Page 43 - BusinessWest January 9, 2023

anywhere.
“On the flip side, though, with clientele, now we’re expect-
ed to support everybody’s house and laptops, so that’s a little bit more challenging because it’s a non-controlled environ- ment, quite often, where folks are working,” he said.
Christianson added that he has to help clients understand the implications of letting someone use a home computer to access a corporate network as opposed to providing them a computer, or, in many cases, using a personal cell phone on a corporate network.
Over the past several years, CMD has spent a lot more time working with clients on the importance of cybersecurity. Recently, the company has observed a drive to adopt better practices, especially in the insurance sector. Many clients approach Christianson and his team with questionnaires pro- vided by insurance agents to create better security measures in case of a data breach or hack.
Smith said a lot of companies have outdated security plans, some being 10 to 20 years old without any updates on the cur- rent technology available. Other businesses don’t have security plans in place at all.
Cybersecurity can be expensive, he noted, and a lot of com- panies feel like they can’t afford it. For small to medium-sized businesses, it’s tough to allocate money they need to direct to sales and marketing to drive their product, so cybersecurity often falls by the wayside — until a hack or attack happens. Then they recognize the importance of a proactive investment.
“If an incident were to occur, that can bankrupt your orga- nization. You can be offline for 48 hours,” Smith said. “And
by the time you pay that ransom — or you don’t, and you don’t have the specific backups to recover from — then you’re out of luck.”
Bay Path graduate students are trained to understand what to look for and how to rebuild that specific security incident plan to today’s standards, so they can incorporate that knowl- edge and bring it into a profession where they help protect individuals and businesses.
But companies, like CMD and Hogan, that help those busi- nesses succeed are also focused on a threat of another kind: talent recruitment and retention.
“I think IT as a whole has a challenge for retention because you get a certain talent and a certain personality,
and they’re always looking for bigger, better, smarter, faster,” Hogan said. “What happens is a lot of the folks that you bring in are looking to work in corporate America, and they want an enterprise-level job, and they want a big budget. They want to work at a big business. So you lose some folks to that.”
Even at a time when many IT professionals can work remotely, he noted, the key to retaining employees is hiring the right personality, and among the key traits is accountabil- ity to oneself. He also said new employees should pass the “beer test,” especially if they’re spending more time at work than with family at times.
“We’re looking for the person that wants to work in a flex- ible environment that has the right culture. In an interview,
I really try to understand if they’re going to fit into our cul- ture or not,” Hogan said. “Are they going to play well with the team? Are they a good fit? Do I want to go out on Thursday afternoon and have a beer with that guy or gal? That’s impor- tant to us because we work a lot.”
Progress Report
Among those hundreds of thousands of IT job openings in the U.S., employers are trying to fill about 675 vacancies in Springfield alone.
But despite that national challenge of hiring and retaining staff, both Christianson and Hogan reported a successful year.
In the past couple of years, Hogan told BusinessWest, one could hear a pin drop in his office in the last two weeks of December. This year, however, he’s been busy onboarding cli- ents, closing deals, and
seeing lead generations popping up left and right.
Workforce
Continued on page 47
“I’m a firm believer that, as
a small business, wecangrowina down economy. In fact, over the years, every time we’ve seen a major downturn in the economy, we’ve come out of it very well.”
CHARLIE CHRISTIANSON
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