Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
One Exec’s Secrets to Attract and Retain Top IT Talent
All companies, not just higher education institutions, are challenged with hiring and retaining top talent. The unemployment rate is hovering around a low four percent. So, not only are colleges and universities facing a tight candidate pool, they are hard pressed to compensate them like the private sector can. Shady Azzam-Gomez, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Suffolk County Community College, shares how he overcomes these talent management obstacles in our Top of Mind podcast. His special approach and concerted effort to carve out time, helps solidify his connection with direct reports. Find out how now.
Hello and welcome to our Top of Mind podcast. In this program, we will sit down with a higher education technology thought leader and discuss the innovative projects they are working on now and into the future. I'm your host, Katelyn Ilkani, vice president of client services and cybersecurity Research at The Tambellini Group. I'm joined today by Shady Azzam-Gomez Vice President for information technology and chief information officer at Suffolk County Community College. Over the next few minutes we're going to hear his thoughts on talent management in higher education it departments. Let's get started. Welcome to the program Shady. Well, thank you for joining us today. You and I have had a previous conversation about managing your staff in IT and around the importance of communication. What do you think about it staffing in general at a public to your institution? Do you have any personal philosophies on the most important positions
Speaker 2:If you have looked at EDUCAUSE top 10 issues for the last few years. Hiring and retaining talent in higher education is one of the hardest things for us. We are on long island and as such we are closer to New York City. So the time of hiring technology, personnel, it's extremely, extremely important for us to make sure that our package and our value is well represented to this, to any prospect employees. When we post a position for a software developer for instance, they can see the same posting that a private, it's a private corporation in New York and from a salary perspective it'll be a much more attractive proposition. So things that we have to try to sell them or, or try to emphasize when we make an offer is the value that they bring to the institution. How they will be helping students besides our wonderful benefits package and whatnot. But we have to make sure that they understand the mission. They are not here just because they need a salary, everyone needs the money, but we want to make sure that they understand the value that they bring to a community college—to a two year college. The fact that they will be transforming lives by the software that they developed by the phones that they installed, but the wireless access points that they installed all over the college. So we, I try to emphasize the importance of the position not only from, from a monetary perspective, but from the volume that they will provide by the legacy that they can leave by working at a, at an institution such as a community college
Speaker 1:Once you have people hired and they've committed to the vision of the institution, what are your thoughts on managing your talent?
Speaker 2:Good. We, I always liked to say that I like to, uh, to lead with kindness, with kindness and, and, uh, you know, my management style, my leadership style, it most assembles a servant leadership style, which in essence I do empathize with our employees. I want to make sure that I understand what are some of the troubles that they might be experienced in not only in the work, in the workplace, but you have to understand what is happening in their personal life at some level. Certainly you don't want to dig too deep into it, but, but as as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a publishers, you cannot be rewarding an employee or moving them an extra step when you know that that their, their basic needs have not been met. If they don't have food to put on the table, if they don't have a solid group to sleep on there. So empathizing with my employees and I was making sure that I understand what their needs are. Helped me tremendously at the time of managing them. One thing that I do every six months, I call every single one of my employees for the one on one meeting and I called this meeting Cookies with Shady and they come over and we have a conversation about their work, about how things are going, what it is that they think we could be doing better in the institution. And I make sure that I listened and I always say one of the most powerful methods of communicating is listening. So I will listen and I will also try to make an effort to sure that they feel they are the most important person in the room, so I want to hear them talk to me and tell me what they think the institution could be doing better. Sometimes just by meeting with your staff, your direct reports are missing a lot of valuable information that might be varied. Three, four layers below just because they never have an opportunity to talk to a senior administrator. So I make sure that I give that opportunity to all my staff every six months.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. I'm sure you've had some really interesting conversations come out of those meetings. Absolutely. Another type of meeting or discussion that you and I talked about was having an adult conversation or the importance of an adult conversation with employees sometimes. What do you define is this adult conversation?
Speaker 2:Adult conversations, as I always refer to them—especially when I talked to my staff about the importance of having them, an adult conversation is when you finally speak with an employee and you tell them in a candid manner some of the feedback that they need to hear. For instance, I worked all my life in higher education and I had incredible leaders that helped me tremendously. They coached and mentored me, but it was later in my career that somebody finally said with me and told me things the way they were. My previous supervisors, they will tell me, shudder, you are doing great. This is excellent. My evaluations were extremely positive, but there was nothing ever given to me as far as improvement. And it could be from simple things such as repeating yourself when you're doing some sort of presentation or the way you are presenting, your mannerisms are meeting that you're crossing your arms, your body language or what not. Things that you don't realize that nobody really wants to talk to you about. And now once you do, and then once you received that feedback, you will certainly correct it. And as I said, those are conversations that are not necessary and nobody has to have them. But from a coaching and mentoring perspective, you need to have this conversation with your employee as hard as you think they could be. A. And I make sure that when I drive those conversations, I tell them that this is not a reprimand. I am telling you this because I want you to prove I'm telling you this because I want to help you grow within the organization. I'm not telling them this because I want to undermine them or minimize the role within the organization. I give them this as possibly positive reinforcement and positive feedback for them to be able to grow within the organization. As I said, if if, if you don't do this for your employees, and one of the things that I always say I, I liked and I want to surround myself by champions. I have seen management styles were supervisors will never allow employees to attend professional level training. We never give them positive feedback. We never tried to coach and mentor them for them to grow within the organization. They will take all the credit and they will never reward that employees. And by having this kind of conversations, you are empowering your employees to be better at motivating your employees happy. And helping them grow to an extent that they become. As I said, your champions, right, your captains around you, they help you. They help push my vision. It's not a one man's job or one woman's job. They will help me once I, I, I provided what they need. Once I have the conversation with them, if their communication style is lacking, I would provide professional development training where they can go to training and get communications training or customer service training, a report, a training, and this will help them in their career and when need helps them in their career and they are being successful and what they do in. In return. I will also return. I will also receive some of these credit because they will help me as I tell them. They will help me look better because they are empowered and they have been learning a lot of many of these issues that in the past were not addressed. They are being addressed. As I said, it has to be done in a very. Not in a reprimand type manner. They have to be a. When you speak to them, they have to be presented in a way where they can see that this is a volleyball, that you are doing this for them to help them grow, to help them become better at the workplace.
Speaker 1:So I can imagine that some of these conversations are uncomfortable for the employee. Have you ever received resistance or negative feedback from someone you had one of these conversations with?
Speaker 2:For the most part, sometimes they don't understand kind of what had happened in the conversation and maybe hours later, a day later I will receive an email thanking me for what I had done and how much they appreciate it and whatnot, but occasionally I have. I can remember at least one employee who stormed out of my office that I was trying to frame him and perhaps I did not handle the entire situation world, but not all employees. We will be receptive to employees if you don't present this. As I said, if you don't present this in a way where they feel valued and they feel that you are trying to help them grow, they take this as a personal attack and if I said I have some are short fuses in my, uh, in my office where I, they simply got up through the channel and then stormed out of my office and slammed the door. So you have to be very, very careful with the tone and at the time that it's been done, you know, understand what I was saying. I understand what's going on in their personal life will help you have this personal, these difficult conversations with them. Um, the time of the day, you know, they might've just come out of a long meeting or they might've been at the end of the week, they might be tired and this is the last thing they need to hear. So pick your date, pick your time and understand if there is any background situation that might affect this conversation with them before you have the conversation with an employee.
Speaker 1:What types of behaviors would prompt one of these conversations?
Speaker 2:The behavoirs can certainly very. It's mostly on when you see that you have an employee—and I now give you a an example—I work with individuals in the past where the information security officer was at a meeting with vice presidents and other executives. This individual—he was extremely talented—and yet he felt to dress accordingly he will come in to these meetings in a tee shirt just because he has always been an it guy and thought that IT guys can come to meetings with tee shirts. So I didn't speak to him, but I spoke to his supervisor and I told them, you know, this guy, he said admitted with a executive, you might want to talk to him about the need of dressing a little more appropriate for these type of meetings. And the feedback that I received was, well, he's so good that I don't want to talk to him about that. I know it's a problem, but he's so good that I'm afraid that if I talked to him about this, he might get very upset or he might just leave or what not. We don't want to lose this individual, uh, and a faithful. We said everyone is replaceable, replaceable. Everyone is replaceable. So that should never be a concern. But the fact that this supervisor never spoke to the employee, this employee will never get out of that role. If this employee trust to grow within the organization from an information security officer, the chief information security officer position becomes available. He will, you know, when he applies for it and the fact that no one ever told them no one ever had the courage to sit with them, with them and tell them, listen, you need to start dressing a little more accordingly to, to attend these meetings will play a role at the time of getting the job. And he might, he might not get the job, but the fact that no one ever told him he does not realize that, that he's hurting himself. And as I said, he has to be presented in a way that you want him to grow you. You are doing this for him. You're not doing it for, for me. And, and you could actually tell him, you know, this is a hard conversation for me to have with you, but I want you to know this. I want you to know that the tone of your emails, you know, that's another thing that I constantly have a conversation with my staff. Look at the tone of the email. Sometimes you write an email thinking it's one way and eagle out, I need to read a different way. So always be careful about these things. So. And sometimes people don't do these things. I have incredible employees that they simply can't put a greeting on emails. So the emails are always fun, are always interpreted as attacks, just like just put a little grading and a little goodbye and you know, no one has ever told them that they'd been working in it for 30 years and simple things that, that just because nobody was ever, that nobody ever wanted to address this. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:Oh No. That is incredible. What do you recommend other leaders do to start having these types of conversations with their employees? Because as you said, there are a lot of opportunities to have constructive conversations, but people shy away from them because they are uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:So let's say you have x amount of employees and about five to 10 are the ones that you've identified that you would like to talk to them about. These specific things, pick the ones that you know, you have the closest report, the closest, uh, uh, the connection with them before you talk to an employee that you have never spoken to a. hmm. As I said, the fact that I meet with every single one of my staff members, uh, once every six months and these goes from administrative assistants to a senior directors every six months I wouldn't meet with every single one individually. You start developing that relationship with them to be able to tell them they think. So make sure that whoever you're going to start talking or whoever you need to have this conversation with, they are. You feel that they will be receptive to it based on your relationship with this individual. If you don't think they will be receptive to do not start the conversation. Because as I said, he might just blow in your face and the guy my storm out of your office, but if, if you could just identify the specific population where you could target first before you go into the unknown, that's what I do and always try to tackle smaller, easier manners to discuss and, and, you know, live the harder ones for later, become a little more experience that we're having this conversation. Anytime I have one of them, I learned something and I am from that I can, I know that the next time I can fine tune my conversation with another staff member to make sure that, uh, I don't make the same mistakes when I have that conversation with them.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for your thoughts. Great topic. Do you have any last thoughts that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yes, certainly. As I said, I encourage every single, every single leader in it or not in it to make sure they, they have the courage to have this, uh, long lasting conversations with, with their staff. Make sure they find the time to first build the report. And that's something that in it usually doesn't happen, you know, people are sick of meetings and all our meetings are always based on projects and problems. Make sure you find the time to connect with your staff and to make sure that once you have an established our connection with the staff by having a one on one meetings with every single one every six months and they might take two, three weeks of nonstop meetings to meet all your staff. But once you have established that relationship with them, you will be able to tell them, hey listen, you know, maybe you might want to change. You might want to look at the tone of that email or maybe you might want to. So you might want to a device how you talk to this person because of this and that and the other. And, and when things are not working, make sure that you can provide professional development and training, but do not ignore the issues because the more you ignore them, the more they will grow and eventually they can become serious problems. For you.
Speaker 1:Joining us today, we appreciate your participation and all of your thoughts on this topic.
Speaker 2:It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1:This concludes our podcast for this month. Thank you so much for joining us and look out for our next podcast. Coming up at the beginning of next month.