The Director's Cut: Treat your staff like gold dust

Perhaps the biggest question facing all IT leaders at the moment is how to avoid the staffing boom and bust cycle. In the last recession we suffered from downsizing, then we right-sized, and now a lot of companies are capsizing - our people and their skills are at the heart of this.

There are two main reasons key people stay in a job: because it is interesting, or because they feel valued.

So we need to make sure we manage to accomplish at least one of these. Here are the top actions to take to move away from the rollercoaster we have built ourselves over the last 10 years. There are only eight of them listed below, so no excuses.

1. An emphasis on inspiration, skill and personal development are vital. Notice I write inspiration, not motivation - inspiration comes from within. People will only ever do something to the best of their ability for one reason, and that is because they want to. We have to inspire a huge want.

2. Be aware of why people are joining you (as well as why they leave) - is it really salary? Location? Security? Play on the reason, increasing its profile in future campaigns. Ask your key people why they stay with you and do more of it - most of them do not stay with you for money.

3. Now is the time to invest in homegrown talent and in staff retention. Continue to demonstrate people are valued all the time, not just when they are in short supply. Address cultural change, skill and personal development. Stop making excuses and put this in place now.

4. Contractors still have an important role to play. Now is a good time to decide which skills should be kept in-house and which can be outsourced - be absolutely clear on this in every day operations and over time you will avoid the contractor reliance that seriously hurt many IT departments in the past. These are tough decisions but they must be made, and you must drive forward.

5. Ensure you have a skills/staff database in place, especially if you are increasing permanent staff. This is crucial if you want to avoid realising you had contractor reliance - after the contractor has left! Disappearing skills is one of the main legacies of companies after a recession - are you serious about remaining competitive? Prove it by taking this action.

6. Work with your HR department to develop a new people strategy that meets the real needs of your department, company and people in the next two years. I know that HR departments focusing on people may seem a contradiction in terms, but they must do, and so must you.

7. Transform your culture, and let people determine their own salary increases. At the very least, reverse 'performance related pay' syndrome and have people score themselves, justifying that score to you. You will be amazed at people's honesty and low scoring. (There will be the usual jokers who score top marks for everything. Fine, go through each one individually and ask them to justify it.)

8. Finally, and most crucially, everyone is an individual, and we must value them as such. Any leader who can truly recognise people's different strengths, within the overall vision of the team, is taking a huge leap towards creating one of the unstoppable teams of the future.

It's in your hands - your people need you now. Everyone is clear about one thing - we all talk about it, write about it, and agree with the fundamental premise. Namely, people are your company's number one asset, and in tough times, your key people are gold dust. Now is the time to demonstrate that in practice - in your leadership style, department and company.