Power of the people

By VIKKI BLAND

New employees of IT outsourcing services company EDS New Zealand are likely to enjoy plenty of variety and be constantly learning.

Ex-employee Troy Sullivan, formerly global partner solutions program manager for EDS New Zealand, says she spent 12 years with the company following her entry as a young graduate, and worked in a number of roles.

"EDS is fantastic at allowing you to develop a career and try different areas. I have quite advanced IT and customer-facing skills as a direct result of my time there."

While Sullivan has left her long-standing job with EDS to spend more time with her young son, she says EDS was accommodating of her maternity and work/life balance needs.

"They let me work part-time and were always proactive in ensuring my needs were met."

She says EDS New Zealand does the "whole globally owned, locally supported thing" well.

"I can't think of anything that I would have wanted to change in my time there."

So who is EDS New Zealand?

The organisation is internationally owned by Texas-based EDS Corporation, which is ranked 87th on the Fortune 500 with stock traded on the New York and London stock exchanges.

In New Zealand, EDS employs more than 2000 staff and manages mission-critical information systems, applications development, and business process on behalf of clients.

These tend to be large, demanding, and both challenging and interesting to work with. Examples include Telecom New Zealand, the NZ Police, Fonterra, the Ministry of Social Development, Inland Revenue Department, and banks ANZ Banking Group, Bank of New Zealand and Westpac.

Emma Rutherford, human resources delivery manager for EDS New Zealand, says the company has a 12 per cent attrition rate, well below the 19.5 per cent average for the IT industry, and favours project-driven recruiting - more staff is hired as new clients come on board.

She says when a client project comes to an end and a new one begins, redundancy is avoided in favour of retraining and redeployment.

"Our employment culture is of a global nature, and we have offshore positions available with clients such as those in Korea and Australia."

EDS was recently on the receiving end of an Industry New Zealand government grant of $1.5 million and is using this money to drive growth. In return, EDS must recruit 360 new staff by March 2006.

Rutherford says the company is on target, having employed 144 new staff since receiving the grant.

"We have seen a lot of growth over the last 24 months through offshore opportunities," she says.

EDS' product is its people skill, and Rutherford says EDS places emphasis on providing a balanced, stimulating work environment to attract and keep top talent.

In return, she says employees must be qualified, client focused, and enjoy the challenge and variety of working within a large multinational company.

Among its attractions, EDS offers a work-life balance including teleworking, ongoing training (the international EDS online "university" offers 4000 courses), regular career assessments, four weeks' annual leave and flexible maternity leave.

"Each employee is given an individual development plan which addresses their career aspirations and training needs," says Rutherford.

So how should hopeful IT candidates apply?

Rutherford says EDS is developing relationships with tertiary institutions and hopes to launch a graduate recruitment programme in the near future.

In the meantime it has dabbled with undergraduate vacation schemes and employee referral programmes.

To advertise positions it uses its own intranet and public sites like the Seek.co.nz website.

In the month we visited EDS, available IT positions included advanced business services analysts, infrastructure analysts and engineers.

Essential qualifications listed for these roles included Citrix administration, Lotus Notes and Microsoft SQL server skills; previous experience in an asset management and project lifecycle environments; and appropriate tertiary qualifications.

For many positions, EDS seeks advanced IT or customer service experience or high IT graduate skill. However, the company's remuneration generally reflects this.

Sullivan says she was pleased with the salaries she was paid and that EDS managers were proactive in ensuring remuneration was raised when appropriate.

EDS New Zealand is evidently an IT employer who understands the value of people and gets what it pays for.

EDS Employer Profile

Company name: EDS New Zealand

Parent company:EDS Corporation, Texas, US

Products/services:IT outsourcing, software development, business consultancy, business process management (contact centre, cheque-processing, print/mail)

Location: Wellington (HO), Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch, Wanganui, Palmerston North

Number of employees:2000

IT occupations employed: Software developers, project managers, network and IT infrastructure specialists, business transformation consultants, contact centre, sales