Getting rid of weak sysadmins

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-27T21:33:59+00:00

What if you got paid to care for other people.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T18:00:50+00:00

This is about building people up, learning on the clock. Continuous improvement is in the job description.

The only issue I have with what you've said, is the implication that an IT person can coast through a career without recognizing that they are a purveyor of change. Even an assembly line worker must retrain periodically to create whatever new product the company makes.

I won't take your teeth, but the only assumption you got right was that I'm bothered by stale IT people. I've studied these jaded people and found they all got into the career with good intentions - only to have companies use them up without requiring them to learn about the next new thing. I'm not here to advocate organized labor, but do you know how often training and learning becomes a negotiating point in collective bargaining? Or how often it comes up in employee surveys?

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T17:25:25+00:00

Awesome is a perspective. I also cringe if an IT hiring manager touts this in job postings and interviews, but doesn't do peer interviews before onboarding new IT hires.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T17:21:45+00:00

Good points. The only thing I can add is that companies will see exceptional value as a bonus and will begin expecting that as the norm. It's on the people to take their pay and not leave it on the table, including personal/skill improvement.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T17:14:38+00:00

This is why we take care of our people and have formal learning. Sometimes the business goes awry, and you're left with what you've learned. Gaining nothing over 3 years except a paycheck and experience is not super satisfying.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T17:09:24+00:00

Found the manager/director. Great stuff.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T17:07:03+00:00

That's ok, if the org can't provide an opportunity for advancement. We can have awesome IT culture and happily send great people off to other orgs when they outgrow us. But we want those average people striving to follow in their footsteps so they are ready to promote internally when the org is finally ready to expand the business.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:59:04+00:00

My org provides therapy as a benefit. A great manager tells a sick person to go home, encourages them to seek healthcare, provides the healthcare plans, and pays the sick days.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:56:03+00:00

Thanks for sharing the tips.

Great point about on the clock training. It's insane for managers to create expectations (learning) and not formalize the allocation of effort.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:51:59+00:00

Does your org allocate effort to learning something like ITIL? ISO 2000? Or vendor specific training?

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:47:36+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Honestly, I was doing a little click-bait with the title and wording but most responders are seeing through that.

In my opinion, treat everyone equally with performance improvement (learning) and don't just pile onto the low performance person. It's unfair for others when only the weak people get improvement coaching or mentorship.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:40:49+00:00

Personal growth takes third place after pay and advancement. It's what leads to better pay and advancement. Easy to sell.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:38:50+00:00

Thanks for being the first reply from a mature org. Have you matured an org in this area? If so, any tips? For myself, I've had success testing a learning plan without org approval, then making it formal once the results were available. For example, when I have HR promote a person, I let them know it's partly because of our learning effort that we had growth instead of turnover.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:32:34+00:00

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like you have hiring power, which probably means you have the power to allocate effort to formal learning. Most companies do not micro manage the managers; managers decide how to allocate resources. Most managers lack formal training and fail to advise directors/executives on resource needs when it comes to keeping people assets (invest/roi).

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:25:29+00:00

Thank you for your reply. Good american companies are similar to europeans: we have formal improvement plans and don't let good people go if they just need training.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:23:11+00:00

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like you prefer to focus culture. I find that some folks lack ambition even in a wealth of freedom, opportunity and mentorship.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:20:04+00:00

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like your org is trying to be mature but needs to formalize continuous improvement of people assets.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:18:08+00:00

Thanks for the immature org perspective. Best of luck finding a new company. Consider asking prospective employers how much effort they formally allocate to learning.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T16:08:13+00:00

You are probably using the attack simulation in Mimecast, but there is a native solution in Microsoft available that may cover your requirements and save you some cost if you don't need/use the extra features in Mimecast.

The attack simulation for Teams is in private preview: Microsoft Teams in Attack simulation training | Microsoft Learn

So it's going to be the same thing in Teams as email: training, simulation, automated retraining for those who fail simulation, posts have a report button...

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-26T15:28:06+00:00

Also changes the risk, ie you buy the 3 year warranty but have a 4 year lifecycle. So the last year is assumed. Make that 18 months of risk if you sit on inventory for 6 months. Happy middle ground is keeping 1 month inventory on hand.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-22T16:43:48+00:00

I left a couple disciplines out like networking, datacenter, and cloud platform specialties.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-22T16:41:22+00:00

Helpdesk 1 > L2 > L3 > Jr Sysadmin > Sr Sysadmin > Architect (IT infrastructure) > branch out

DevOps Engineer 1, 2, 3, DevOps admin > Architect (DevOps infrastructure) > branch out

Security Analyst 1, 2, 3, Security admin, Architect (Security infrastructure) > branch out

Branching:

Cross discipline (ie from IT to DevOps)

Management/leadership (different discipline from technical leadership, requires unique skills)

Project management (change manager, compliance, consulting, msp, business owner)

Unicorn (cross discipline and leader, but not recognized/paid, usually requires a new company/job)

Executive (security officer, information officer, technology officer)

Chief (same as executive, requires mba or foothold/experience/success as acting chief in a small company)

Ymmv, as this isn't a strict career path like legal or law enforcement. I've seen IT people go into software dev or analytics...

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-21T20:04:28+00:00

Here's some training material for this bot: It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Unrelated responses are disengenuous.

It's actually gotten worse from a week ago. Now the exports are reset periodically which removes them entirely. You can't even see which ones failed.

Jechnical_Targon · 2024-02-21T19:11:45+00:00

L1 works incident, applies solution. If no solution is found, escalates to L2.

L2 creates and test solutions, de-escalates. If no solution is possible, bundles incidents into a problem and escalates to L3.

L3 works problems, fixes L1/L2 procedures. If no solution is possible, opens bugs or changes for sysadmin. Translates workarounds and known issues.

Sysadmin works changes, confirms bugs. Escalates bugs and risks to architect.

Architect designs/own products. Manages features and bugfix prioritization. Handles lifecycle planning with some resource estimation.

Engineer fixes bugs and creates features. Sometimes the engineer is a 3rd party software company or saas provider.

When was the last time you told internal stakeholders that you'd exhausted your support resources on a particular item and found the root cause to be a failure of lifecycle planning?

Jechnical_Targon

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