A New Reality For IT: the 18-Month Org Chart 246
StewBeans writes: Finding and keeping IT talent is getting increasingly competitive and expensive. A recruiter for Bay Area and Seattle tech companies said in a recent New York Times article about the cloud computing skill gap. "Someone working deep inside Amazon is getting five to 20 recruiting offers a day. Compensation has doubled in five years." Beyond steep salary and benefits packages, the resources to train new IT talent is wasted if they jump ship for the next best offer. That's why some IT executives are focusing talent management inward and investing in their current employees who are loyal and eager to learn, adapt, and grow with their company. Curt Carver, CIO for the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said that this approach led him to do away with the 10-year IT org chart and remain more agile as technology needs change. He argues that 18-month org charts and constant training are the new reality for IT, providing this example: "If you go back a couple of years ago, we were heavily involved in the storage business. Now I can buy unlimited storage from the cloud. I don't need a lot of people doing storage. In fact, I may only need one. Everybody else, I'm willing to retrain you, but you're going to be doing mobile, or you're going to be doing business intelligence, or you're going to be helping our organizations do gap analysis."
I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
The gap between the expectation that technology would lead to a leisure society, and the realization that it just leads to a feudal, totalitarian regime where the billionaire beggars just take, take, take.
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology doesn't make your job easier, it makes it harder. What it does is takes those mind-numbing jobs, away. And replace them with harder jobs, that requires creative thought, and out of the box problem solving.
Our education system fails to stress this new type of thinking. So many people are caught off guard as technology replaces their work.
Even if you are in technology, you need to keep an eye on what is happening for your job, if you find what you are doing is repetitive with a canned solution to a planned event, that means you are probably getting out of date, and will need to work on training for a change in your job.
In IT you can't expect to be doing the same job in your career.
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
And replaces them with mind-numbing jobs that can be done by people in third-world countries for 15% of what you're making.
Well done, technology.
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And replaces them with mind-numbing jobs that can be done by people in third-world countries for 15% of what you're making.
Well done, capitalism.
FTFY.
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Exec admits he doesn't need guys who know storage because the abstraction "cloud" somehow provided storage experts "in the cloud"
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:5, Interesting)
Technology doesn't make your job easier, it makes it harder. What it does is takes those mind-numbing jobs, away. And replace them with harder jobs, that requires creative thought, and out of the box problem solving.
Our education system fails to stress this new type of thinking. So many people are caught off guard as technology replaces their work.
Even if you are in technology, you need to keep an eye on what is happening for your job, if you find what you are doing is repetitive with a canned solution to a planned event, that means you are probably getting out of date, and will need to work on training for a change in your job.
In IT you can't expect to be doing the same job in your career.
I have seen a lot of jobs replaced by automation. I started work with 5 secretaries for a group of 120 people. There was one 5 years later. Because computers replaced things like scheduling meetings, sending information, email replaced notes sent to your desk inbox.
I think the next great automation/outsourcing should be management. There is really no need for all these overpaid MBA types, when there are plenty of H1B eligible people with the same degrees who will work for pennies on the dollar. All the managers need to do is train their replacements. Shouldn't take long at all, and think of the immediate financial gratification of the shareholders.
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:4, Funny)
... there are plenty of H1B eligible people ...
I'm not an American, so whenever I see H1B I think of pencils, not people.
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Except there is no "H1B," there's just HB.
You might as well have said, "I'm not from africa, so when I hear drumbeats, I think horses."
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:5, Interesting)
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It also makes you talk like William, Shatner.
Re:I've got a gap you can analyze (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology doesn't make your job easier, it makes it harder. What it does is takes those mind-numbing jobs, away. And replace them with harder jobs, that requires creative thought, and out of the box problem solving.
So it makes life harder. Rather than a tedious but relatively secure 9-5 job with nights and weekends free to do whatever you want you have a tenuous, short-term contracted 9-5 job that leaves you feeling too drained to do anything at night or on weekends... if you're not doing (probably unpaid) overtime (and I include thinking about work problems in that) then because of fear you might lose your job or your skill-set might become outdated.
And this is a good thing... how, exactly? Because we have more machines that go bing? Because apps? Because people are now so damn addicted to "social media" that they waste every free moment looking at it rather than, I don't know, having an original thought? Because the rich are getting richer than ever before? How?
Don't get me wrong: I really do like tech. I find how it works fascinating. I actually enjoy programming. And the advances in medicine (aka not dying quite so soon) rock. But I absolutely, passionately hate what it is doing to society, and the missed opportunity it represents. It *should* be making our lives easier and our work hours shorter, but thanks to greed and the fucked-up priorities we make in politics and life it is actually making our lives suck more.
Let's just nip this in the bud right now (Score:5, Insightful)
"The cloud computing skill gap" "Finding and keeping IT talent is getting increasingly competitive and expensive"
Juxtaposed with "mass IT layoffs across the industry"
I think it's pretty clear what we're seeing here. People are leaving the industry or the West Coast, whichever you prefer.
Training? (Score:5, Funny)
What is this "training" of which you speak? I have never seen any.
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Ditto. Where can I find one of these jobs?
Re:Training? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, I think I see the problem you're having.
You have to be willing to MOVE and go to where the good jobs are....
You can't expect these good jobs to com
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"If I want the better job, and pay...I go to it."
It makes sense but then, the parent post's point is "why is that it doesn't work both ways?"
If I want the better job, I go for it, if they want the better employee, why they don't go for it too?
"Now, granted, telework is becoming much more of a viable option than it used to be, but it certainly can't be assumed that every job will allow for this mode of work"
Certainly not, but the point is that it seems telework already peaked some time ago. So, in the end, y
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"I am a person that is historically very loyal to the company that I work for"
That's part of your problem right there. I have never seen loyalty rewarded. Remember, it is a business relationship. You should use a company just like they use you. That at least is what economists tell us to do.
A job is pretty much a McJob these days.
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Bangalore.
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I haven't seen signs of the training you claim in my dealings with dot heads.
You get a very occasional exception.
Re:Training? (Score:4, Interesting)
What is this "training" of which you speak? I have never seen any.
There are many employers out there who make a certain amount of training per year mandatory. But the training never seems to have anything to do with anyone's actual job. So for two weeks a year, you go downstairs or drive across town or squat in a conference room, sit way too close to your classmates, and learn something completely irrelevant. It's like taking an extra vacation, only you have to spend it in a hot crowded box watching Powerpoints, and neither you nor your employer derives any benefit or enjoyment from it.
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I would tell you, but training about what training is costs $3,499 per seat.
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Cisco has completely revamped themselves with their Nexus product line which is still the same from IOS yet a completely different beast.
Cisco was the one company where I was explicitly told by my manager not to expect any certification training because I would take my certification to get a job at a competitor and make more money. Since Cisco didn't provide certification training, many employees trained themselves (sometimes with borrowed equipment), got certified on their own time, got a job at a competitor and made more money.
Re:Let's just nip this in the bud right now (Score:5, Interesting)
Many businesses do not have cloud computing at their heart, and people who happen to be in IT do not necessarily have the skills for the Cloud computing world.
Don't get me wrong, Cloud computing is not particularly hard, but it does require you to become up to date on the tools and mindset.
It took me weeks, even months to find people for our positions. Now, it is important to point out that I'm in an area where there is very high demand, so that doesn't mean that they aren't out there. They're just not *here*. Or rather, they're somewhere around here, but already gainfully employed.
However, in the midst of all of those interviews, I got plenty of candidates. The problem is that they had left or been laid off from $100k+ jobs where the government or some big company paid them to sit there and write policies or run some script that some "architect" wrote for them. In a smaller business, people like that are not needed and certainly not for that pricetag. I can run scripts myself, or use cron. Thanks.
I'll pay someone good money if they have the skills and the interest in continuing to learn. I will not spend that sort of money for people who I have to write out a step by step process for everything they do.
I am totally okay with someone branding themselves a "Cloud" or "DevOps" person if they can demonstrate their knowledge of the tools and the methodology, as well as showing that they are able to take the reins and not expect someone else to teach them. I don't care if you have a fancy CS degree, or even a college degree at all. I studied CS in college and I have worked with people who didn't spend a day in a CS class. I don't need a CS degree holder for everything. What I do need are people who can keep their skills up and know what they're there to interview for. The people who just want to point at some certificate or put jargon on their resume are welcome to go talk to the government. I hear they pay pretty well, if you can avoid committing suicide from the institutionalization.
Are people leaving the industry? Maybe. However, I think there is a certain number of people who have left the industry before they even lost their jobs. The industry had already moved on, they were just continuing to collect a paycheck and hold on to their red stapler. And I totally understand how that can happen. I have to constantly overcome my curmudgeonly desire to not change what works for me right now. I looked at Cloud computing when it first came out as an interesting toy, but I watched it closely and realized that it stopped being a toy and soon the buzzwords were the reality. Someday, "the Cloud" will either be so obvious that no one pays top dollar for it anymore, or we'll have moved to the next buzzword. If you want to stay in IT forever, that is the price you pay.
Re:Let's just nip this in the bud right now (Score:4, Insightful)
You are wrong on just about every account.
What part of, "I am totally okay with someone branding themselves a "Cloud" or "DevOps" person if they can demonstrate their knowledge of the tools and the methodology" reads to you like I like people manipulating their resumes? In fact, that's pretty much what I came out against.
Actually, I think I understand why you thought that. You think that people can only learn skills on a job that has that job description. You're totally wrong and that's the core of the problem.
Not only do I hire people who have no previous "cloud" experience, I almost have to, with the way the market is. What I want from people is that they come to the interview able to answer the questions that I ask about it. You can do that by reading a book or keeping up your skills on your free time. I mean, I didn't walk into IT 20 years ago by knowing the "Cloud". Do you think I got a fancy training course or a job description on it? No one did. That's like saying you have 30 years of Java programming experience. It didn't exist, you can't.
Get the skills, know what you're talking about, and I don't care what you did in IT before you walk in the door, you're going to fit. And if you do get hired, you'll continue to get trained.
However, don't tell me that you want $100k for me to have you be useless for the next six months while my small team has to hold your hand while you take training courses to get you to the point where you can actually do the job you're hired for, but you refuse to do any work whatsoever to build your own skills. No... fucking... way.
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I hear you.
The keyword nazis are out there but that tends to be recruiters who have been given bad reqs or HR people who just look for keywords. If you do meet an actual manager who pulls that on you... well you didn't want that job anyway. The government is annoying in that regard with their constant desire for credentials and degrees. College isn't really all that hard if you skated through it and got your piece of paper, but it doesn't mean fuckall in IT if you don't have the skills.
I'm not telling an
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Re:The gig economy? (Score:5, Funny)
If someone mentions the "gig economy" to you, that's when you should pull out a 12" frying pan and hit them in the face as hard as you can. It won't make your life better, but it's extremely satisfying.
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Anybody who can heft a frying pan owns death.
William Burroughs
Re:The gig economy? (Score:4, Insightful)
pull out a 12" frying pan and hit them in the face as hard as you can.
And not one of those nancy-boy aluminum and Teflon ones, either. Get yourself a cast-iron frying pan. It's much more satisfying.
The New Reality is a decade too late. (Score:3)
Even the slowest orgs have been doing this on a 12-18 month cycle. Plugs are lost to attrition, and those willing to retrain/refocus keep their jobs. Those who stop training become plugs.
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Seat warmers. Gap Fillers. Talks to the developers so the customers don't have to....
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Something to do with an ugly kid in a comic, I think.
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (Score:2)
That's why some IT executives are focusing talent management inward and investing in their current employees who are loyal and eager to learn, adapt, and grow with their company.
Wow, were back to this again?
Who would have thought!?
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Considering that companies stopped being loyal to their employees somewhere around 1985, I'd like to know where they're finding this pool of selfless employees who are loyal and expect to be with the company long enough to grow with it.
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I'd like to know where they're finding this pool of selfless employees who are loyal and expect to be with the company long enough to grow with it.
The people who spent 8+ years in the same position, collecting the same 2% raise each year, and are terrified of being laid off.
"I'm willing to retrain you" (Score:3)
Everybody else, I'm willing to retrain you, but you're going to be doing mobile, or you're going to be doing business intelligence, or you're going to be helping our organizations do gap analysis
Let me translate that to English:
Everyone else, you're redundant. If you don't have pointless buzzwords on your resume you won't get one of the 3 do-nothing, fluff positions we're keeping open.
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I've never been in a company where they actually want to train you and promote from within (at least on the IT side of things) which is very sad I think.
One company I worked for wanted the help desk to get ITIL certified but didn't want to pay for the certification exams. None of the help desk folks wanted to pay for the certification because they knew they weren't going to get compensated for having the certification. This became another "good intentions" initiative that fell to the wayside.
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Or maybe it's because ITIL is a bucket of shite?
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Or maybe it's because ITIL is a bucket of shite?
It is for a company that's not ITIL certified. If the company is already ITIL-certified, than everything falls into place.
IT is a big profession (Score:4, Interesting)
Depending on which bit of it you're in depends on how in demand you currently are. All the Kool Kids doing the latest new shiny will probably have job offers being thrown at them. But in 5-10 years time their skills will be borderline irrelevant (Ruby On Rails anyone?) so its retrain time again. And again. And again.
Meanwhile those of us plodding along doing old style boring backend coding in (supposedly according to the Kool Kids) grandpa languages like C/C++/Java or even COBOL might not have recruiters kicking down the door to get us to an interview but we're unlikely to be out of work for the forseable future or need retraining other than to learn some new library now and then so long as our skills are good to start with.
Re:IT is a big profession (Score:4, Insightful)
What you say is generally true, the obsolescence cycle for those languages is longer than today's shiny new thing. But they will become obsolete.
Keeping up with technology trends is the best way to ensure income security; you don't need to jump on every fad, but be prepared to move on when the moving's good.
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"But they will become obsolete. "
Eventually. But C has been going for over 40 years and counting and C++ 30 so I'm not going to start worrying about it just yet. I doubt many people will even remember todays flavour of the month Cloud languages in 10 years time, never mind 30 or 40. Its 4GL all over again. Anyone remember Powerbuilder? That was "where its at man" back in the 90s for rapid desktop dev. That turned out well. MS Silverlight? etc.
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Ruby on Rails is 10 years old, and there's still plenty of jobs in it, and new projects. It's not something I personally want to do anymore, but it fills a niche well enough. JavaScript is 20 years old, and I don't think that's a language that will disappear any time soon. Frameworks may come and go, but surely the same is true of C/C++.
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mass IT layoffs across the industry (Score:2)
Or maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe if companies showed the same loyalty to their employees that they demand from them, this wouldn't be a problem.
The reality of loyalty (Score:4, Informative)
Or maybe if companies showed the same loyalty to their employees that they demand from them, this wouldn't be a problem.
That's very idealistic and I respect the intent but it's just not reality and probably not sensible for either party.
First off, it's a business transaction. The company needs work done and the worker needs money to do it. If the company no longer needs that work done or if the worker isn't doing it competently or efficiently it make no sense for the company to continue to employ that person. Paying someone to do no work or for bad quality work is idiotic. Conversely if the worker can do work elsewhere and get a better compensation package or a better situation then why on earth should he/she be expected to be "loyal" to company? Neither situation is a win/win. Loyalty between employees and companies only makes sense when both side benefit. That does happen sometimes but it shouldn't be a default expectation, especially in a competitive global economy.
Second, even if both sides want to be loyal to each other economic reality sometimes makes it impossible. I have about 20 people who work for me. I would LOVE to pay them more than I do. But the industry I am in (contract assembly) is very competitive on labor costs so if I raise salaries for everyone we would be out of work faster than I can say "Chapter 11 bankruptcy". I do what I can for them but if one of them finds a better job somewhere else I just have to wish them the best and hope I can replace them with someone else who is competent. Demanding loyalty to the company from employees in that situation would be ridiculous of me.
Re:The reality of loyalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, at one time, companies didn't lay people off at the drop of a hat. Because hiring them back again is expensive and hiring new people means that you not only have to train them to do the job the way your company needs it done, but they also have to learn where to go in the company to get things done.
When 110% efficiency and rapidly gaining short-term share price was not the expectation, people would be reassigned, furloughed or sent off for training if their primary skills weren't required.
That doesn't mean that people didn't get laid off. Just that the norm was that layoffs were a measure of last resort, not the first thing you did to boost quarterly profits. There was a certain noblesse oblige there. The company took care of you and you took care of the company. You worked until you retired, they gave you a gold watch and a pension. You were invested emotionally in the company and in the happiness of its customers. Or, if not, you got canned, but not because you weren't the perfect fit for the moment.
Then they invented "perma-temping"...
Economic rationality (Score:3)
Believe it or not, at one time, companies didn't lay people off at the drop of a hat.
And now we don't because in many (not all) cases that is economically irrational.
Because hiring them back again is expensive and hiring new people means that you not only have to train them to do the job the way your company needs it done, but they also have to learn where to go in the company to get things done.
Hiring new people is expensive but keeping people employed when you don't have work for them can easily be more expensive.
There was a certain noblesse oblige there. The company took care of you and you took care of the company.
I think you have rose colored glasses there. The labor movement happened because there WASN'T any noblesse-oblige. Working conditions 100 years ago were atrocious, safety terrible, pay was low and heaven forbid you actually spoke out about any of it. Things moved slower and labor was less mobile so it was
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Well, to be fair, I was more referring to mid-20th Century white collar workers there. 19th Century was pretty much shit to the point where job security was one of the lesser issues for most people.
And for all the excoriation of unions, one thing that they did for workers is get the automakers to furlough during slack periods rather than fire everyone and make them start over from scratch every time business picked up. Which is more than most white-collar workers can brag.
But even as late as the latter 1970
Re:The reality of loyalty (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing. You're completely ignoring the emotional element, dismissing it as something valueless. But it's not just about a pay packet.
Perfect example... I could be making a shit ton more money elsewhere, with my skill set. But I'm not leaving, cause the company I currently work for is one of the best places I've ever worked. Management does everything it can to not only make employees succeed, but make them *want* to succeed. And not in a, "Some consultant advised us to do team building exercises" kind of way... In the, "the leadership actually *cares*" kind of way.
I've lost track of the number of employees that have left, only to humbly come back again after realizing that that greener pasture they found was a field full of cowshit. And we've welcomed them back, too.
Attachment to a company is irrational (Score:2)
That's the thing. You're completely ignoring the emotional element, dismissing it as something valueless. But it's not just about a pay packet.
Companies by definition cannot have emotions. So any emotional attachment by an employee towards a company is inherently irrational. Either it is a good situation and you can be happy about that or it isn't good for your particular needs/wants and you should consider other options. Either the company gives you a reason to feel good about working there or they don't but there has to be a cause.
I could be making a shit ton more money elsewhere, with my skill set. But I'm not leaving, cause the company I currently work for is one of the best places I've ever worked.
There is more to a compensation package than just the salary. Working conditions, colleagues, enjoyment of work,
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I suspect that "company" is sort of shorthand for "the other people there", but in any case I don't see why X not having emotions means you can't have emotions about X - for example when X is a painting or a piece of music.
But then again, what do I know - I'm not a pedantic aspie fucktard and I don't play one on TV.
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We're a small-medium (depending on your POV) custom software development house in Canada. Primarily java, but we do whatever the client wants.
jonah-jobs@jonahgroup.com
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Exactly this! The employer-employee relationship isn't exactly equal:
A company can fire you an a moment's notice but when you leave they want 2 weeks from you.
And employers are surprised that since they aren't willing to invest into employees that employees optimize the "game" by changing jobs every ~2 years since that is the best way to get a pay raise !?
Color me shocked.
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While the relationship isn't equal financially, the leave/fire is exactly equal.
You're not obligated to give 2 weeks and neither are they . You're given whatever the company is financially obligated to give you when you leave and vice versa. Etc.
The relationship isn't equal financially in that they make financially a substantially larger amount of money than what they pay you - which isn't disclosed to you. If you make $100k but they're making $700k off of you (even after expenses), who is getting the bad d
Equality and fairness (Score:3)
The relationship isn't equal financially in that they make financially a substantially larger amount of money than what they pay you - which isn't disclosed to you.
That is not necessarily true. Sometimes it is true and sometimes it very much is not. Believe it or not a lot of companies don't actually make much profit. Many actually lose money. People tend to have this peculiar notion that all companies are just raking in megabucks but for many of them that is very far from the truth. Furthermore in many cases the profit of the company is published. If I worked for Apple or Google I can look up exactly how much money they made during my tenure with the company.
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Believe it or not a lot of companies don't actually make much profit. Many actually lose money.
Then by the laws of capitalism they should not exist! They should pack it in, and leave room for other companies that can do the job successfully. If it cannot be done successfully then it just doesn't get done.
Losing money and adapting to changing conditions (Score:3)
Then by the laws of capitalism they should not exist!
If they lose money long enough to deplete their assets then they won't. But many companies lose money on a routine basis and have to adjust manpower levels to compensate. Sometimes it's because their industry is cyclical. Sometimes it's due to unexpected business problems. Sometimes it's just bad management. But companies can survive periods of losing money. They cannot do so indefinitely and continuing to employ surplus labor in the face of economic losses is a great way to ensure the company doesn't
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Employee turnover correlation with profits (Score:3)
But here we have companies complaining that it is too expensive to retain employees.. What I was trying to suggest is, if a company cannot have enough left over to make the employees happy and therefore stay, then obviously there is something fundamentally flawed with their business plan.
You are making the mistake of assuming that low employee turnover and successful business plans are highly correlated. It's pretty easy to demonstrate that this is not necessarily true. Sometimes it is too expensive to retain employees and the economically sane thing to do is to let them go and hire new as business conditions dictate. For an extreme example McDonalds has an annual turnover rate in excess of 100%. That means they will turn over more employees in the next 12 months than they currently emp
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Two weeks notice is just a courtesy (Score:3)
A company can fire you an a moment's notice but when you leave they want 2 weeks from you.
You can leave any time you want. The company is REQUIRED BY LAW to pay you for any time you have worked. The 2 week notice thing is nothing more than a courtesy. They cannot withhold pay (legally) nor can they require anything further of you unless you agreed to it in an explicit contract. The company can ask for two weeks notice but you are under no obligation to give it to them.
My take on two weeks notice is that in two weeks they will notice I haven't been there in two weeks.
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I believe a growing consensus exists in the IT industry that talent has become so expensive that it makes more sense to develop your own talent... Candidly, the people that have been loyal to the organization, that are active employees, that are eager and hungry to learn – those are the ones that I’m willing to invest in to keep.
Clearly this is being repackaged as some kind of new managerial innovation-- complete with new buzzwords. But at its heart, it seems to be saying, "We've been acting like it's easy to just bring in new talent whenever we want, as though employees can be treated as nameless, faceless cogs in a machine, to be swapped out whenever it's convenient. But maybe it's better to invest in your employees and keep them around, as tho
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Yes. The problem is that this company is the exception, not the rule. Otherwise we wouldn't have Disney IT people sounding off at Trump rallies.
As a person who loves new things (Score:3)
This, on the surface, sounds great.
What doesn't sound so great is it will probably end up being a gig-economy style hustle, always trying to get that edge to keep your job. "Oh, Bob, you got 3 certs last month, that's great!, but Susan got 4 and she paid for them on her own dime, sorry, bud, there's the door, get the fuck out."
Ehh... Cloud Computing? (Score:3)
Re:Ehh... Cloud Computing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the very definition of bad math/outsourcing mistakes.
Just because it costs less doesn't mean you're getting an equivalent service. If you save $200k but lose $500k in productivity then congrats you have outsourced to the detriment of the business. Likewise transition costs take out more productivity.
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Cutting ten jobs at $100,000 each by outsourcing to another company for $800,000. No try for $300-500K with H1B's
Living conditions (Score:2)
Subject line is subject (Score:2)
"If you go back a couple of years ago, we were heavily involved in the storage business. Now I can buy unlimited storage from the cloud. I don't need a lot of people doing storage. In fact, I may only need one."
After seeing "I can buy unlimited storage from the cloud" somehow I'm having a hard time taking the rest of the article seriously.
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This guy gets it, but he doesn't (Score:5, Interesting)
The most insightful thing Curt Carver says is at the very beginning of his article:
Candidly, the people that have been loyal to the organization, that are active employees, that are eager and hungry to learn – those are the ones that I’m willing to invest in to keep.
What he doesn't get is that Silicon Valley is the antithesis of that. There was a time where Silicon Valley didn't exist, and IBM and Bell Labs were king. According to this PBS Documentary [npr.org], the culture at that time was that talent was nurtured, not bought. You got your desk, you were a pencil pusher, and if you had ambition, you climbed the ladder, but you remained loyal to the company that provided for you. Then William Shockley broke away from Bell Labs, ventured out to California to make them a reality, and formed Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories. In a twist of irony, the very people he recruited to break ranks from Bell Labs (The "Traitorous Eight" [wikipedia.org] as they came to be called, quit to form their own company, Fairchild Semiconductor. (And exactly 18 months later, interestingly.)
Silicon Valley has always been about venturists who seek opportunity wherever they can find it. If that's Silicon Valley's own undoing, so be it. Let the snake consume its own tail.
Success (Score:2)
So, that's what San Francisco's like? (Score:2)
As opposed to the rest of the world, where most of will never see double-digit raises? And training - do mean something other than online stupid courses, with content we already know?
mark
Re: (Score:2)
I think the time of double digit raises in IT is past, except for really special circumstances. You have a point about training. Last year I worked for a company that had a training budget but didn't allow travel. So you could train, if you could do it with online classes you took at your desk in the (loud, distracting) bullpen area. It worked about as well as you could imagine.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the time of double digit raises in IT is past, except for really special circumstances.
I could make 40% more money if I took a job in the private sector. The nice thing about working for government IT is that benefit package is sweet and the prime contract is fully funded for the next four years. So I'm taking a break from the rat race of hustling for a new job every year to earn my technical certifications while I got job security for the next few years. When I do re-enter the private sector, I'll be making two to four times what I'm making now.
reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, as a 40-year worker in technology, I can definitely say that HR, managers, and CXX have all contributed to any problems they have. .NET programmer with 5 years experience. HR.
In 2001 I saw an ad for a
In 2005 I saw an ad for a linux programmer with VBA experience. HR
Golden Parachutes. Managers and CXX...
Outsourcing: Managers and CXX and MBAs . ( also, any in-house workers from some-unnamed-country ).
17 to 119 page employment contracts - HR extravagance and ego.
Sorry. I will not feed your machine any m
the cycle begins anew (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm understanding TFA correctly, we've come full cycle. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In the nineties, the thing was to hire bright individuals and grow them. Later, the paradigm changed to "IT is plug and play" so hire the talent you need at the time and lay off the people with training you didn't need anymore. Now we're back to the more healthy paradigm of growing your current employees to meet new challenges. This is a good thing. I wonder how long it'll last.
I also wonder what this will do of the paradigm of laying off locals and substituting green cards.
Re: (Score:2)
If I'm understanding TFA correctly, we've come full cycle. ... Now we're back to the more healthy paradigm of growing your current employees to meet new challenges. This is a good thing. I wonder how long it'll last.
...until the next business cycle and the suits have to "do" something.
Greater than recent? (Score:2)
The article is greater than recent? Are they still writing it or something?
A Black Hole (Score:2)
Here's the basic problem:
For most corporate management, IT -- particularly infrastructure -- is simply a black hole of cash. They don't understand what we do, they don't understand the value we bring to the company, and they don't know why they're paying us. It's just money going somewhere, and they don't understand where.
There's no way to make them understand. They lack even the basic computer skills necessary to do anything beyond everyday work on a PC. They have not spent years or decades in the fiel
Tech Enclaves (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing you need to realize is aritcles like this are talking about SPECIFIC ENCLAVES in the world - namely the Seattle area, the Bay area, the Austin area, and a few others... areas with huge concentrations of high tech companies. This huge concentration of companies combined with a huge concentration of very intelligent labour, results in a very competitive labour market. People in these markets routinely will work for 3 different companies in a 5 year timespan... they have no loyalty, they go where the money and/or opportunities are. As a result salaries are high and benefits are good. When you are competing against Google, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce, and Uber for employees, you have to pay well.
The thing that people who live in these areas DO NOT realize is that this is a UNIQUE situation to these enclaves, and does not translate to other places in the United States, let alone the world. People who work on the east coast or midwest do not have anywhere near the hypermobility of those on the west coast because the labour pool competition is not there.
The base message - if all you care about is a job and IT and money, move to the bay area. I can basically guarentee you you will find tons of well-paid work. Will you be able to afford to live there though? That is a different problem.
Re: (Score:3)
It might if your startup gets purchased. Centralized IT (e.g., no dedicated IT dude in the office of the acquired company) is one of the first "cost synergies" that goes into effect in my experience.
Re: (Score:2)
So it is more cost effective to retain the IT staff, retrain them, and give them career paths, than it is to simply lay them off every 18 months and bring in people who already know the new systems?
Not if you can get the H1-B cap raised.
Re: (Score:2)
sounds like you are not in management. back in the day you design your org chart with a plan over the next ten years in case someone left, transferred, or otherwise planned to stay with the company through retirement. today, there is such massive turnover that your org chart today looks completely different tomrorow as the article describes. you need to stay proactive on your business otherwise your entire company or department will suffer. maybe the timelines aren't xx years or xx months, but you canno
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that NOBODY FUCKING KNOWS HOW COMPUTERS WORK.
I was working the help desk at Google in 2008 when I got call from a university graduate who didn't know how to turn on a workstation. I literally had to walk him through pushing the power button on his workstation, as no one stood around to turn on his computer like they did at the university computer labs. You're be surprised by how many computer engineers don't know much about hardware.
Re: (Score:2)
I would be surprised by how many computer engineers don't know much about hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd said coders, developers, managers, etc. Computer engineers, though!?
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I wouldn't be surprised if you'd said coders, developers, managers, etc.
Based on my experience from working at software-based Fortune 500 companies, HR classifies coders, developers or managers as computer engineers. My own company classifies me as a computer engineer doing system admin work at an IT specialist pay rate, which I occasionally badger my manager about because the title implies I should be making two to four times my current salary in Silicon Valley.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, I see. I was thinking a computer engineer as someone like my friend who went to GA tech and took a bunch of actual hard-core engineering courses, as opposed to my other friend who got a ivy-league CS degree, vs me who majored in history and really likes computers as a hobby, and working towards turning it into a real jerb.
Re: (Score:2)
So, how many computer engineers *does* it take to change a lightbulb?
Re: (Score:2)
We just finished outsourced everyone, so management huddled to touch base with their core competencies, and outsourced the outsourcer.
--
Bingo?
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, bingo.