Recent Posts by Terry Mott

7 IT Security Certifications Employers are Looking for in 2015

The importance of reliable cybersecurity solutions has only been increasing in recent years, and with high-profile data breaches occurring so frequently, a growing number of companies are making greater security investments and pushing to hire the best IT security professionals available. According to the most recent IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index released by research and analysis firm Foote Partners, applicants with advanced IT certifications are not only looked upon more favorably than candidates without such achievements, but they can also expect to receive higher compensation. Pay for professionals with any of the more than 60 information security and cybersecurity certifications tracked by the ITSCPI has been steadily increasing since 2013, with an average 8 percent raise in market value over the last two years.

"It's been a long time coming, but 2015 will be a year when discretionary spending for security - that is, everything not related to compliance spending - will start to reflect the fact that … virtually every industry is formulating a cybersecurity strategy and searching for people with skills in this area," said David Foote, co-founder and chief analyst for Foote Partners. "There is ample evidence of a global gap in cybersecurity skills. But with a lack of consistency in jobs and career paths for security professionals, we can expect organizations to have difficulty attracting and retaining cybersecurity talent in the foreseeable future."

"Cybersecurity certifications have shown an average 8% raise in market value since 2013."
While there are a number of sought after IT certifications in the job market right now, below are the seven certifications that are most in demand based on increases in market value and premium pay
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Best Places to Work Awards

For the 5th year in a row, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers of Southern California (NHSoCal) was named as one of the Best Places to Work in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.

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Leveraging Philanthropy to Transform Workplace Culture

In today's digital world, it can be easy to get bogged down with technical details and forget about the importance of caring for your people. However, there are some companies who just understand that their workforce needs to be supported, developed, and empowered if they are to be successful. With more than 300 centers in 70 countries, New Horizons is one of the world’s largest independent IT training companies - and they seem to have figured this out. Using an integrated and flexible learning approach, the New Horizons team provides a wide range of technical, application, and business skills courses to every single company on Fortune's list of the 100 largest corporations in America (not to mention hundreds of other clients). Their Southern California branch has been named one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies in America, and has been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work for five straight years in Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. 

So, what makes New Horizons such a great place to work and such a competitive service provider? We took some time to chat with Kevin Landry, President & CEO of New Horizons SoCal, to find out what makes them different.
 
Co.tribute: You’ve been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in different areas in Southern California for five straight years now. Why do you think that is?

Kevin Landry: We’ve worked really hard over the years to create a great company culture, but it hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t always been on our minds. For much of the beginning, we were focused on just trying to make payroll and keep the lights on. But there came a time where we worked through some new core values that we actually believed in, a mission statement, and more. We do something every month called “Living the Values.” Each month, our employees nominate a fellow employee for embodying one of the company’s five values. Also, when one of our clients writes in and compliments someone for a job well done, we’ll take their message and rework it into something that can be presented to that employee to recognize their great work.

So when someone wins a value, they get one of our value shirts, and each one is a different color, which creates some good dialogue when you see these shirts around the office. Our values are: Gratitude, Respect, Accountability, Simplicity, and People First. 

Co.tribute: How do you handle corporate giving and philanthropy at New Horizons?

KL: Well, to start, we ended up getting tired of all the requests to sponsor everyone’s kid’s soccer team…not that we don’t support that stuff, but it gets tedious when you have 100+ employees.

So we got together and decided on a corporate philanthropy program to go do charity work with pay for two days every year. On day 1, we tell them that they can go do whatever they want. Whatever is dear to their heart. The only caveat is that they have to take five pictures and give us a short write up about it. For their second day, we ask that they spend it working for one of the company-supported charities. We’ve selected two charities that we want to be supporting: Wounded Warriors and the Special Olympics Program.

What we’ve discovered is that people really get into this, and they go above and beyond, sometimes doing more than two days in order to complete some more charity work without pay. And we don’t judge on what the employee chooses to support, we’re just proud of how they’re contributing to the world.

Co.tribute: How do you take the pulse of your team and stay in touch with how they’re doing?

KL: We have a monthly meeting in every office where, for about an hour, we review the prior month’s activities: financial performance, sales performance, delivery performance, celebrate success, address concerns and areas of improvement. We’re fairly transparent, so people have the ability to ask questions and weigh in.

We also do a monthly survey of every employee where we simply ask them, “How do you like working here?” Rate it 1 to 5. And if you rate it below 3, please tell us why. We give them the opportunity to either be anonymous or to put their name down. We get so many great suggestions, because they are much closer to the day to day operations than I am.

The other thing we ask is that people don’t make it personal…that they don’t take shots at another person in the company. And I’m proud to say that in the two years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve never had one of those submitted. And we put every comment up in front of the company every month, sharing it for them to see. There’s no filtering, which makes for great round table discussions.

Co.tribute: Do you involve your clients in your giving initiatives?

KL: Yes, we have one client that is actually a large casino. One of the owners is good friends with one of our executives. So at a get-together one evening, they were talking about an event they do every year with a Wounded Warriors softball team. It’s basically a weekend gala event at the casino, and we supported them with our employees working as servers and helpers for their event.

Some of our events are client-sponsored events where the client has got something going, and so our employees who work with that client will be there supporting that charity event. This all wasn’t by design, though, it’s just that through the years, it organically took on a life of its own and has worked out very nicely.

Co.tribute: How have the giving programs affected your employees in the area of morale, motivation, energy, and so on?

KL: We give people the opportunity to stand up and talk about the event that they helped out on, and it really gives us a chance to get to know them personally and see what their true passions are. When people are talking about something that they have a real passion for, their true emotion comes out. As a result, we’ve had our eyes open to what really motivates our people, and therefore it’s given us the information needed to foster a better working environment for everyone. Because if the employee’s objectives align with our objectives, it’s going to be a win-win for both the employee and the company. The offer of choice as far as how they spend their charity day helps them see that we’re here to support them and celebrate them.

Many thanks to Kevin and his team for sharing their story with us. New Horizons is doing some amazing work, and engaging their employees in the process. We hope you're inspired to take some of these ideas to your own team, and promote a healthy culture at your organization.

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Does Working Virtually Make You Invisible?

Reader Question:
I work within a large IT organization and the people in my department have been given the opportunity to work from home. If I do, does it reduce my opportunities for promotion and/or increase my chances of getting laid off?

My Answer:
First, thanks for asking. It's great to get questions from my IT world readers. In short, the answer to your question regarding the effect of telecommuting on promotions and layoffs is that it depends on the following:

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Lean Six Sigma and Your IT Department

Six Sigma Can Help Your Business

Six Sigma has been a proven success time and again in the business world. From manufacturing processes to logistics and retail—the Six Sigma process improvement methodology has worked to help numerous companies improve efficiencies, reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.

For IT departments, however, Six Sigma has not been as widely accepted as a viable process improvement solution for technology related initiatives. Some of this could be attributed to the inherent complexities with IT operations, or because of the diversity of systems and the web of interconnectivity that is involved, IT leaders may not have even considered Six Sigma as an option. After all, Six Sigma generally operates in a linear fashion – start process, go to next step, stop process, measure results – and IT does not operate that way for most operations, now does it?

The truth is: Six Sigma can apply to IT operations and processes in much the same way that it is used in manufacturing or logistics. This process improvement approach can incorporate a myriad of variables and systems to improve service levels overall for IT.


What about Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma is a synergized managerial concept of Lean enterprise and Six Sigma, which results in the elimination of the seven kinds of wastes: Defects, Overproduction, Transportation, Waiting, Inventory, Motion and Over-Processing.

Lean Six Sigma also utilizes the DMAIC phases similar to that of Six Sigma, and the training for Lean Six Sigma is also provided through the belt based training system similar to that of Six Sigma: White Belts, Yellow Belts, Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts.


Some options within Six Sigma that can be applied to IT

  • DMAIC Model: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control – can help IT to document specific service processes and their interoperability with other applications or systems.
  • FMEA: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis focuses on identifying potential failures or defects within a process and then creating risk mitigation solutions for the problems.
  • Process Sigma Value: By utilizing a mathematical formula to measure IT process quality, leaders can evaluate their existing service capabilities in comparison to business expectations.
  • Pareto Analysis: Pareto’s simple 80/20 rule can be applied to many IT initiatives: 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. With a pareto-based ranking system, IT managers can review the contribution of pending projects and initiatives and determine which will deliver the most value to the business.
  • Control Charts: These measurements determine whether given IT services or processes fall within an acceptable performance range. These charts can be used on an ongoing basis to continuously monitor and improve processes.

Clearly, the Six Sigma approach is as applicable to IT as it is to any other business process. From network infrastructure to ERP to E-Business interfaces and software applications, the Six Sigma approach can be used by project managers as well as IT department managers to improve their service levels, reduce system downtime and optimize their processes.

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