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When
CIOs start to think about compensation for their staffs, they need to consider
their own compensation.Some of the
questions that they should ask themselves are:
What are the basics of the annual wage package for CIOs of other
companies?
What is the preferred method for manifesting the compensation package
into a time specific contract?
Which elements of the equity compensation are most favored by CIOs?
Why?
How
do CIOs value the different components of the compensation offer? What
emphasis is placed on bonuses? Stocks? Wages?
How
does the CIO package set the tone for the other compensation programs offered
to other Information Technology management team members?
What language is important when it comes to the compensation in the
employment contract?
What are the 5-7 most important components of the employment contract
to a CIO?
Which components are the most challenging to negotiate? Why?
Which components can be bargained away in favor of other, more
important contract terms?
What system is most effective when trying to update a CIO compensation
package?
What is the most common compensation structure for members of the
management team? Why?
What method is used to analyze the compensation structure for each
CIO?
What industry standards are applied to the compensation and employment
contracts?
What calculations and metrics are used to structure the CIO
compensation?
Which structural elements constitute the greatest amount of CIO
pay?
How
is performance measurements detailed in the employment contract and
compensation agreement?
Which Information Technology positions are most closely tied to
performance measurements? Why?
How
are complicated elements of the compensation plan analyzed and
monitored?
What procedure is used to peg compensation to other organization
goals?
What schedule is outlined for reviewing compensation against
performance goals?
Which incentive based elements of the package are preferred by CIOs?
Which elements of the employment contract are most important to CIOs?
Why?
What negotiating strategies and techniques are most
successful?
What are the most difficult terms to negotiate? What can the CIO do to
prepare for these hot topics?
What language must the CIO or CIO insist upon when it comes to the
employment agreement?
What are the non-financial aspects of the contract? Why are these
important to CIO level management?
What must CIOs be careful about when it comes to date specific terms of
the compensation and employment contract?
How
much time and money should a CIO budget for negotiating?
What is the impact of poor negotiations on CIO
performance?
When is it best to work through a third party?
What process is used to facilitate stalled
negotiations?
How
are CIO level employment contracts changing? Why?
What is the impact of these changes directly on the contracts? Which
trends do you expect to benefit the CIO?
What terms or issues can CIOs expect to deal with in the future, in
light of recent trends?
What techniques can management use to get a better compensation
package?
When does it make sense to go to the Board of Directors regarding pay?
Why?
Why
is it important for both parties to be satisfied with the contract? How is
this accomplished?
What methods are CIOs using to keep their contracts
progressive?
How
do the current tax laws influence changes to CIO employment
contracts?
What impact do corporate rules or policies have on the CIO
compensation?
Who
is most actively involved in developing company policies that impact
compensation? What is the trend?
What are the challenges to CIOs who are looking to improve their
package?
What is the current thinking companies regarding deferred compensation?
Why?
How
can the Board of Directors guide the employment contract
process?
What is the typical timeline for completing an agreement once the
process has started?
Who
is most instrumental in facilitating the negotiations? Why?
Which deadlines are most important in the employment
contract?
What are the biggest mistakes CIOs make when negotiating employment
contracts?
How
consistent are the agreements across members of the management
team?
When is it allowable to operate without an employment contract? What
are the risks?
04/25/2008 Google Tags Morgan Stanley For its CIO -
(CNET News.com) Google has found its new chief
information officer, a programmer who rose through the ranks to run much
of Morgan Stanley's computing infrastructure.
The new CIO was a managing director who led
the Morgan Stanley Application Infrastructure group.
According to an internal Morgan Stanley
memo, the new CIO will leave Morgan Stanley at the end of the month to
pursue opportunities outside the firm.
The memo also indicated that the new
CIO is no stranger to Google. While at Morgan Stanley, one of his projects
was working on initial public offering of Google in 2004, the memo.
The last CIO at Google, left to become
president of the EMI digital unit. Earlier this month, rumors surfaced
that Morgan Stanley executive would be the new Google new CIO.
Running the Google computing infrastructure is a daunting challenge on which
the companys success hinges. Google not only has thousands of servers housed in
at least 36 data centers scattered around the globe, but also a
build-it-yourself culture that means the company is responsible for maintaining
much of its own technology.
The CIO worked for Morgan Stanley computing
operations for nearly 14 years including having worked on first Morgan
Stanley Web site, its workstation software, and its
intranet.
04/21/2008 Baby boomer retirements will impact IT -
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says one
in four workers will be 55 or older. And particularly in IT, there is not a
big influx of new talent. According to the Computing Research Association,
computer science enrollments dropped 14% each year between 2004 and 2006.
Although IT organizations certainly understand
these workforce trends, many are not taking significant measures to mitigate the
risks that the loss of intellectual capital seems to portend. Even outside of
IT, many companies seem unconcerned by boomer retirements. In a 2006 survey of
488 companies only 42% of the respondents said that the aging workforce was a
significant issue, and 29% said it had little or no significance.
And in a nationwide study of 550 human resources
managers conducted by Monster.com last summer (view PDF), only 12% of the respondents said they consider knowledge
retention a high priority within their companies, even though one-third said
they expect at least 20% of their workforce to retire in the next
decade.
The inescapable conclusion seems to be that many
businesses are perfectly content to see their boomers walk out the door. And
because so few organizations have taken the retirement issue seriously,
companies that want to transfer knowledge from older to younger workers have few
models to follow. As a result, those that are attempting to get ahead of the
retirement wave are finding themselves pretty much on their
own.
(IDG News Service) AT&T Inc. plans to lay off 1.5% of
its employees, primarily in management, in an effort to streamline its
operations, the company said today.
AT&T
had about 310,000 employees at the end of 2007, meaning the layoffs would affect
about 4,650 workers. The layoffs are the "next step" in streamlining company
operations in an effort to operate more efficiently after recent mergers between
parent company SBC, the old AT&T and BellSouth, the company said in a filing
with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission.
AT&T expects its total number of employees to
remain stable in 2008 as the company hires additional employees to support
growth areas, AT&T said in the filing. In 2007, the company added about
7,000 employees, said an AT&T spokesman.
This initiative is part of the companys move from a
collection of regional companies to one AT&T focused on customers, AT&T
said in the filing.
The layoffs mean AT&T will take a
one-time charge of $374 million during the first quarter of 2008. AT&T is
scheduled to announce its first-quarter earnings Tuesday.
AT&T reported a net income of $3.1 billion for
the fourth quarter of 2007. It's revenue for the quarter was $30.3
billion.
(eWeek) While women hold
51 percent of professional jobs in the United States, they make up only 26
percent of the IT work force, according to the National Center for Women &
Information Technology. Furthermore, fewer women worked in IT in 2008 than in
2000.
But the loss of women in the technology field
begins long before they reach the professional level. The proportion of CS
(computer science) bachelor's degrees awarded to women has fallen from 36 to 21
percent between 1983 and 2006.
Dr. Stephen Bloch, a professor in the Department of
Math and Computer Science at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York,
told eWEEK that computer science degree enrollments have been in the toilet
since 2001.
04/14/2008 What CIOs and CTOs need to do in order to succeed -
CIOs and CTOs need to be part of the
executive management team in order to succeed. They must:
CIOs and CTOs must be
trusted contributor to executive thinking. CIOs and CTOs who
perform well establish a strong connection with executive management and are
key providers of insights to the executive team about new business
opportunities, ways to speed up product introduction, or other potential
technology-enabled business changes.
CIOs and CTOs must propose new
solutions to solve business problems. CIOs and CTOs that are in
tune with business unit issues surface opportunities and direct their staff to
solve business problems, like paper-intensive sales lead handling or
cumbersome manufacturing processes.
CIOs and CTOs must hire,
retain, and develop a loyal staff. Some IT execs describe high
job satisfaction and very low turnover in IT, even for highly marketable
skills. Why? Because career and employee development is a priority of the CIO
who makes the time for his or her team.
CIOs and CTOs must take time
to learn and test ideas. CIOs
and CTOs are the thought leaders in their firms about the business uses of
technology and the primary guide of IT strategic thinking. CIOs and CTOs who
pause to learn from others and reflect will find that new ideas and a
refreshed perspective keep the job fresh and their organizations
energized.
04/14/2008 Private sector pay should keep rising -
(Reuters) -- U.S. private sector wage
growth should continue to accelerate in the months ahead on the back of a
healthy employment climate, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The Bureau of National Affairs Inc., a
Washington, D.C.-based news publisher, said its revised third-quarter Wage Trend
Indicator rose to 100.86 from the final second-quarter index of 100.72. BNA put
the initial third-quarter reading at 100.92.
"We expect year-over-year wage increases
to continue to accelerate modestly, even though the pace of job growth has
slowed recently," said economist Kathryn Kobe, who worked on the development of
the index for BNA.
The indicator recorded its ninth straight
quarterly increase for the first time since 1996-1998, BNA said.
A sustained increase in the indicator
generally foreshadows increased pressure for higher wages, BNA
said.
04/01/2008 Dell to Eliminate 3,200 Jobs - Dell Inc., the world's second largest PC vendor,
plans to cut costs by $3 billion as it slashes the price of materials and
components going into its gadgets and reduces operating expenses, including
5,600 jobs in addition to the 3,200 it has already eliminated.
As part of its cost-cutting measures, Dell plans to
close a desktop-PC manufacturing plant in Austin. A massive shift in customer
preference for notebooks over the past three years was also a major factor in
the decision to close the plant, said a Dell executive.
The company has already reduced its workforce by
3,200 people and plans to cut around 5,600 more jobs.
03/28/2008 H1-B Visa Battle Rages - (Computerworld) WASHINGTON Stymied so far in
their efforts to get Congress to allow more skilled foreign workers into the
U.S., H-1B visa supporters are asking the Bush administration to extend the time
that foreign graduates of U.S. universities can work on student visas from one
year to 29 months.
The proposed extension is a stop-gap plan that wouldn't increase
the federal government's cap on the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each
year. But it would buy extra time for foreign students who graduate from college
in the U.S. this year.
A foreign student needs a degree to qualify for an
H-1B visa, but seniors who are graduating this spring won't have their degrees
before next Tuesday the day that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
will begin accepting H-1B petitions for the government's 2009 fiscal year.
The USCIS may get more than enough applications for
all of the available visas 85,000 all told, including 20,000 set aside for
people who hold advanced degrees from U.S. universities on April 1 alone. That
means upcoming graduates likely will have to wait until next year to apply. And
if they didn't succeed then in getting H-1B visas through the government's
random lottery process, they could be forced to leave the U.S. under current
student-visa rules.
Proponents of changing those rules say that
increasing the amount of time a foreign graduate could work in the U.S., under a
program referred to as Optional Practical Training, would give students a better
chance of getting H-1B visas. In addition, the proposed change could be made
administratively, without any legislative action. Supporters of the idea have
been urging the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, which oversees the USCIS, to approve
the extension.
The
USCIS will hold a lottery, similar to what it did last year, if it receives more
than 65,000 visa applications under the H-1B cap. An additional 20,000 visas
will be available for foreign nationals who receive advanced degrees from U.S.
universities. The government will begin accepting visas on April 1 for the 2009
fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Under the rule, the USCIS will prohibit companies
from filing multiple H-1B petitions for the same employee. These changes will
ensure that companies filing H-1B petitions subject to congressionally mandated
numerical limits have an equal chance to employ an H-1B worker, the agency said
in a statement.
If caught, prospective employers
risk having all of their petitions for H-1B visas denied or revoked. There is an
exception, however. The rule does not preclude related employers, such as a
parent company and its subsidiary, from filing petitions on behalf of the same
worker for different positions, based on a legitimate
need.
03/18/2008 Research Finds MBA Nearly Doubles Salary Outlook for IT - Robert H Smith School of Business - U of Maryland - Firms in the
United States value IT professionals MBA degrees much more than IT experience,
according to new research. An IT professional with an MBA degree earns 46
percent more than a counterpart with only a bachelors degree and 37 percent more
than one with any other masters degree, according to the study, published in the
Management Science journal.
University of Maryland research confirms that getting an MBA
is the single best move you can make to increase your value as an IT
professional in todays market, said the assistant professor of decision,
operations and information technologies and lead author of the study. Education
is more valuable than experience because it provides more durable and versatile
conceptual skills. In contrast, IT experience has high rate of obsolescence
learning new technologies only makes a professional valuable for a few years
when those skills are in high demand. An MBA education teaches how to evaluate
new technologies or how to strategically invest in and manage IT projects, which
makes for a more valuable long-term employee that can use those skills in a
variety of situations.
On average, in dollar terms (deflated to 1999
figures), IT professionals with MBAs earn more than $24,000 per year than those
with only bachelors degrees and more than $17,000 per year than those with
other masters degrees after controlling for a variety of demographic and
institutional factors.
03/17/2008 Only 31.4% of All CIOs report to the CEO -
According to a survey by the SIM only 31.4%
of all CIOs who are members of SIM report to the Chief Executive Officer.
The sample size was 130 but it did include a large number of publicly traded
companies.
Is that a reflection of thier membership or the real
world? One thing that was not included was a full job description for the
role of CIO. Many individuals say they are CIOs, but are they really?
03/06/2008 The top skill demanded by CIOs and CTOs for thier staff -
There
is a wide gap between the information technology (IT) security skills that
organizations want and the corresponding skills that workers bring to the job,
according to a new survey commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry
Association (CompTIA).
Add
to that, despite worries of a recession, about one in five CIOs at larger firms
expect to hire new workers in the second quarter, according to new
research.
Robert
Half Technologys new hiring survey finds that while the vast majority of
businesses expect IT staffing to remain stagnant next quarter, a net of 12
percent say they will add workers.
That
gain represents a slight uptick from this quarters projected hiring levels but
holds firm with the second quarter of 2007. Companies with more than 1,000
employees foresee the greatest hiring increases, with a projected net rise of 19
percent.
The
uptick, regardless of how small or large, may surprise those who think the
economic downturn will ultimately cause staff cuts. But with plenty of companies
seeing positive signs, an increase in hiring should not come as a
shock.
Security
tops the list of the technology skills that are most important to organizations
today, according to the survey of more than 3,500 technology professionals in
North America, Europe and Asia. But there is a significant gap in the security
skills available among today's tech workforce, the survey
reveals.
Among
organizations surveyed in nine countries with established IT industries
(Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, United
Kingdom, and United States), 73 percent identified security, firewalls and data
privacy as the IT skills most important to their organization today. But just 57
percent said their IT employees are proficient in these security skills, a gap
of 16 percentage points.
The
gap is even wider in five countries where the emergence of a strong IT industry
is relatively recent (China, India, Poland, Russia, and South Africa). Among
respondents in these countries, 76 percent identified security as the top skill
their organization needs; but just 57 percent said their current tech staff is
proficient in security. That's a difference of 19 percentage
points.
03/05/2008 Traits of an Effective CIO and CTO Leader -
Leader is a title given to you by those whom you follow and
serve. They see you as a leader when you pay attention to their needs. By
listening to their needs and addressing their issues, you demonstrate
leadership. You can lead a team of equals, you can lead a team of superiors, and
you can lead a team of subordinates. Leadership is a way of acting and
communicating.
Anyone can improve his or her leadership skills. Leadership comes
from a desire to succeed and the realization that your success comes from what
others do on your behalf of their own free will - because they trust you and
want to follow you. To be a leader you have to understand this indirect
linkage.
Sometimes it can be difficult to be a leader. You may
know exactly what you want to get done and find it hard to accept the team's
input about what it thinks can be done. If your team trusts you as its leader,
it will take a leap of faith and follow you even if it has reservations. Of
course, there are always "executive" decisions to make, but in general, if you
have built trust you should follow your team's advice whenever
possible.
It can also be difficult to work with customers, but very few
people are truly unreasonable and unwilling to listen to facts - if presented in
ways they can understand and evaluate.
If any of these suggestions rings true to you, then go take a course on
leadership. Have your management style evaluated. Hire a consultant to
understand the effect it has on your customers, company, and team. You will
probably be surprised at what you
learn.
With the economy
in recession do you see signs that you show you that your job as the CIO or key
IP Prof is at risk.There are
several signs that you should be aware of.They are:
1.Marginalization by
management You
are bypassed for promotions and assignments that you would like to have.The level of marginalization is greater
if those junior to you in seniority or lower than you in rank than if your peers
are offered these opportunities.
2.Professional growth is stopped or
stalled You are
the expert in yesterdays technology and are not learning new things either as
a manager or as a technologist.
3.IT is not part of the big
picture The
strategic direction of the enterprise doew not include IT as a key
component.In essence IT is a cost
center.
4.Key decisions and strategic
directions exclude you - Both formal and informal meetings on new
business decisions are held without you.
5.Your role as a power source is waning
Over time you
asthe CIO or top IT professional
is no longer seen as someone that has to be brought around and persuaded by
others within the business
6.CIO role is not fun It is no longer a joy to do the
job, it is tedious and you are looking over your
shoulder.
7.IT Service Management is not a
business focus
The role you play as CIO is not perceived as one of helping the business
succeed.
8.You are happy when a recruiter calls
When a recruiter
calls you take more time to listen a learn about greener
pastures.
(eWeek) - The effects of a sub-prime mortgage crisis,
financial market volatility and a shifting global economy are disproportionately
affecting midwage technology workers in Silicon Valley.
In 2006,
only 46 percent of the jobs in Silicon Valley were midwage, paying between
$30,000 and $80,000 a year, down from 52 percent in 2002, according to the 2008
Index of Silicon Valley, sponsored by Joint Venture, a public-private
partnership, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit.
Meanwhile, the percentage of higher wage jobs
remained relatively stable at 26 to 27 percent, while low-wage jobs grew from 22
to 27 percent in the same period.
However, the picture is more complicated than a
depleted middle class. The regions 541,300 midwage jobs were distributed across
523 occupations in 2006, half of which lost and half of which gained jobs. The
vanishing jobs had been among workers who had been in the lowest parts of the
white-collar work force, including secretaries, clerks and customer service
representatives. Meanwhile, blue-collar roles such as electricians and plumbers
and white-collar jobs such as computer support technicians showed gains.
Globalization has forced companies to compete in a
new and different ways, to be dynamic, flexible, lean. You would have once
start a company and hoped it would grow, become a GM. But the new model is
driven by different regions with different cost structures and startup activity
and they are very lean and flexible. Companies are getting smaller,
focusing on core competencies and they're not generating midrange jobs as
much.
Back-office jobs are expected to continue to be
contracted out, while high-end work such as research, design and intellectual
property are likely to continue to flourish in the region.
Still, the overall picture of Silicon Valley is a
healthy one. The population in the region grew 1.5 percent in the past year; it
added 28,000 jobs at a time when overall employment growth slowed in the rest of
the country; and the region continued to increase its share of U.S. patents,
with 47 percent of those granted in California and 12 percent of those in the
nation coming out of the region.
According the report, the Valley has also
diversified. Previous innovators in the region were single technologies,
transistors, semiconductors, the circuit and the PC, one dimensional when
compared to today's relatively diversified portfolio, with IT at its center.
02/28/2008 Layoffs Continue in the Technology Arena - (Network World) Nortel Networks Corp. said it will cut 2,100
jobs and shift 1,000 more to "higher-growth and lower-cost geographies" after
fourth-quarter results fell short of Wall Street expectations.
Revenue in the fourth quarter was $3.2 billion, down
4% year over year, the company said in a statement. Full-year 2007 revenue was $10.95 billion, also down 4%.
Analysts expected revenue to come in at $3.28 billion
for the quarter. Nortel blamed lower-than-expected carrier spending in North America for the
revenue shortfall in the fourth quarter.
Excluding the effect of the divestiture of its UMTS
Access business, revenue would have increased 2% in the quarter and the year,
Nortel said.
Toronto-based Nortel also posted a net loss of $844
million for the fourth quarter, and $957 million for the year, because of a $1.1
billion noncash charge the company took as a result of changes in Nortel's
Canadian tax profile. This compares with a net loss of $80 million in the fourth
quarter of 2006 and a profit of $28 million for fiscal
2006.
02/21/2008 Yahoo Gives Key Employees a Golden Parachute -
In its 8K filing with the SEC Yahoo disclosed the
golden parchaute program they have for key employees.
The Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of Yahoo!
Inc. approved two change in control severance plans that, together, cover all
full time employees of the Company, including the Chief Executive Officer, Chief
Financial Officer and the executive officers currently employed by the Company
who were named in the Summary Compensation Table of the Companys Proxy
Statement for its 2007 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
The
Severance Plans are designed to help retain the employees, help maintain a
stable work environment and provide certain economic benefits to the employees
in the event their employment is terminated in the circumstances described
below.
The
Severance Plans provide that if an eligible employees employment with the
Company is terminated by the Company without cause or by the employee for good
reason within two years after a change in control of the Company, the employee
will generally be entitled to receive the following severance
benefits:
(1)
Continuation of the employees annual base salary, as
severance pay, over a designated number of months following the employees
severance date. The number of months will range from four months to
24 months, depending on the employee job level.
(2)
Reimbursement for outplacement services for
24 months following the employees severance date, subject to a
maximum reimbursement that ranges from $3,000 to $15,000, depending on the
employees job level.
