CIOs increasingly are called on to wear a variety of hats as they face an ever-broadening range of responsibilities. This phenomenon is seen perhaps no more clearly than at Ameristar Casinos, where CIO Sheleen Quish heads up not just the IT department but the HR department as well, reports Peter High at CIO Insight.

Before Quish joined Ameristar in 2007, the company didn't consider IT a strategic component. Quish changed that by working on relationships and partnerships with leaders in other areas of the company and by developing an enterprise IT group. Many of her IT accomplishments dealt with people and processes, and when the head of HR left the company in 2010, Quish added those responsibilities to her job description. 

Many of the issues and headaches that IT executives have to deal with are the same as those that HR executives have to deal with. Both run support organizations in the corporation, providing shared services for all, and yet their teams are often viewed as second-class citizens. "If left to their own devices, HR departments, like IT departments, have a tendency to be rather insular, focusing more what they have been asked to do, than on thinking proactively about what they should be doing," High writes.

Once Quish took over the HR department, she discovered that there had been several good ideas brewing for a while, but they never gained sufficient corporate attention to become priorities. What's more, several of the ideas had IT at their core, including setting up an online career center, developing training labs, providing online training programs, deploying a new timekeeping system, and looking into alternative scheduling options.

"Ameristar has discovered what other companies may also find: That by having a single executive responsible for IT and HR, the needs of the most important resource at any company, its people, can seamlessly translate into IT solutions where appropriate," High writes. "In addition, IT professionals, often managed by project management, experience the high touch of a leader who is connected and inspired by people first."

For more:
- see Peter High's article at CIO Insight

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