IT staffers vent about disturbing employment trends.
I have to laugh when I read an article like "16 Ways to Keep Your Best Employees -- Without Breaking the Bank." The article starts with these two words: "Employees matter."
Really? Is this where the IT industry is at -- we need to be told, or at best reminded of, that fact?
The 16 techniques include advising IT managers to create the kind of environment where people can do their best work, give praise where praise is due, and create an environment of trust between employer and employee.
The IT industry is looking at some real problems that have everything to do with how companies and managers treat their employees, and if only a lack of praise were the worst of it.
I have blogged about the lack of IT graduates, how the IT industry is failing to get some of the best and the brightest to enter its field despite a hot market and relatively high pay, and how the industry treats its more senior staff.
The situation is troubling all right, but the responses to my blogs are illuminating.
Melvin Bumstead responded to my blog about senior level programmers being laid off to accommodate the higher salaries of newer staff with this comment: "After watching some senior level programmers get laid off because they were 'too expensive' and watching these jobs go to offshore programmers for a fraction of the cost, I will not recommend anyone to this industry who wants to establish a comfortable life-long career. Go where you're watched out for and respected."
Kenneth Lloyd had a similar message in his comment to my blog about the lack of IT graduates. He writes: "Given the history of treating IT jobs and the people that perform them as a commodity, what do companies expect?"
As my teenage daughter would say, Ouch.
Another commenter notes: "College kids are smart to avoid IT. My company is currently increasing its use of offshore (India) outsourcing services while at the same time terminating U.S. employees. Some analysts predict that 50% of IT jobs in the USA will be offshored. I've got over 15 years in the business, and I love the technology. But I'm looking for work in another field, like sales. If I were a college kid I would get into law or health care or social work (government job). U.S. employers treat their IT workers like dung and are replacing them with Third World workers as fast as they can. Where's the future in that? (There isn't any!)"
Double ouch. It sounds like lack of praise is the very least of the industry's problems.
Next Page: IT As A Commodity
