Gartner: CIOs fail on staff career development

CIOs are getting better at reinvesting savings into new projects, but investment in skills and career development is still poor.

Gartner's annual survey of 2,000 CIOs found that CIOs were becoming better at running IT processes but falling short when measured on skills building.

Dave Aron, vice-president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, "CIOs are reinvesting savings in capital projects. If you consolidate applications you make savings across business units." He said that across Europe, CIOs were identifying generic areas of the business that could be run centrally as a shared service.

However he said, "CIOs told us they are not very effective at mentoring, career development of staff and training."

The career progression challenge for IT is made more difficult due to a lack of understanding within the human resources function. "IT is one of the most demanding areas for HR."

According to Aron, staff motivation is among the greatest challenges a CIO faces. He said CIOs needed to be smarter at working out what people would be good at in their organisations.