5 Easy Ways To Retain Your Information Security Talent

More than half of organisations report a “problematic shortage” of cyber security skills, and there is no end in sight. It’s clear that now more than every is the time to protect your investment in your information security talent and resource.

Here are 5 easy ways to retain your information security talent –

Measure Achievement: can your team see how they have and are achieving things over a period of time? It is really easy to drift from week to week without looking back and reflecting on what you have achieved. Without a clear look back this can demotivate the team as the constant messages of “we need to do this now” grinds them down.

Give Recognition – does your team feel that all of those long hours, sweat and stress are being recognised? Recognition doesn’t have to mean an ‘employee of the month award’ or a massive bonus at the end of the year, it can be a simple open and appreciative “thank you”.

Interesting Work – interesting work means different things to different people. For some it is variety and being exposed to new situations whilst for others it could be fixing things or solving problems. If you want to keep your team engaged and committed, deploy them on what they see as interesting work and they will go the extra mile.

Encourage Ownership – When people are given responsibility to complete something they will feel like they both own the task and have control over what they are doing.

Advancement – If people can see themselves progressing in an organisation then this is usually the result of the first four items being put into practice.

Questions your C-Suite should ask your CISO – What's our information security team churn rate? What are we doing to retain our talent? Who are our top performers and who should I spend a few minutes with?