Diversity In Action

Siemens IT Solutions & Services looks for top IT talent

“Our employees need to know both the complexities of technology and the subtleties of business management,” says HR VP Brian Noviskis

Fifteen business units of the Siemens global organization are represented in the U.S.; Siemens IT Solutions and Services is one of them. It provides internal IT services and support to Siemens businesses as well as external customers around the globe. The business has 5,000 U.S. employees and 43,000 worldwide, says Brian Noviskis, VP of human resources at Siemens IT Solutions and Services in the U.S.

Siemens recently reorganized its global businesses into energy, industry and healthcare sectors. IT Solutions and Services interacts with all of the sectors, Noviskis says: businesses like Siemens Power Generation, Siemens Medical, and Siemens PLM, a project-management software company (formerly UGS) acquired during the last year that’s now a unit of Siemens’ Automation and Drives group.

The work done by Siemens IT Solutions and Services ranges from helpdesk and desktop support to data center management and IT consulting, including SAP installations, as well as a variety of IT outsourcing and services.

“We focus on managing the IT needs for companies outside of Siemens as well,” Noviskis explains. Outside customers include MetLife, Microsoft, Nike, Washington Mutual, American Express and more.

While the global economic downturn has not yet affected Siemens IT directly, it has impacted both its internal and external customer base, Noviskis says. “Many customers want to pare down operating costs, and every one of our customers looks to its vendor relationships to do that,” he says. “We are chartered to make important changes that will allow our customers to focus and improve their core business.”

The company needs experienced IT specialists and innovators to do this work. “We are talking about deep experience,” Noviskis says. “When our customers come to us they are looking for certified project managers, people to run data centers, people who can put together a deal, candidates with good business systems and technology backgrounds. Our employees need to know both the complexities of technology and the subtleties of business management.”

The IT pros Noviskis hopes to attract will also have experience in marketing and business communications. “These are very critical skills: helping an organization understand what its needs are when they haven’t figured out exactly what they do need.”

Siemens expects its IT recruiting to continue through 2010, with strong growth in professional services. “We expect to fill 1,300 positions this year,” Noviskis says. He thinks 20 percent of the slots will be filled by people from within Siemens; the rest will be recruited from outside
the company.

Siemens values and rewards technical experts, Noviskis adds. “You don’t have to be on a managerial path to move high up in this organization; principal technical people also hold prominent positions.”

Between 20 and 25 percent of IT Solutions & Services employees are women and minorities. “We hope to do even better,” Noviskis says. “On the technical side we have good representation of minorities, but when you get into higher management we have some
work to do.”

He reports that the overall company is developing a number of programs to promote and develop diverse technical people.

IT Solutions and Services itself has formed a diversity taskforce, and also participates on Siemens’ U.S. diversity board. Company leaders feel that diversity has a significant relationship to customer loyalty and awareness, as customers become more global and more diverse. So managers from each part of its business have been asked to encourage more diverse recruiting and better retention.

“We have thirteen different offerings of education for our employee base that leverage what Siemens does across the country,” Noviskis notes. Although he believes that many IT Solutions and Services jobs can be handled by people located anywhere in the country, he points out that availability to travel and be flexible in assignments is very highly regarded across Siemens. Someone from another account or location may be called in on short notice to meet customer needs.

Diversity at Siemens is driven from the corporate level. Mike Panigel, SVP for Siemens corporate HR in the U.S. and the Americas, explains that “We value the important role that managers play in ensuring inclusion. This is why we’ve made diversity leadership training an integral component of our ‘managing at Siemens’ leadership development program.

“Siemens’ national policy supports the formation of affinity networks in all our U.S. business units. We have more than twenty of these networks in place, and since establishing them we have seen greater retention of our top talent across all dimensions of diversity,” Panigel concludes.

D/C