Mind Your Staff's Perceptions of Cloud
When a company migrates to the cloud, or implements a new system or process related to CICD and DevOps, existing I.T. staff can become nervous about the upcoming change. The topic is so critical from a human behavior standpoint it must be addressed as a priority. If left unaddressed, the perception affects the rate of adoption within each organization - and the staff retention levels. Not handled right, lack of clear communication can exasperate the false perception of possible job loss.
Take a typical organization that has dabbled in the cloud… maybe they’ve deployed one app, or one service, but by and large the majority of the on-premise data center is still fully intact and is the main infrastructure in production. Typically the announcement of a cloud migration in this environment can easily stir-up feelings of fear, uncertainty, and certainly a lot of (self) doubt. The doubt is the confidence level because current I.T. staff may realize they are not as up to speed with all this as they want to be. Once they begin to understand it, they quickly adapt and are excited and motivated to learn.
Migration to the cloud, any cloud, means that the configuration and deployment of infrastructure and software is radically different. A company could actually be fully migrated to continuous integration / continuous Development (CICD) and even DevOps, but not yet in the cloud. DevOps in play before cloud migration is actually a distinct advantage, however the cloud itself does radically change the view of each job description. So, undercurrents of fear can be rooted in employee uncertainty. The first job is to bring the team together and discuss how roles will change, the necessary training, and the opportunity that each role will have. In the end, however, it’s still up to each person to retool him/herself. You know the old saying, “you can lead a horse to water…”.
Once a company has migrated to the cloud the roles change from a lot less depth in hardware, to more depth in creating infrastructure with code or script, and within "temporary" virtual services. System Admins still need to understand how to build a virtual server with the correct O.S., the correct security settings and the correct overall server configuration - but they’ll shift to doing this by using a configuration management system, or more directly with a carefully written script. That particular software is triggered by an orchestration engine that (depending on the level of automation), can build entire infrastructure stacks in minutes. The expertise in getting that right is GREATER, not less than current job roles.
Not going too deep into this because the technical side is really not the point. We need to convince the staff that the job gets more cranial work, not less. They will need to develop even more areas of expertise than they have now - and they’ll need to draw upon their past experiences in order to be able to “script” or “code” for the same type of resources. This makes them worth more to the marketplace, not less. In fact, we’ve witnessed companies who have “retooled” their staff and not upwardly adjusted their compensation according to the market and subsequently lost the staff to other opportunities. No bueno - this is tragic and avoidable.
In summary, the first order of the day is to authentically demonstrate how expertise is retooled in some areas, sharpened in others, and then pay grades adjusted as a result of new training and certifications. You might be asking, “I thought cloud would save money, not cost more”? That answer is still the same, your efficiencies clearly enable higher velocity in new product development and greater up-time. Since the conversion can take months to a few years, any staff savings is based on re-deploying to more critical roles or even attrition.
In summary, staff perception and training is a critical component of your cloud migration project plan, don't leave it out.
Patrick Bouldin is a Certified Solutions Architect specializing in Data Center consolidation to the cloud.
