As workplaces become more technology-dependent, more and more companies are hiring information technology (IT) employees to work in-house.
Often, the IT employee is the only person in the organization with specialized skill and knowledge regarding the company’s technology infrastructure. And, while these employees play a critical role in business operations, they can present unique challenges in terms of supervision and performance evaluation where the managers they report to have little understanding of what their IT subordinates do.
Making sure managers are trained to effectively supervise and evaluate IT employees is a critical element in making sure what you pay IT employees is money well spent.
Training Your New Supervisors: 11 Practical Lessons
Many brand-new supervisors have never been trained on how to manage, and they’ve probably had at least a few poor role models over the years. Learn how to point them in the right direction with our free White Paper, Training Your New Supervisors: 11 Practical Lessons.
Although it’s unlikely that managers of IT employees will become sufficiently tech-savvy to understand every detail of the work their IT subordinates do, establishing clear criteria for IT deliverables and productivity will allow your managers to manage them effectively. Here are some ways that managers can stay on top of IT employees without getting in their way:
- Make sure managers of IT employees are acquainted with and understand the job descriptions and major functions of the employees they supervise;
- Ensure that managers of IT employees are involved at the development stage for IT projects, so that they can monitor the project’s progress and make sure that steps are not overlooked or key project elements changed without the company’s knowledge and approval;
- Have managers set deadline timetables for IT employees, so that when the inevitable delays happen, managers are asking questions about why delays occur and are engaging IT employees regarding what solutions are available;
- Get IT employees involved in developing performance criteria for their own positions before projects are started, so that both they and their managers know what expectations are reasonable and how employees will be evaluated;
- When in doubt, hire outside consultants with technological expertise to develop appropriate job duties and standards for in-house IT employees, and to train managers on what to look for in evaluating how well their subordinates are doing.