Up, up and away…IT salary and compensation plans are up 5% year-over-year, and are slated to rise another 5% this year, according to TechTarget’s 2013 IT Salary and Careers Survey, released in December.
Yes, yet more proof that as IT’s center of gravity shifts from the back office to the board room, its value to the business also changes. IT professionals are seen less as cost centers and more as business drivers, and as this happens, IT compensation trends upward.
Fewer companies are “pegging compensation strictly to job position,” writes Linda Lucci, executive editor for SearchCIO. Instead, they are being determined by more traditional business metrics (e.g., economics, industry, culture and ‘financial affordability’ factors), she explains.
In other words, salaries are being tied to business outcomes. This bodes well for IT professionals who get it (i.e., those who understand that their role is strategic first; tactical, second); not so much for those who don’t.
EMH Healthcare‘s IT organization gets it. Walgreen’s CFO gets it. What about you? How do you measure success?
Are you like 18% of TechTarget survey respondents who say they measure success by achieving ROI on projects and technology purchases or are you like the 47% who base success on their ability to help achieve a business goal or outcome?
And what about your company? What business value does it expect from IT/technology projects this year? Is it focused downstream on employee productivity, customer service delivery, etc., or is it focused upstream on product and service creation or delivery?
Do you get it?