People and IT Team Management

Ary Junior, Head of Information Technology, Grupo Patense

Working with technology these days is very rewarding in most companies. Acting daily in projects and activities that help companies to improve their results, whether in revenue increase, expense reduction and process improvement, in addition to being activities that, when completed, are already motivating, we still have the possibility of personal and professional growth, arising from the knowledge generated daily. And this absorbed knowledge can boost the career of professionals.

However, every IT leader must act and be concerned with managing people and their teams. Not only with the activities that the companies HR teams normally already perform. Specific action is required, since the profile of technology professionals requires more care, especially when the market is heated and with opportunities for home office work, which have reduced the boundaries of professionals activities.

An IT professional is usually highly intellectual and not susceptible to working in toxic environments. Therefore, specific actions in the quality of daily work must be taken. Demands and targets are normal, but they deserve to be managed in a way that does not generate a toxic work environment.

The second point mentioned, referring to working from home, especially after the covid pandemic, reduces the work boundaries for many IT professionals. For example, a professional from the interior, where the salary range may be lower, becomes available for the market in large urban centers where the salary range is higher. Soon, the boundaries for many positions ceased to exist. In this way, an IT leader needs to be aware of market movements to maintain the high performance of their teams.

For a role in IT people management, we must evaluate Maslow’s pyramid and understand it for each professional. Understand the individual goals of each team member. After carrying out a diagnosis and constantly monitoring it, action must be taken in accordance with each desire of the professionals, analyzing them with the company’s objectives, creating motivated multidisciplinary teams. Only in this way can we maintain the high performance of our teams.

" After carrying out a diagnosis and constantly monitoring it, action must be taken in accordance with each desire of the professionals, analyzing them with the company’s objectives, creating motivated multidisciplinary teams "

Therefore, good management is able to keep the team motivated and engaged, and also helps in retaining people and reducing turnover, which is a major challenge for companies, especially in the information technology sector, for the reasons already explained.

Communication, organization, ability to delegate, perception of the environment and people and conflict management are some skills that the manager must develop. Obviously developing these skills is fundamental, always in line with the climate of your organization.

In the same way that all employees need continuous improvement, managers must also understand that it is their role to assess which aspects they can improve and find solutions for all these issues directly related to people management.

And as a consequence, to always act as a strategic partner within companies, the IT department must stay close to other departments, collaborating for the growth of the business as a whole. This makes the company rich and productive not only with the machinery or facilities, but with the people who work in the company. They are what make the business work, and when they are engaged, productivity is much higher, which results in increased profits.

So, we can say that a company’s greatest asset is its people. Therefore, as a manager, you must take care of them, ensuring that the team is motivated and qualified to meet the demands of the sector.

After all, when an employee is encouraged to grow, he is motivated and feels valued. This factor helps with talent retention and decreases employee turnover.

For this, the path is to work on people management, as shown throughout this text. Therefore, the focus should be on the people on your team and investing in their training, encouraging your employees to specialize more and more. As a result, you will have more motivated and engaged professionals, reduce turnover and generate more value for the company you work for.

So, if you want to be a good IT leader, think about how you are taking care of your team and your employees.