Creating a Healthy Data Center Workplace

Every CIO knows that finding and retaining the right IT talent is one of the most difficult jobs they have. Not only are IT professionals with the right skills in short supply, competition for those people is nothing short of fierce.

Given the fact that it often takes six months or more to train IT professionals in emerging technologies, it’s in the interest of senior IT leaders to do everything possible to minimize IT staff turnover. After all, salary and benefits only buy so much loyalty, productivity, and engagement.

In a workshop at the Data Center World Fall conference in National Harbor, Maryland, in September, Gordon Blocker, principal consultant at the Table Group, will outline what it takes to create a “healthy” workplace that enables smart people to not only succeed but to thrive.

Blocker says most people become disenchanted with their jobs when they are forced to toil away anonymously, without metrics in place to determine whether they are actually succeeding, becoming disassociated with the core purpose of the organization as a whole.

Companies that are committed to organizational health focus on the cohesion of leadership teams, organizational clarity (of purpose, values, strategy, etc.), over-communication of that clarity, and reinforcement of clarity through human systems, he says.

“Smart teams on their own don’t necessarily get healthier,” says Blocker. “But healthy teams do get smarter.”

For more information, sign up for Data Center World National Harbor, which will convene in National Harbor, Maryland on September 20-23,2015, and attend Blocker’s session, “Tools for the Data Center Manager: Practical Skills for Increasing Employee Engagement”