A few of you may have noticed there was no blog on Monday and therefore no recipe. Let’s just say my Monday started off with a few unexpected turns and writing the blog was briefly interrupted. It was a great weekend for food I cooked Cocoa Infused French toast with sautéed pears, prime rib with iceberg wedge salad and poached salmon in a creamy wine sauce with wild mushrooms and peas. Last night I made four Indian dishes, a traditional Rogan josh, butter chicken, beer braised beef with vegetables and coconut milk, chicken green masala curry with yogurt. As you can see, I like my Indian food varied. Anyway, that is for tonight’s dinner. Instead, my favorite dish of the past week is the poached salmon. It had been years since I made this dish and since wild salmon was available, I thought it a good choice. Done properly, this is a flavorful, moist and very aromatic dish. More importantly, it is very simple. Poached Salmon with Wild Mushrooms and Peas is the recipe of the week. Enjoy!

The New Salary Survey is Here!

Every year InformationWeek publishes a survey covering Information Technology (IT) professional’s compensation. The 2012 US IT Salary Survey provides information which can be used to position yourself with your manager for a salary increase or for you the manager to explain why your staff is properly compensation. The good news is that the profession is recovering from the recession. Whereas salaries did not grow in 2010, they did increase 1% for staffer and 1.8% for managers. The average compensation for staffers was $90,000 and for managers a rather robust $116,000. The report is a lengthy 89 pages but with 13,880 respondents, we can certainly benefit from what looks like a well-researched and crafted study.

Several things jumped out as read the survey. Like CIOs make a lot more than CTOs ($147K vs. $117), titles remain important. SMBs pay considerably less than the industry average, starting with $62K for staffers and maxing out at $95K for managers. This difference in pay is usually offset by job satisfaction, project diversity and potential for professional growth. Skills development remains significant to maintaining compensation increases, although, many are finding it more difficult to schedule developmental training and certifications. Surprisingly, given the political buzz, most (69%) indicate that they have not been impacted by outsourcing, yet the belief is that it is reducing the number of jobs and lowering employee morale.

Finally, of interest to me at Broadvox was the average salary of IT professionals in our primary business of hosted communications (cloud computing). Cloud computing and wireless infrastructure compensation was the highest for staffers at $110K and $115K respectively (these are the trending technologies).

Comprehending compensation requirements for highly valued employees is important. Understandably, money is not the only consideration but when it comes to retaining IT professionals, 70% seek new jobs for higher compensation with “more interesting work” a distant second (50% for staffers, 42% for managers). Consequently, a balanced approached of appropriate compensation, interesting work, positive job environment and rewarding culture will go a long ways to retaining and attracting employees.