Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 16)

“We had an early-out program that took about 20 percent of our staff out of our organization. We were not able to replace any of them,” he said. Since state government didn’t allow the Department of Information Technology to replace any of its retirees, the remaining employees had to pick up the slack. “People were working, not only harder and more hours, but with technologies and platforms that they had never worked with before,” Theis said. Back in San Francisco, budget restrictions forced Vein to lay off some staff. “[With] so many years of budget cutting, I couldn’t absorb these cuts anymore, and that meant I had to lay off staff that I no longer had money coming in to pay for,” he said. Vein said he tried to save as many jobs as possible and best utilize available resources by implementing a changemanagement strategy that involved transferring the management of some business units’ out of the Department of Technology’s purview and into the business units themselves. He said he felt that this would save his department some long-term headaches. “While I understand and believe in the efficiencies of centralized support, sometimes when you have the application divorced from the business owner — i.e., not in the department — there can be a tendency for the department to just blame the central IT department for any failures of the department application and not take ownership,” he said. If departments manage their own applications, it’s Vein’s belief they’ll assume more responsibility and gain a better understanding of what it takes to manage them. But the transition also meant moving some of Vein’s central IT staff into other departments, along with the applications his department once managed. “I ended up fairly significantly changing the staffing of the department by transferring out roughly 26 or 27 people and laying off 20 or 21 people,” he said. Did this upheaval cause friction? Definitely. “These were people that had been there for a very long time, very good workers, very dedicated to their jobs and didn’t understand why this was happening to them, didn’t understand why I was doing this,” he said. Vein added that many discussions with employee unions ensued, which in some cases resulted in grievances. It was tough not only on people who were forced to move, but also on the departments who were forced to receive them. “There can be a tendency for the department to just blame the central IT department for any failures of the department application and not take ownership.” Chris Vein, CIO, San Francisco Talking It Out Vein said he operated from a position of strength thanks to approval straight from the top. “This issue was supported by the mayor’s office, so that support basically provided the framework for me to move within,” he said. Even so, Vein said he wishes he had done more. “I didn’t do enough, and in some cases, I didn’t do the right amount of communication. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I attempted to do it,” he said. Jeffrey Clouse, CIO of Ohio’s Department of Public Safety, also believes in the power of communication during tough times. “I think that the value of communication cannot be overstated, and communication is obviously more than just in words. You communicate a lot with your actions. Obviously keeping employees informed as to where you’re going, what’s happening,” he said. “Being honest — that’s No. 1.” Clouse may be in a more comfortable position than other CIOs. One of the Department of Public Safety’s subdivisions is Ohio’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles, which gets steady funding from driver’s license fees and vehicle registrations. In Clouse’s 20-year IT career, he’s only had to lay off two people. “So I have not experienced the pain that some of my peers have at those agencies that are on the general revenue fund,” Clouse said. When CIOs ignore lines of communications with their workers, tempers can rise, according to experts. Feelings quickly get hurt when workers believe they are being ignored or not being heard. That’s why Michigan’s Theis believes communicating helps employees understand why changes, as painful as they may be, are necessary evils. This approach came in handy during the state’s consolidation. [16]

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009

Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009 Contents Contributors Introduction Tense Times Insider Threat Twenty and Counting Labor of Love Putting Process Into Play Crossover Appeal FastGov CIO Central Security Adviser CIOs Pluck BlackBerry Phones From the Field Straight Talk

Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009

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