Doing it with a smile

This effort to retain staff is not limited to paying high salaries. Companies are doing more to keep their staff happy, as they are realising the value of retaining their knowledge workers, says Meta Group South Africa strategic advisor Colin Smith.
Companies are also allowing employees to be more creative, they respect and recognise employees as individuals, and meet their job and work environment needs.
"A lot of this intelligent people management is brought about by necessity, that is, a combination of the skills shortage and increasing demand from customers," he explains.
Smith wonders whether IT professionals, especially the "pale males", now appreciate the value of retaining their jobs, and so are increasingly satisfied at work.
Smaller organisations, he says, are by nature better suited to intelligent people management, but there are larger organisations that have successfully implemented this management philosophy.

The right people
Microsoft, winner of Deloitte`s Best Company to Work For award in 2004, is arguably one such organisation. "We do a lot to look after our employees," says human resources director Astrid Warren. She indicates that attracting the right staff, that is people passionate about what they do, is key. "Once they are here, they are happy and they enjoy what they do."
She explains that keeping staff happy has as much to do with the technology they work with as the benefits and energetic work environment that Microsoft offers employees. In addition, the company keeps abreast of remuneration trends, and conducts annual internal employee polls to alert management to areas of employee concern. Exit interviews are conducted with employees leaving the company and efforts are made to address their concerns.
"But we have a fairly low staff turnover. People are happy to work here," confirms Warren.

Measuring satisfaction
Solutions provider and technology reseller Datacentrix group HR manager Annelie van Wyk says that market-related salaries and incentives, training and succession planning are key to ensuring job satisfaction.
She observes, however, that worldwide research has shown that IT professionals often leave for career growth and not financial reasons.
As a result, the company measures its employees` job satisfaction in biannual performance appraisals, and interviews employees leaving the company to ascertain their reasons for leaving and redress them.
On the end-user side of the industry, retail group Edcon, voted twelfth in last year`s Deloitte`s Best Companies to Work For awards, also boasts a low staff turnover in its IT department. CIO Henri Slabbert says that creating challenges is essential to retaining IT professionals in this environment. "At Edcon we`re fortunate that IT plays a key role in our success. As a result, we make a conscious effort to make our IT staff feel like they`re part of the business, that they get the satisfaction of seeing the results of their work, and that they feel appreciated," he observes.