Today keeping your employees long term, is becoming increasing difficult to achieve. The same loyalty to the company that was felt in years gone by no longer exists, and people move freely from job to job without too much thought.
Higher stress levels, increased boredom and the enticement of higher salaries all play a part - so how do you fight it and prevent your people from jumping ship? Improving your work environment, sharing responsibilities and increasing wages all go a long way in retaining employees, but none of these are foolproof. Additionally, sometimes the way to retain quality people is to promote them or move them on to other business projects. But whichever way you look at it, retention is getting harder, and turnover is becoming higher.
In DevOps teams, high staff turnover can be especially damaging. The time spent searching for replacement cloud engineers, and then training them, can cause big delays to your projects. Thankfully, when it comes to DevOps there is a way you can insure your business and prevent any problems that may arise from IT staff turnover.
Many smart businesses have already realised the benefit of combining their internal cloud team with an outsourced cloud team. The internal DevOps team handles everything concerning product delivery – including automated deployment, pipeline testing and cloud-enabling applications. They should be completely focused on building the new applications that deliver immediate value to your business.
The external DevOps team can then handle all the behind the scenes stuff that keeps your cloud resources working as they should. Things like managing backups, installing anti-virus and configuring cloud networks can all be handled by an outsourced team.
There are two main benefits to having an outsourced specialised DevOps team looking after your cloud platform. Firstly, it allows your internal team to solely focus on improving product delivery and applications, which will positively impact on all areas of your business. Second, it provides insurance against potential problems arising if members of your internal team decide to leave, get promoted or your IT team is under staffed and overcommitted.
Having an external team involved also provides continuity and stability. They know your systems and are always ready to step in with added support. This helps keep things moving when a key member of the internal team moves on.
DevOps reflects a strong team culture, while traditional outsourcing often assumes the same service is provided over time. DevOps as a Service presumes what is provided reflects the single team approach. Rather than outsourcing it is about enabling and empowering. There must be high flexibility in the partner to respond to evolving skills, capabilities and personnel changes. In many ways it is co-sourcing as cooperation supports connected results.
Having an outsourced DevOps team working together with your internal team, provides a valuable insurance policy that protects your projects and ensures that delays and setbacks are not experienced when a cloud engineer leaves the company. This is especially important for those businesses in the middle of a DevOps transformation, as a disruption due to staff turnover could be a disaster.
As you look forward to the new year ahead, consider how your company would cope if they were to lose key personnel from the IT team. Having an external team - that will never quit on you - can ensure that your DevOps goals remain on track, regardless of staff turnover.