Future IT — Building IT Resilience by Finding and Tapping Extraordinary Staffers

Future IT — Building IT Resilience by Finding and Tapping Extraordinary Staffers

This IDC Perspective expands on a previous study to help CIOs identify and understand two key traits that they need in their IT workers to build resilient IT organizations: grit and personal resilience (see Using Adaptive Planning to Build Organizational Resilience, IDC #US47080920, December 2020). It defines the two traits and underlying elements that create them, explains why they are important, and contains recommendations about how to find and develop IT staffers who possess those qualities. Digital competition and new forms of disruptive forces have upped the ante for CIOs — disaster recovery and business continuity, even performed flawlessly, are still necessary, but no longer sufficient, to keep businesses viable. CIOs need a full suite of resilience capabilities to anticipate, mitigate, and recover from disruptions while keeping their businesses operating. That not only requires IT workers with highly developed technology, IT, and soft skills but also brings to the forefront attributes and traits that haven't garnered as much attention: personal resilience and "grit.""In times of adversity and crisis, IT workers need to function at higher levels of performance, and they must do so while facing uncertainty, setbacks, extended work hours, and even threats to personal health and safety," says Marc Strohlein, adjunct research advisor with IDC's Research Network. "That means that CIOs need to find and develop workers with two key qualities: grit and personal resilience."

Please Note: Extended description available upon request.