Logo Rob Buckley – Freelance Journalist and Editor

Qualified priviledge

Qualified priviledge

Every organisation wants skilled employees, but are IT qualifications worth the paper they are printed on?

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Few IT directors or CIOs would disagree with the claim that having skilled employees is an important component of operating an effective IT department. Far more contentious, however, is the question of which skills are most beneficial to the organisation, and which IT qualifications and training courses are worth sending employees on to acquire them.

Perversely, the training budget for employees is often one of the first things to be cut during a downturn – after all, the business can at least survive without its staff progressing.

But that is a false economy in the long term; training existing staff is a highly economical way of improving the effectiveness of any operation, as well as a proven technique for retaining valued employees.

Still, IT budgets are down across the board, and making sure training investments deliver value is critical.

The value of qualifications
Many CIOs, particularly at large organisations, are clear about the value of staff training and certification in particular functions.

Tony Young, CIO of information management provider Informatica, says that no matter what happens, he’ll try to find the budget to send his staff on the training courses they need. “Every year, we spend twice the training budget,” he says.

Telecommunications provider Colt Telecom also believes in the contribution that qualifications make. “We’re very passionate about the skills and qualifications of IT people in Colt,” says CIO Mark Leonard. “Fundamentally, there’s a recognition that we’re trying to attract, retain and develop talent.”

In order to do that, the company has rolled out the British Computing Society’s Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) across the organisation. “We’ve linked the SFIA into the career framework, so that employees can see what they need to achieve for the next level or a different role,” says Leonard.

SFIA provides a framework encompassing a large number of areas, not all of them technical. This emphasis on non-technical qualifications has been increasing of late, with ITIL proving a popular qualification framework and Prince 2 training still important.

Even the MBA is looking more and more desirable in IT staff because it shows a degree of understanding of the business – something which, as IT and the rest of the business align more closely, is in considerable demand.

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