IT manager Billy Smith had a great group of IT workers. But changes in the department meant that a lot of them no longer had the right set of skills. Here’s how he found a way to keep them in the company.

We were in the middle of a few big changes in IT. Most dramatically, we were switching all our in-house programming from Cobal to .NET.

We knew the switch was a good idea. But the downside was that a few of our programmers’ skills would be obsolete. Getting rid of them and starting fresh would’ve been rough. Some of them had been here a while.

It takes a lot of time and training to get people to their full potential in a new company.So instead of saying goodbye, we decided to help existing employees through a skills upgrade.

Get them started

We started holding .NET training sessions. They were only once a week during lunch, so it didn’t take a lot of time away from day-to-day work.It didn’t give them everything they needed to know.

But it was enough to get them going and wet their appetites to learn more.And they were willing to do that for the chance to get new skills and better job security.

Most did additional reading on their own, and a few took .NET classes at a local community college.The result a lot of great people were able to stick with us.

(Billy Smith, Executive Directorof IT, American Quarter Horse Association, Amarillo, TX)