For services companies, employees are our most valuable assets. The economic challenges of the past several years and the ongoing slow down in certain Government sectors due to the on going budget battles in Washington DC continue to make things competitive and present a challenge to any company large or small. We can be confident that the new reality of budget cuts across all of Government will make things even more challenging for the next few years.
At our company we spend a great percentage of our profits educating and re-tooling our employees to make them more marketable and profitable to themselves and our company. Our philosophy has always been that as long as you are willing to invest in yourself by contributing the extra hours it takes to further your career we will provide the support needed to upgrade skills or to completely re-tool. This is certainly a benefit of a company that has been around for a few years and that has a leadership that made their way from the days of punch card programming to web based GUI development as a result of companies that recognized and rewarded their motivation and loyalty.
In our industry when someone is off of a contract it is pretty much accepted that after a few weeks (and really less if there are no immediate job prospects) many companies face the reality of having to let a valued resource go. Since inception our firm has held the opposite view. We use down time to invest in our most deserving employees to upgrade skills and make them more suitable for the ever-changing technology landscape. The cost of recruiting a new employee in our business is rather pricey given the small pool of talent with the proper credentials that are available.
Recent trends in training investments being driven by the market place include the big C word… yes Cyber. Our firm has made significant investments over the past year in the skills of our employees in the area of Cyber related skills such as Ethical Hacking, Data Breach Security, Intrusion Analysis, Social Networking Exploitation and Open Source Intelligence. We recently teamed up with a local firm C-Volve to provide one of the first local classes in Howard County Maryland on Open Source Intelligence Techniques and Tools at our classroom facility. DoD 8570.1 has also driven significant investments by our firm ensuring that almost 90% of our staff holds some level of DoD 8570.1 certification no matter where in the world they perform their duties.
Investing in the work force, and in particular those employees that have demonstrated the drive, loyalty, attitude and dedication needed to be successful and make them worthy of the additional investments, is never a bad investment and managed correctly pays dividends for the company and its employees; but also ensures great customer service.