Higher Ed IT Professional Development: "It's All About Your Leadership and the Culture."

Managers, what's the best way to retain employees? Professional development opportunities. Employees, what is the one factor that can keep you at your job and increase your job satisfaction? Professional development opportunities. Say it again! Professional development. Last year, LinkedIn reported that 93% of employees would stay at a company longer if the company invested in their careers.¹ The EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) 2019 IT Workforce in Higher Education research found that IT staff who have professional development opportunities are more likely to report they are satisfied with their jobs and intend to stay at their current position.² IT employees' desire for professional development aligns with EDUCAUSE's 2017–2021 Strategic Priorities, which are committed to providing higher education IT professionals access to an expanded, reimagined portfolio of professional development options.³ Across generations, professional development is even more crucial. Millennials are now the largest part of the US workforce, but ECAR found that they are under-represented in the higher education IT workforce.⁴ Gallup reported in 2016 that 87% of millennials rate "professional or career growth and development opportunities" as important to them in a job compared to 69% of non-Millennials.⁵ Moreover, some research has suggested that there are significant gaps in professional development opportunities available to IT professionals.⁶ Frequently, IT professionals are aware of the training that would best assist them in their career path.⁷

In order to identify the top professional development activities for the higher education IT workforce, we asked staff, managers, and CIOs to tell us in their own words the factors that contribute or would contribute to their professional growth or development.⁸ The eight categories listed below (from most frequent to less frequent) made up 68% of open-ended responses.

• Training
• Professional degree
• Organizational culture
• Mentoring
• Conference attendance
• Opportunities to manage/lead
• Management's actions
• Making peer connections

When broken out by organizational level,⁹ managers, staff, and CIOs identified similar factors that could contribute to professional development (Table 1). Shaded areas indicate similar factors across organizational levels.

Table 1. Top five factors that contribute or would contribute to professional development

The most frequently reported activity that currently contributes, or would contribute to, professional development was training. Respondents reported that they wanted specific types of professional development opportunities, such as Lean training, coding, design thinking, blockchain training, or training in Cloud architecture (AWS, Azure). A few individuals indicated that they needed their institution to pay for their training or that they needed time in their schedule to attend trainings. Unfortunately, some of these responses reflect what the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service has found this past year: The median percentage of IT budget used for professional development is about 1%. Several responses focused on a need for leadership or management training, such as what is offered through the EDUCAUSE Institute Programs. These training opportunities are particularly important in IT and cybersecurity, where there is a great need to ensure that IT professionals have the technical expertise and the management skills necessary to interact with workforce and institutional partners.¹⁰ As part of this management training, employees also need to seek out opportunities to sharpen their communication skills and emotional intelligence. Those who leverage emotional intelligence have an increased capacity to influence, persuade, and connect with others.¹¹

The participants in our study also indicated that obtaining a professional degree would benefit them in their professional development or had already contributed to their development. For example, one manager wrote, "I have a PhD in MIS which definitely contributed to my professional growth and management as well as IT development." Respondents also stated that specific degrees could be of benefit—citing MBAs (including those in technology management), a master's degree in cybersecurity, a PhD in leadership and innovation, an EdD, and an MSEd. A recent study of graduates with IT degrees showed that those who obtained an MSIT had more management career paths available to them than IT professionals with bachelor's degrees.¹² If higher education IT leaders want to ensure a leadership pipeline, one step could be to encourage staff to obtain a higher degree. Professional development can formalize an employee's substantive IT knowledge gained through work experience, as well as increase the staff member's research and management knowledge.¹³

Respondents also discussed how their organizational culture either encouraged or created barriers to their professional development. Organizational culture refers to the shared values, behavior norms, and values of the organization, as well as institutional perspectives on employee and organizational performance. The values and norms of an organization are important factors for retention,¹⁴ and for a newer generation of employees, such as Millennials, a vibrant and inspiring culture is crucial for them when considering job offers.¹⁵ Reflecting the need to encourage a culture of professional development, a CIO told us: "It's all about your leadership and the culture.... Growth is either encouraged and fostered, or it isn't. It's going to take a shift in culture." Several respondents noted that professional development needs to be more integrated into their institutional culture. One respondent wrote that organizations could demonstrate their commitment to ongoing education by "re-emphasizing professional development as part of engagement and compensation." Other respondents said that they would like to receive support and engagement from colleagues and leaders.

Several individuals identified that they needed more information on the positions available to them and possible career paths they could take in their institution; for example, "clear paths to move forward in my field." Other suggestions included changing performance reviews to 360 reviews, decreasing emphasis on degree level (e.g., MS versus PhD), and increasing the strength of strategic leadership. One manager specifically noted that a low-maturity level¹⁶ in her IT department affected opportunities for professional development: "Lower maturity levels of IT seem endemic in higher ed. A low-maturity IT department is best for people with last century's skill sets; it does great harm to people, especially leaders, with forward-facing skill sets."

Reflecting findings from ECAR's 2019 higher education IT workforce research, respondents also discussed mentoring¹⁷ and conference attendance¹⁸ as contributing to professional development. Some respondents specifically mentioned wanting resources to attend the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. A manager told us that "support for attendance to relevant conferences for peer networking, awareness of trends, and new resources" would be beneficial for professional development. In terms of mentoring, ECAR found this year that 41% of higher education IT employees who wished to be mentored are not in mentoring relationships.¹⁹ This is reflected in one comment where a manager expressed the need for "a boss who mentors." Even for upper levels of management, mentoring can continue to contribute to professional growth. A CIO reported the benefit of having "a strong mentoring group within my current organization."²⁰ Given the value placed on mentoring, one of our recommendations this year to members of the higher education IT workforce is to seek out mentees and establish mentoring groups within their organizations.²¹ Employees shouldn't be restricted to finding a mentor or mentee at their current institution; many engage in cross-institutional or even cross-industry mentoring relationships.²²

Finally, and likely most importantly, higher education IT employees reported that they need support from management to engage in professional development. This was discussed at all organizational levels.

• A staff member stated, "It would be helpful to have a supervisor who encouraged professional development activities or be provided time off for some of these activities as a formal benefit/requirement."
• A manager told us it was important to have "a direct supervisor actually care about your future and push you past your comfort zone and have them suggest professional development opportunities."
• Finally, a CIO lamented, "Lack of institutional resources and lack of good managers contribute to my lack of professional growth and development."

Support (or lack of support) from management is likely deeply ingrained into an institution's organizational culture. If professional development is not prioritized by management and executives, then it can't or won't be sought out by higher education IT employees.

Professional development is no longer an optional activity for organizations.²³ When working in a field with rapid changes, such as IT, learning new competencies (including soft skills such as communication²⁴) may determine whether someone continues to grow within their field or is left behind as new technologies, such as blockchain, are implemented.²⁵ Perhaps equally important is for IT professionals to foster positive attitudes and perspectives toward professional development.²⁶ The first step should be to get the conversation started and engage with your staff or managers. What do you or your colleagues need? Find out by doing quick in-house surveys on the skills they need the most. Some strategies to encourage professional development include asking employees to identify low-cost, asynchronous, online training that can be completed quickly (60 minutes or less)²⁷ and targets specific skills, such as data analysis or public speaking. Managers should identify whether peer training in group settings could satisfy professional development needs; looking first for internal experts, rather than requesting additional budgetary line items for professional development, can increase skills sets without accruing costs. This year, ECAR noted that CIOs were more likely to have cross-institutional and cross-industry professional networks.²⁸ CIOs should consider leveraging these networks to identify the most cost-effective and career-enhancing activities used in the field. Finally, CIOs and managers should take the first steps in creating a culture of professional development at their institutions. For example, building professional development into employee performance reviews and ensuring recognition and compensation when activities are completed would go a long way toward embedding professional development into an institution's culture.

Shifting to a culture of professional development may be challenging, but once the shift begins, higher education IT departments will realize that their employees are hungry to learn and will take advantage of these opportunities if they are offered. The likely payoffs for IT departments include higher rates of employee retention and job satisfaction, not to mention a more knowledgeable staff. Say it again! Professional development!

Notes

1. 2018 Workplace Learning Report, research report (Sunnyvale, CA: LinkedIn, 2018). ↩
2. D. Christopher Brooks, Joe Galanek, Dana Gierdowski, and Mark McCormack, The IT Workforce in Higher Education, 2019, research report (Louisville, CO: ECAR, February 2018). ↩
3. EDUCAUSE, "Strategic Directions," About EDUCAUSE. ↩
4. Joseph D. Galanek, Dana C. Gierdowski, and D. Christopher Brooks. The Higher Education IT Workforce Landscape, 2019, research report (Louisville, CO: ECAR, February 2019). ↩
5. Amy Adkins And Brandon Rigoni, "Millennials Want Jobs to Be Development Opportunities," Workplace (blog), Gallup, June 30, 2016. ↩
6. Jon Oltsik, The Life and Times of a Cybersecurity Professional [https://www.esg-global.com/hubfs/issa/ESG-ISSA-Research-Report-Life-of-Cybersecurity-Professionals-Nov-2017.pdf], research report (Milford, MA: Enterprise Strategy Group, November 2017). ↩
7. Ibid. ↩
8. Results based on 317 open-ended responses (excludes responses of "don't know" and "not applicable") collected during the 2019 Higher Education IT Workforce Landscape study. Responses by organizational level are as follows: 37% staff; 48% managers; 15% CIOs. ↩
9. In our previous workforce reports, we used the term "managerial" to refer to the three types of workforce study respondents: staff, manager, and CIO. This year, we altered the language to avoid confusion with references to those who are managers and to better reflect the hierarchy of roles in IT organizations. ↩
10. Oltsik, The Life and Times of a Cybersecurity Professional [https://www.esg-global.com/hubfs/issa/ESG-ISSA-Research-Report-Life-of-Cybersecurity-Professionals-Nov-2017.pdf]. ↩
11. Mark CJ Davis, "The EQ Effect: Leveraging Emotional Intelligence in Communication," The Professional Development Commons (blog), EDUCAUSE Review, March 11, 2019. ↩
12. Lei Li, Jack Zheng, Svetlana Peltsverger, and Chi Zhang, (2016, September). "Career Trajectory Analysis of Information Technology Alumni: A LinkedIn Perspective," in Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (New York, NY: ACM, 2016), 2–6. ↩
13. Sophia Bredice and Eric Rzeszut, "Life from the Other Side of the Table: Completing a Graduate Degree While Working in Higher Ed," The Professional Development Commons (blog), EDUCAUSE Review, June 3, 2019. ↩
14. Larry Alton, "Why Corporate Culture Is Becoming Even More Important," Forbes, February 17, 2017. ↩
15. Erin Vaughan, "Why Millennials Value Company Culture Above All Else," Association for Talent Development (website), June 9, 2016. ↩
16. EDUCAUSE uses maturity and deployment indices to track higher education's progress in delivering IT services. Maturity indices measure the capability to deliver IT services and applications in a given area. For more information, see Eden Dahlstrom, "Moving the Red Queen Forward: Maturing Analytics Capabilities in Higher Education," EDUCAUSE Review, August 22, 2016. For access to maturity indices, see EDUCAUSE, n.d. "Why CDS?" ↩
17. Joseph Galanek and Shana Campbell, Mentoring in Higher Education IT, 2019, research report, (Louisville, CO: ECAR, August 2019). ↩
18. Brooks, Galanek, Gierdowski, and McCormack, The IT Workforce in Higher Education, 2019. ↩
19. Galanek and Campbell. Mentoring in Higher Education IT, 2019. ↩
20. Very few respondents provided more than one-word answers when they reported mentoring as a necessary professional development activity. ↩
21. Galanek and Campbell. Mentoring in Higher Education IT, 2019. ↩
22. Ibid. ↩
23. Ed Tittel and Mary Kyle, "Professional Development for IT Pros," Business News Daily, June 6, 2018. ↩
24. EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research, EDUCAUSE Research Snapshot, Workforce 2019, February 2019. ↩
25. See, for example: Kevin Roebuck, "5 Ways Blockchain Is Revolutionizing Higher Education," Forbes, January 2, 2019. ↩
26. Joel Trammell, "10 Ways to Maximize Your Professional Development," Inc., June 24, 2016. ↩
27. See, for example, LinkedIn Learning. ↩
28. Brooks, Galanek, Gierdowski, and McCormack, The IT Workforce in Higher Education, 2019. ↩

Joseph Galanek is a Senior Researcher at EDUCAUSE.