| REWARD MANAGEMENT Career paths and reward for internal IT consultancy roles Internal IT consultancy roles pose some long-standing questions for the employer. How should their contribution be recognised and rewarded? Can it be measured? When does a technical star merit simply a generous pay rise or bonus, and when is promotion deserved? A major new report from Diaz Research offers some valuable insights. What is a senior individual contributor? For Diaz Research, senior individual contributors are those who contribute at managerial level through exercising non-managerial expertise. Roles such as technical architect, application architect, strategy manager, senior business consultant all fall within the scope of this debate. Rewarding and recognising the individual contributor All too often, it seems, managers put an undue emphasis on depth of expertise, or vulnerability to loss, or the value of the individual in the marketplace, when considering reward and recognition. Iain Smith, the author of the Diaz study, reckons that what really matters is the impact that the individual exerts on the success of the organisation. "An assessment of impact should form a key part in any solution. By focussing on impact the business goal of aligning reward with added value is met, in a way that can lead to a useful level of clarity," says Smith. "By developing a framework for recognition and reward that includes expertise, influencing and the other requirements, employers can provide a template round which the development of the capabilities can be undertaken."
Having defined a career path, one of the most important issues throughout the whole process is deciding which positions or people belong within it. Says Smith: "This is a critical stage of implementation, as the nature of the people in the roles conveys, more powerfully than the formal requirements, the true nature of the role." A final word "As businesses integrate their information systems and technical platforms, they face increasingly complex choices and more difficult design decisions. The role of the senior individual contributor is thus likely to be become more critical, and the reward and recognition of such people is gaining in importance." - Diaz Research. Want to know more? Title: Recognising and Rewarding the Expert Individual Contributor in IT, Report 3003/1, March 2002, Diaz Research. Availability: Contact Diaz Research Limited at Regent's Place, 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BT, tel: 020 7544 8692 or email: post@diazresearch.com. Diaz Research offers consulting and best practice research on IT and telecoms people and organisation issues. It numbers many FTSE 100 companies among its customer base. To find out more about Diaz visit . . . Posted 15 April 2002
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