Edit: I still believe in promoting from within and ongoing training and learning.
Originally posted February 3, 2009 on AIXchange
As I’ve mentioned in previous AIXchange blog entries here and here, I believe that companies should recruit and promote from the inside, and provide employees with offsite education and training.
I like to see companies that have an operations or network operations department promote from there. Organizations can easily spot the go-getters and quick learners when they’re already working in these level-one jobs. (Of course, for companies that outsource much of their level-one support tasks, promoting from the ranks is a challenge when the desktop support and operations people work for someone else.)
Detractors say that promoting the “good” employees causes your level-one organization to suffer. Once the talented employees leave, levels two and three start getting more off-shift phone calls. But I see this as an opportunity to better train the remaining staff members.
Just recently, I saw an organization do exactly what I’m talking about. The experienced AIX administrator left the company. Rather than recruit an experienced administrator to take his place, they promoted from within. For a new server deployment, they brought in a business partner’s consultant. While the new administrator did the hands-on work, the consultant watched and offered instructions and advice. They tackled the new environment and determined at could be done with the old environment to improve operations.
The new guy took copious notes and asked many questions. Yes, it took longer compared to having the consultant just step in and do the work, but when the consultant left, the new administrator knew exactly what was involved in setting up the environment. He had hands-on training. He’d taken notes so he understood how to do things. He was well prepared for some future offsite training that will help him round out his newly acquired knowledge.
Again, detractors will point out that with internal promotions come raises. But bringing in an experienced administrator costs money, too. In a perfect world, there would be a veteran admin to train every newbie. But again, mentors can be found with business partners or even among contacts made at offsite conferences or educational opportunities.
Then there’s the experience factor. Sure, a newly promoted staffer won’t know what a long-time admin pro knows. I still argue for promoting from within. Your IT people know your environment, they know your users and they know your company. They know how things really get done. This knowledge is also valuable.
While companies must manage a learning curve with new administrators, give it a few years–maybe even a few months–and it will be hard to tell the new admin from the one with more experience today. Of course it is possible that a well-trained employee will move onto another company–but plenty of these people stay put, because they see an employer that gave them a chance to advance.
Once you’ve been around awhile, it’s easy to forget how much you’ve learned. None of us came into this industry knowing nearly as much as we do now. We all had to start somewhere.