Hello from RPG World in Orlando. This week, over 130 iSeries developers are meeting to discuss the world of RPG, receive training on the latest RPG IV has to offer, and get their skills up to speed. In the next issue, I'll give you a full update on how the RPG World event turned out.

Reviewing Your Staff

For a manager, it is important to evaluate staff periodically for skills assessment. Your staff should be given a directive to spend a percentage of their time on continuing education. It is your job to monitor their progress with periodic skills reviews. These need not be tied to salary increase but should be considered when employees have their salary reviews.

Every member of your staff should be required to set a goal for learning a new technology and then make it their mission. Suppose, for example, you have a traditional RPG IV developer on staff who knows nothing about HTML. He may make learning HTML his goal for the next six months. The kinds of things he should be looking at with respect to continuing education include reading the industry periodicals (such as "Midrange Developer" and "MC Mag Online," both of which are available free of charge). To achieve this goal may also require that he purchase a few books, attend a night class at a community college, or attend a professional/commercial training class.

After a couple of months, you, as manager, should sit down with him and have him review his progress. These are some of the questions you need to ask:

• What have you learned?
• How much more time do you need to spend studying this subject area?
• Has your goal changed at all?

The biggest single complaint I hear from AS/400 and iSeries developers is that their companies don't allow them to take the time to learn new things. Then, when it comes time to do something with a new technology, management doesn't have staff to support the request.

The best thing you can do to encourage skills development is to sit down with your staff and discuss their continuing education goals. Help them select a new goal every six months or so. Review them regularly, perhaps every month. The review doesn't have to be lengthy, just 15 to 30 minutes of a "what have you learned" meeting is all that's needed. In the long run, you'll end up with staff that has more skills available to the company you work for, and they should be able to provide you with better applications as a result.

Remember to let them select the technology they want to learn. They need to be interested in the technology; otherwise, they will not succeed. You may certainly help them decide; perhaps offer a list of things you think the company may need to pursue in the next year or two. By deciding together, you, your company, and the staff benefit.

Bob Cozzi is a programmer/consultant, writer/author, and software developer. His popular RPG xTools add-on subprocedure library for RPG IV is fast becoming a standard with RPG developers. His book The Modern RPG Language has been the most widely used RPG programming book for more than a decade. He, along with others, speaks at and produces the highly popular RPG World conference for RPG programmers.

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