By Naked CIO, 31 March 2008 15:52
COMMENT
There's been a shift in attitudes among IT workers, argues the Naked CIO. Gone are the days when loyalty to your employer counted for something.
What most readers found provocative in my column on recruitment problems was the idea that employees lacked loyalty to their organisations.
Many seem to think an employee's lack of loyalty is a direct consequence of employers' autocratic attitudes to staff.
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But the lack of loyalty is not created by UK companies being elitist and oppressive in their management of IT workers. Disloyalty is an industry condition.
Employees have assumed the mentality of the freelance workforce. This change of mentality has eroded a sense of community in IT and in the business environments servicing IT workers.
The issues with offshoring and outsourcing that are having such an impact on IT employment are a result of this casual attitude in the UK's IT worker community.
IT salaries are at an all-time high. IT skills shortages are ever increasing. Those in favour of outsourcing or offshoring critical IT functions are bound to take the high cost and skills issues into consideration. It becomes a chicken-and-egg debate.
Does the act of considering an offshoring contract make me a disloyal employer? No, because the offshoring debate is an industry one.
Offshoring shouldn't be looked at from a company perspective. Staffing, skills, costs and business dynamics are industry issues. So what if the industry is choosing offshoring to control costs?
And surely if I am looking to hire local skilled staff, that should breed loyalty because we are not sending work off to some distant shore.
My company as a matter of standard operating policy gives generous bonuses, healthcare and life insurance. We even have incentive schemes for innovation and creative ideas. We treat our staff properly from day one.
So what more can an employer do to earn loyalty than offer great working conditions, a good environment and better than average compensation?
Grassroots innovation, venture capital and new ideas stemming from the creative minds of young talent is the key to the success of UK technology in years to come.
That future is being compromised by an overzealous, disloyal and over-capitalistic IT working community in the UK.
Comments
There are 30 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
It's probably too late. Schools, government, business have for too long been claiming that working in IT is a good well paid job. So now you get what they, and you, wished for - a generation of IT "professionals" who are in it (IT) for the money.
I'll bet, nine out of the 10 highest paid people in your organisation don't have an IT background, don't have the highest IQs and don't work the longest hours. Now check your 10 best IT people. Any wonder they're pissed off?
2. Charles Smith
Offshoring is a clear statement by an organisation that it places no value on the individual contribution of employees. It states senior management belief that they can package processes and hand them over to a third-party company in a distant country as a short sighted way of saving money.
Given those conditions it is unreasonable to expect any loyalty from that organisation's employees. IT employees are much more mobile and liable to vote with their feet.
In reality the company is importing cheap labour in return for the loss of business knowledge. Our children will pay the price.
3. Craig Simons
It is the Prince Syndrome. Company management executives come to believe that they are important Princes of Business. As a consequence they expect to receive feudal loyalty by right of position.
The reality is that IT employees can easily move on to a better employer who shows more respect of their employees. If the management shows true respect for their employees there will be less pressure for higher wages and also greater flexibility.
One wonders in which camp the feet of the Naked CIO rest.
4. John Rider
"Creative minds of young talent" is a phrase that displays the naked ageism institutionalised in the senior management of UK organisations.
Small wonder that the Naked CIO's company appears to suffer from a lack of loyalty from its personnel.
5. anonymous
Loyalty is a two-way thing, and certainly over the years I have experienced very little loyalty from my varied employers.
I've been outsourced once, relocated to Scotland once, relocated to the M4 corridor once, and relocated to Belfast as well.
The fact of the matter is that it is not just finacial concerns that motive IT staff but also security in their jobs. I have seen very few examples of that from my employers over the past 15 years so why should I show my employers the commitment they fail to show me?
6. anonymous
"My company as a matter of standard operating policy gives generous bonuses, healthcare and life insurance. We even have incentive schemes for innovation and creative ideas. We treat our staff properly from day one."
People as individuals are not all motivated by the same things but generally most people want to feel valued. That's most likely the missing magic ingedient in this company.
There are many loyal IT workers in the UK who have trust and respect for there employers and have no intention of jumping ship.
Unfortunately there are many companies that simply see the IT department as a non-revenue earning and service-orientated entity that supports the team but isn't actually part of the team. This is always going to have a negative effects on matters of loyalty for IT workers over time.
7. anonymous
Hardly surprising...
Endemic staff disloyalty - employers reap what they sow.
If you expect to be screwed over to add £1 to the bottom line, or so a greedy director can get their bonus, that is the respect you will get back.
Even worse is expected if you company is owned by the hyena's from the world of private equity.
8. anonymous
I had hoped this was an April Fools' Day joke. But the article was still there after noon today.
9. Chas
What you don't seem to understand or are ignoring is the simple fact that when the market slows down, as it enevitably will, you ditch your UK employees as they are more expensive than your offshore people.
Or are you telling us that you offer your staff long-term - and I don't mean 12-month - contracts.
How many of your employees have, for example, a five-year contractually guaranteed term with your company. I'd hazard a guess that it's approximately zero.
As security of employment no longer has a horizon beyond statutory notice periods then you get the loyalty you deserve.
I am sure that I am not alone in saying that I would jump at the opportunity to enter into a suitable - for both parties - long-term contract.
10. anonymous
I would love to be loyal to my company but they have other ideas. It's not just the erosion, year by year, of my starting salary by sub-inflation rises but it's the whole culture.
They want me to manage myself, resource myself, train myself and, if appropriate, even start the whole promotion process myself.
My managers do nothing apart from fret about the bottom line, because of pressure from on high. Every expense is treated with suspicion and even requests for contractual leave are met with only grudging approval.
Although I feel a loyalty to the product and the people around me, it is almost as if the company itself wants to destroy that - or at least overcome it.
11. anonymous
That's fine to point out. I guess it's a columnist's birthright to be allowed to point out the problems rather than the solutions. How do employers fix that pandemic though? Telling me that my tyre is flat isn't as helpful as telling me there's a spare in the boot.
No spares lying around in the workplace though - at least, no longstanding ones.
12. Chas
I like the spare-tyre analogy - offshoring is the now-ubiquitous space-saver spare wheel, which as everyone knows is alright for a short low-speed journey - and not worth a toss long term.
13. A Nonymous
It's a training crisis not a skills crisis.
Have a transparent regular training programme for your existing employees and you might find that you don't have to spend so much on salaries, you keep their wisdom within your organisation, and you stimulate their creativity.
14. paul broome
Good grief. What loyalty can any IT worker expect when at the mercy of shareholder value?
Bodged Marx: IT workers exchange their labour for wages or benefits as a means of production. Owners of the means of production make their cut from this.
Loyalty can exist to a limited extent but it should be a two-way street.
15. anonymous
"So what more can an employer do to earn loyalty than offer great working conditions, a good environment and better than average compensation?"
"That future is being compromised by an overzealous, disloyal and over-capitalistic IT working community in the UK."
It is ridiculous to blame the employees. The Naked CIO thinks that giving people a "better than average compensation" is enough to gain loyalty but later criticises employees for being capitalistic.
It is simple economics. Money = Utility. Other benefits = Utility. If your company pays an average compensation but has many other benefits - such as respect for staff and flexible hours - people will gain additional utility from those things. When they weigh up other jobs the utility they gain from their existing job will outweigh that of the job with a higher salary.
If the Naked CIO pays a better than average salary and yet people are still leaving then it is because they are unhappy in other ways.
Perhaps it is because he sees his own employees as:
"...overzealous, disloyal and over-capitalistic...".
16. Anon
Reduction in staff loyalty is happening across the board, not just in IT, for reasons already pointed out by other people.
I recall articles from over 10 years ago telling us that employers were no longer loyal to their employees, would take them on and lay them off according to need, that short-termism was the order of the day, and even that British workers were now in charge of their own careers and would have to take charge, pay for their own training, etc.
This has been my experience ever since then. Money is not a motivator. As well as money, conditions and extras, loyalty is linked to a person's emotions. This is a whole dimension which has been systematically eradicated from British business, in deference to pure financial consideration.
We can't therefore expect loyalty unless this dimension is reinstated in some measure. Assuming the worst about one's employees runs leagues in the opposite direction of so doing.
17. anonymous
"Great working conditions, a good environment and better than average compensation".
I'd take that - provided it came with ethical management and respect. Let me tell you a story.
Some 15 years ago I was struggling along as a small business with one other person. One of our main customers was a small but growing manufacturer of candles and giftware. Now this company had been going a few years and was still run by the family who started it. Between them they had an uncanny understanding of people, honesty - some people didn't like it, but you always knew exactly where you stood - respect, an open-door policy, and a big family atmosphere. I applied and was given a full-time job there.
The pay wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant - same for other elements of the package. But I really liked working there. I had respect, flexibility and a sense of being part of the business. I could have got twice as much money if I'd moved to the city but I know I wouldn't have been happy.
Sadly, the inevitable happened, and as the company grew, the bean-counters took over - and the original founders were forced out. The company changed - it was no longer "how good can we be", but how efficient.
The personnel director was replaced by an HR manager, and over time the company went downhill. Sales dropped by over 50 per cent in about two years. Of course, the management couldn't see that they were the problem - trying to cut corners and sell cheap tat in a premium market segment.
Pressure got worse, moral dropped through the floor, staff left or were forced out to cut costs, and my workload went up with increasingly unrealistic demands and an absolute refusal to support any training. I was prepared to use my holidays if they paid for the courses - but no way.
I had three months signed off with stress and left 'by mutual agreement'. One key issue was down to ethics, on a number of occasions I was asked to do things that I couldn't reconcile with what I would consider to be reasonable ethics - not least is honesty.
So what does that tell you? With the right team I was happy, I wasn't looking to move, and things got done. When the bean-counters took over and we changed from being people to resources, things went downhill.
So, Naked CIO - if you have a problem with staff turnover and want to see the source of the problem, get together with senior management and stand in front of a big mirror. There in front of you is the problem.
You cannot impose loyalty or respect. You cannot buy it. All the best leaders know that. It's something that you have to earn. If you don't know how to do that then you are in the wrong job.
18. Ian Hawkings
I work for an IT company that lays off its staff every time it fails to meet some obscure SEC criterion despite always having more cash in the bank than it had the previous year. I will always treat my employer with the same respect it extends to me.
19. Dave
I agree with most of the comments above. The Naked CIO seems to be just like his Australian counterparts.
I get a good salary, but in exchange for this I am on call 24 X 7, constantly being woken up to sort out issues and do after hours support. Funny though that it is damn near impossible to get any time off.
All of your incentives are revolving around money. How about some flexible working hours, respect for your employees skills as well as loyalty from you to them.
You may be amazed at the loyalty you get in return from simply treating your employees as people.
I work so I can live. I don't want to live just to work.
20. David Flint
Loyalty is a two-way street. Most UK businesses decided years ago that their employees were just resources - not integral parts of the business but something used by the business.
And what do you do with resources? You exploit them. And you fire them when they're no longer worth exploiting.
No wonder employees treat employers with an equal lack of loyalty.
21. anonymous
And why have "employees assumed the mentality of a freelance workforce"? Perhaps because that's how they are now treated.
Erosion of employee benefits such as pension rights, constant restructuring and the demise of a job for life have meant that the employee now has to look after himself and a quick look at freelancers suggests that their workstyle is a lot more attractive and is a better longer term proposition for today’s workforce.
Yet another inflammatory and not particularly useful article by the Naked CIO who appears to be living in cloud cuckoo land and needs to actually talk to the workforce rather then the next level of affirmation nodding management beneath him. Another T5 project...
22. Drew Stephenson
Sorry, but as you can probably tell from all the comments above, the Naked CIO is completely off the case on this one.
The idea that staff becoming mercenary is the cause of the lack of loyalty is totally back to front.
Staff are just reacting to the situation that endless reorganisations, cutbacks, outsourcing and offshoring plans and general management disregard have forced them into.
If you treat your staff as just another tool to do a job - starting by calling them "resources" - rather than as people then guess what? You're going to engender a culture whereby they treat the contempt that they receive.
The capitalism-is-god culture of the 1980s and early 1990s turned us all into part of the flexible workforce and in doing so taught us all that being loyal to your employer was the equivalent of asking to be shafted.
Strange that we decided on an alternative, isn't it?
23. Neil Barrett
Loyalty can only ever be two-way. You can only expect it, if you're prepared to give it first, and that's not been happening industry-wide for a decade or so, now?
You get the workforce you create - but that's the difference between leadership and management.
It ain't rocket science - the army taught me that one, 30 years ago.
24. Karen Challinor
I suggest you look up game theory, specifically the tit-for-tat strategy.
As long as employers were loyal to employees, employees felt secure and were loyal to employers in return, jobs could be for life and frequently were. If the company went through a difficult period everyone pulled together and suffered together
Once employers got the idea that employees were disposable and new cheaper ones could be hired as needed, employers stopped being loyal and found pretexts to get rid of their expensive legacy staff through outsourcing and offshoring. Difficult times are now an excuse to reduce the head-count. Consequently employees stopped being loyal to employers
As jobs are now no longer for life, the employee is forced to look for the maximum return to guarantee they can survive their inevitable unemployability when they get older. How many people do you know who have retired while in service in an IT job in the past 20 years ?
Hence employees are perceived as disloyal and focused on money.
However this is a reaction to the way they are treated by employers who are perceived as fickle, short-termists who can see no further than the year-end figures or, to put it another way, disloyal and focused on money.
Now employees can't fix this but employers could. It will require courage, vision and leadership instead of focus on shareholder dividends, quick-fix solutions, and short-term management.
25. Ste
If you want loyalty, buy a dog.
Your staff have no loyalty to you or your business and you have no loyalty to them.
Would you sacrifice your family's wellbeing for your staff? Of course not. Aside from life's civilities, they are nothing to you, and you are nothing to them.
That's life. They aren't your family or your pets.
26. anonymous
Don't worry, everything will sort itself out shortly.
Bellyaching about skill shortage and staffing problems is very reliable sign of coming recession, and next round of massive layoffs. Probably the most prominent example of this phenomena is ITAA PR campaign about critical programmer shortage around end 1990s. Shortly afterwards, the programming profession went down the tubes, and never recovered.
So, you have nothing to worry about. In a year, maybe two, you'll have droves of desperate job applicants at your disposal again.
27. anonymous
There are two fundamental causes: Thatcher and CGT.
To take the first, Thatcher very successfully created an environment that fostered the idea that it was everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost. The Naked CIO has taken that on board and is reaping the rewards.
The second effect is more subtle. The chancellor has just aggravated the problems created by our Capital Gains Tax regime. It fails totally to curb the very short-term view of those who own so many businesses: the institutional shareholders. They are encouraged to buy shares, make a quick profit, and sell them again.
The result is that executives are rewarded for short-term gains at the severe expense of the long-term health of a company. We have, indeed, a regime where what used to be investment is now institutionalised gambling.
Now if the CGT regime hammered those who sold shares soon after buying them, and positively encouraged people to invest for the long-term, we might begin to see a slow move towards fostering the intellectual capital that is represented by the Naked CIO's workers.
28. anonymous
Staff display no loyalty because there is no longer any such thing as job security.
29. anonymous
I recently worked for a large IT company to which I was loyal. But I was laid me off along with 12,000+ people so far this year. They even gave me a raise three months before being laid off. Little did I know that they simply gave me a good review and raise to keep me from jumping ship while on a project as some of my friends had recently. The day the project ended I received an email telling me my job had been eliminated. I will be more apt to leave my next employer if I have a good opportunity somewhere else in the future. Companies have no loyalty to the employee.
30. anonymous
More management lies.
"The issues with offshoring and outsourcing ... are a result of this casual attitude in the UK's IT worker community". No they aren't. The issues with offshoring are a result of it costing £3,000 per year for a programmer in India compared to £30,000 per year in the uk. If the Indian programmers earned comparable wages to those in the uk there would be no "offshoring".
"IT salaries are at an all-time high."
No they aren't. Adjusted for inflation IT salaries have been falling in real terms for many years. IT is no longer seen as a well-paid job, which is why far fewer people are going into it; university course admissions have halved.
"IT skills shortages are ever increasing." Rubbish. There is no IT skills shortage. What there is is an absolute refusal by employers to employ programmers over 40 years old - or 35 years in many firms.
"My company ... gives generous bonuses, healthcare and life insurance."
Yeah, right. You've closed the final salary pension scheme - and you may well not offer any pension scheme at all. The pitiful "bonus" is non-pensionable. And if any of your employees dare to use the sick leave you stigmatise them to hell.