Great News! Information security professionals maintained job stability and mobility in 2011 and this has clearly continued in 2012 going by the recent www.itjobswatch.com analytics. The following screenshot taken on website on the 29th August 2012 sees double digit growing in many roles in terms of ‘Average Salary % Change on Same Period Last Year’. IT Jobs watch source data from IT recruitment websites. Their survey is continuous to ensure the information presented is constantly up to date.
<Click the image to see the ITJOBSWATCH.COM screenshot>
This is positive evidence that companies further recognize the importance of sound security and risk reduction amid more breaches and the increase in threat as the economic troubles continue.
Further to support this in a survey conducted by (ISC)2 only 7% of information security professionals were unemployed at any point during 2011, and almost 70% reported a salary increase! 72% also stated that their organisation had hired individuals specifically for information security roles and a majority, at 62%, indicated they were looking to hire more permanent or contract information security employees through 2012.
It’s clear that now more than every is the time to protect your investment in your information security talent and resource.
Here are 5 easy ways –
Measure Achievement: can your staff see how they have and are achieving things over a period of time? It is really easy to drift from week to week without looking back and reflecting on what you have achieved. Without a clear look back this can demotivate staff as the constant messages of “we need to do this now” grind them down.
Give Recognition – does your team feel that all of those long hours, sweat and stress are being recognised? Recognition doesn’t have to mean an ‘employee of the month award’, it can be a simple open and appreciative “thank you”.
Interesting Work – interesting work means different things to different people. For some it is variety and being exposed to new situations whilst for others it could be fixing things or solving problems. If you want to keep your staff engaged and committed, deploy them on what they see as interesting work and they will go the extra mile.
Encourage Ownership – When people are given responsibility to complete something they will feel like they both own the task and have control over what they are doing.
Advancement – If people can see themselves progressing in an organisation then this is usually the result of the first three items being put into practice.