean a return to the traditional office setting, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that many companies are going to be adapting to a “more flexible, forgiving work environment,” according to a new report by the Josh Bersin Academy.
“CEOs and their very top executive teams are accustomed to having face-to-face interactions with people, so their expectation is that the recovery from the pandemic will be a big reentry into the offices,” says Josh Bersin, founder and dean of the Josh Bersin Academy and a keynoter at the upcoming HR Technology Conference who will explore the future of hybrid work in a free webinar on July 21. “Employees are saying, ‘Wait a minute, I was very productive during the last year-and-a-half and I’d like to keep doing what I’m doing,’ so there’s a bit of a tug of war going on.”
Once considered code for “not working,” Bersin says, the pandemic broke the stigma of working from home and taught employers that it can work. As the job market grows more competitive, employers are having to reevaluate their attitude toward remote work. Already, points out Bersin, the second-most-common “location” for job postings on LinkedIn is “remote.”
Yet, not all organizations are sold on the idea of an entirely remote workforce. Consequently, many are looking to a hybrid work environment where employees work in the office on certain days and remotely on others. In the Hybrid Work Playbook, researchers write that there’s no clear model for this new world of hybrid work. However, simply “repurposing legacy policies on remote work” is unlikely to be sufficient.
A couple of years ago I wrote about the value of having a workforce with a high degree of class diversity. The article focused on what are referred to as “social class transitioners,” who are people that have managed to progress between socioeconomic classes during their life, and it emerged that those who were able to do that brought particular value to the workplace.
“People who transition between classes can learn to relate to people in a more skilled way, and they are incredibly helpful in groups, as they can understand people from all walks of life,” argue researchers from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. “However, it can also be an exhausting and even isolating experience for that person.”
Emerging early
This is far from easy to achieve, however, not least as Yale research shows that class bias can emerge as soon as we open our mouths. The study examined job interview scenarios and found that someone’s class and socioeconomic status can be discerned within the first few seconds of them opening their mouth. What’s more, the study shows that these snap judgments then impact the candidates that hiring managers prefer, with those from higher social classes picked more frequently than their working-class peers.
“Our study shows that even during the briefest interactions, a person’s speech patterns shape the way people perceive them, including assessing their competence and fitness for a job,” the researchers explain. “While most hiring managers would deny that a job candidate’s social class matters, in reality, the socioeconomic position of an applicant or their parents is being assessed within the first seconds they speak — a circumstance that limits economic mobility and perpetuates inequality.”
by Adam Bryant
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By: Julie Cook Ramirez
By Adi Gaskell