OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 4-10-08

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 10, 2008 meeting

Present: John Pringle, Larry Godec, Joe Cracchiolo, Rich Hoffman, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Randy Farner, Dave Phillips

The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the host’s presentation material, when available. Please provide us with the “url” of your presentation materials.

Topic – Attracting and Retaining IT Talent

John Pringle, RCM Technologies, gave us a short history of his company as a qualification for addressing the subject – 37 years in business, 3,000 consultants globally specializing in engineering and IT, 200 IT employees in the Western Region. He gave an overview of the US human capital market – more tech. opportunities than qualified people to fill them because baby boomers are retiring, fewer university IT graduates, and companies are creating new IT jobs faster than they are exporting. IT employment is at an all time high – almost 4M, driven by business growth, user support and system upgrades. We might be in for some uncertainty as in March, there was a decrease, after 32 months of growth; RCM Technology’s business is down, except in support of mid-sized companies. He gave us a summary of the CA market, mainly based on 2006 data (see John’s slides attached). There is a new breed of employee – more demanding, diverse, technically astute, less likely to believe employer has their best interest at heart. They expect more than a job, more balance. To manage this talent, you need an applicant tracking, recruiting, web-based requisition and harvesting management system. Focus on employee initiation and on boarding, covering reporting structure, standards, position and project scope, and administration. Incentive and compensation management is important, as is employee self-service and communication. To attract and retain talent, start with pursuit of the best and brightest, treat employees fairly, create a good environment, work together as a team, and provide on-going training. He listed the top 10 paying job positions, and the most sought after skills (see his slides). He had some general tips for managing your career in IT, and the value of networking. The long-term trend is for the IT professional to more actively manage his/her career, anticipating that you will have many (8-10) position/careers in your lifetime. John listed his sources on the last page of the handout.

We asked each member to talk about their staffing strategy, and the balance between full-time employees, temporary consultants, outsourcing and offshoring.

Larry Godec, First American, said he had a succession plan for his senior management positions. His use of offshore resources is currently at 40% of total, and his new management wants that to grow to 60% to reduce costs. He is converting most of his consultant positions to full time employees.

Joe Cracchiolo, FluidMaster, said that they do not have an offshore strategy, but they do have a contractor strategy – hire full time to steady state, and staff peaks with contractors. They also have a training strategy even if does encourage some to leave after they have upgraded their skills.

Rich Hoffman, ex-HISNA, said that every company needs a resource strategy, and that it varies by company, timing and culture. Cummings went offshore to find talent, which was not as available in the Mid West. GE had a 30/30/30 strategy, with 30% onshore fulltime, 30% offshore fulltime and 30% outsourced. HISNA is using more subcontractors to keep the permanent headcount steady. Even Deloitte staffs their projects with 80% subcontractors.

William Zauner, JAMS, said that they use contractors for most of their projects. Full time employees form the core of their staff. Their strategy is to hire college graduates and to train them, with the expectation that they will likely last no more than 3 years.

Randy Farner spoke to his experience at the Auto Club and Mercury. He noted a commoditization of IT resources, where true productivity gets lost. The corporate mentality is in the numbers, but it is very hard to buy the super star. There must be a right mix because you cannot subcontract or outsource everything.

Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that he works with many companies in the area on resourcing their IT talent pools. He advised the group to look at the HI B talent pool – you can find good talent and if you can lock them into a green-card process, you will build loyalty. Also investing in training and using the latest technology is good for employee retention

We thanked John Pringle for an interesting presentation and handout.

See you on May 8, 2008 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:

940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260. Attachment A
April 10, 2008
1993 - 2008
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Notes

Purpose: To provide a forum in an informal setting for senior IS executives to ex­change ideas with their peers on key issues of interest to the group.

Goal: To get to know each other and to feel comfortable discussing issues and solutions.

Format: Select one topic per meeting; have one member be responsible for a 30-minute introduction, and have each participant come prepared to pre­sent not more than 5 minutes on how they are approaching the issues in their environment.

Time: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Place: The RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.

Date: 2nd THURSDAY of each month

Schedule for the meetings through August 2008:

DATE INTRODUCTION TOPIC

1/10/08
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix
VoIP
2/14/08
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group
Web 2.0
3/13/08
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest
Offshore outsourcing
4/10/08
John Pringle, RCM Technologies
Attracting / Retaining IT talent
5/8/08
Rich Hoffman, HISNA
Productivity - does where you work from matter?
6/12/08
Larry Godec, 1st American
Business Continuity Planning
7/10/08
Omar El Sawy, USC
Future of IT
8/14/08
Tim McClain, The Irvine Company
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

(See voting spreadsheet for other topics to consider)