Heather Jackson is the former chief information officer (CIO) of HBOS ­ – now part of Lloyds Banking Group, the consolidated firm formed as a result of the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in January.

Jackson worked at HBOS for nearly a decade until May 2009, with responsibility for a department of more than 5,000 employees spread across multiple locations. Jackson talked to Computing about her role in staff development during that time and what must be done to attract bright new staff into IT.

What did you to do develop your staff during your time at HBOS?
When I arrived, there were some job descriptions and nascent competency models, but no real career path structure.

Before long though, we created a career structure and more formal job descriptions. Under the new structure, staff could develop their careers through the technical route, the project management route or the executive route, and it was clear what competencies and skills were needed to progress to the next level.

How did you go about devising the career development strategy and what were the main challenges you faced?
The project took at least six months to complete, not including implementation. A project of this sort is not trivial, quick or an easy win.

To ensure these models are fully adopted, you have to be committed to what you set out to do and stick with it. Adapting the strategy as the skill sets and needs of the business change is challenging, but what you can’t do is create a different model whenever the business evolves.

Did you seek help when putting the career structure plan together?
You need to have human resources (HR) people who are specialised in IT. Getting the right quality and experience is critical, but ultimately this isn’t an HR project. Once we had set our competency and career structure in place, one of our senior project managers was put in charge, and the IT leadership team steered the project.

Anything related to people development in IT was handled using that project structure. There was also thought leadership input from other organisations outside the bank, including IT firms ­ – such as IBM and Accenture ­ – where they have strict competency models and hierarchy, so we took their advice to ensure the solution we put in place was informed by industry best practice.

Did you train people from other areas of the business to meet your IT needs?
Once we had the job description, hierarchy and competency modelling right and could understand where the skills gaps were, the roles in IT that we needed to fill were much more clearly defined. That also meant business people were able to move into IT and the process was clearly measured –­ everyone who applied was thoroughly interviewed and assessed.

Would you say IT staff were better able to serve the business as a result of the career structure you created?
Business benefits were a central focus of the work we did. Alongside the IT career model work, there was huge focus on project and change management to ensure change activity was also focused on priority areas for the business.

From a business perspective, we saw an uplift in IT skill sets. We also got a lot better at prioritising projects, and the scheme improved the synergy between the IT department and the rest of the business.

That said, creating career structures alone will not boost IT’s reputation or fix poor relationships with the business. This must be addressed by other means too.

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Did you devise any strategy to bring more women into the business?
We had quite a lot of debate around the gender gap in IT and did some research on it. We found that there are fewer women now than in previous years and that in the developed world, more women leave IT than they used to. This trend is reversed in developing countries.

I have never experienced problems in my IT career as a result of being female, perhaps because I just tend to ignore that fact. In HBOS IT, we didn’t lose women at a faster rate than men ­ – maybe because there were some females at senior levels in IT.

Do you think female CIOs could do more to encourage women into IT?
I think all IT leaders could do more to get women to see IT as a worthwhile career. But if you are going to change female attitudes to IT, you have to start with education. The big issue in a developed country is that IT is seen as a decent profession but not a top-notch career.

If you look at India, for example, IT is seen as a more aspirational profession than medicine, but that is certainly not the case in countries like the UK. We have to change attitudes around the attractiveness of IT and highlight the transformation it can bring to people’s lives and businesses.