IT Workers Believe That The End Of The World Is Coming (Soon)

Just in time for the end of July, The Wall Street Journal Tech Blog is reporting that the folks over at Technisource Inc. have gone and released the results of a survey on how IT folks feel about their jobs based on talking to about 450 IT staffers. In a nutshell, nobody's very happy right now.

Right now the U.S. economy is in the dumps, gas costs $4.00+ / gallon, milk costs $5.00 / gallon, and let's not even get started talking about electricity and home fuel oil costs. However, IT employment is one of the few rays of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy picture. In fact, IT hiring is up about 10%. Yea! What's so damming is that despite this good news, the survey reveals that IT folks are overwhelmingly negative about our prospects. Clearly we are looking at this as a "... glass half empty..." situation.

But wait, there's more bad news! Here's some other doom-and-gloom results from the survey:

• 70% - said that the economy will get weaker
• 59% - said that fewer jobs are available (not true by the way - tech hiring is up)
  
• 20% - don't believe that they could find another job
• 17% - doubtful about the future of their employer
  

Ok, so now that everyone is thoroughly depressed, maybe we should ask ourselves why there is this apparent disconnect between what IT staff is thinking and reality? Is it that so many IT workers don't feel that they have the perfect IT job? I don't think so. Instead, I think that there are at least two reasons (and probably a bunch more). One is that within companies IT staffers are seeing a constant stream of "... we must find more ways to cut IT costs ..." emails, programs, and words rolling down from leadership mountain. We all know that this generally leads to headcount reductions and so we await the inevitable chopping to begin.

Additionally, the median salary for IT workers has dropped to $73k in 2008. It was at $74k just last year. It's not that big of a drop; however, what is much more worrying is that this is the first time that its dropped. It sure doesn't look like anyone is going to be getting a big raise this year.

To wrap this gloom-fest up, let's tackle one last question: what's an IT manager to do? Let's assume for a moment that you don't have access to a pot of cash that you can use to boost everyone's salary. Let's also assume that you can't gurantee everyone that their jobs are safe from the chopping block. Do you sorta feel like both of your hands are tied behind your back? Here are three simple steps that you can take to boost team morale and help everyone to become more productive:

1. Change the focus from the short term to the long term: the depressing news is in the paper (or online) every morning. Change your team's focus and get them to take a long term view. Have them anticipate how they will feel when the milestone is reached, the project is done, the users start to send their thanks back to the team.
   
   
2. Work On Self Improvement For Each Team Member: You can't guarantee everyone a job for life, so start to put some life into their job. Specifically, make sure that everyone has an assignment that stretches their abilities and makes them do something that they haven't done before. Additionally, work out a skill training plan for each team member. You can't control the future; however, you can help them make sure that they have the strongest resume possible.
   
   
3. Strengthen The Team: Provide every team member with the ability to perform some task that makes the team stronger. Although you may not be able to cheer up each and every team member, if they start viewing their work as supporting the team, then all of a sudden their level of commitment will shoot up.

I'd just like to leave you with a few words from one of my favorite Broadway musicals, Annie:

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
'Til there's none

When I'm stuck with a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And grin,
And say,
Oh

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may

Tomorrow
Tomorrow
I love ya
Tomorrow

You're always
A day away

Tags: employee motivation, motivation, it career, jobs

Employee Motivation: What To Do When You Feel Passed Over

I recently had a chance to talk with a friend of mine who works as a developer in the information technology department for a major telecommunications firm. I was surprised to discover that he was very angry and was thinking about quitting his job. It turns out that he had just completed a major project. He and two others had put in those non-stop 60-70 hour days. He had been away from home for the better part of two months and he was very proud of what was finally produced.

However, what had gotten him angry was that two other individuals had joined the project late in the game, had not worked nearly as hard as the core group of three had, and in the end they not only got credit for the project's success, but they also got promotions while the core group of three were not promoted. Is is any wonder that my friend was so angry?

We spend a lot of time recruiting the best information technology employees and then we spend at least as much time worrying about employee motivation all too often only to end up with angry, bitter staff. In the case of my friend, what had gone wrong was instantly clear to me because I've done it to myself countless time. I call this situation, the "engineering field of dreams" problem.

Jobs in Information Technology allow us to focus on building things using only our minds and hands (for typing). As engineers we have a bad habit of completely focusing on solving the technical problem that we've been assigned and not lifting our heads up until we have a finished product. The problem with this is that we then expect the rest of the world to look at what we've made and realize what a great worker we are. In my case, I blame my Mom because whenever I took something that I had made to her she always reacted with joy and surprise and told me that it was the best thing that she had ever seen. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't work that way.

So what should my friend have done? While he was working on the project he should have realized that he had another job to do at the same time. In IT management speak we'd call this an "overlay job". Every single day he needed to be managing his career -- thinking about what he needed to be doing in order to get recognized for what he was doing and get considered for a promotion the next time an opening showed up. You know what he said when I told him this: "Hey Jim, I just don't like to brag about myself!" Two quick replies to that: (1) if you don't, then who do you think will? and (2) bragging would be bad, informing others would be good.

I ended up having a very long talk with my friend; however, here is the gist of what we talked about. He needs to identify who he needs to make aware of his contributions (his boss, his bosses boss, and the bosses of any department that his project interfaces with). He needs to communicate with these people regularly (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). Communicating does not mean sending them mindless status reports. He needs to send brief, concise emails that provide valuable information such as "We had a problem, but here is how we solved it..." When he sends an email to these important people, he needs to address it to only them -- don't CC them or send it to a distro list. One-to-one sends a powerful message. Finally, he needs to do more than just send emails: he needs face time with the decision makers. I suggested that he use the excuse of "checking to make sure that you agree with the decisions that we've made" line to set up a meeting.

So remember: you are in charge of your career and nobody else. As technical professionals we all suffer from a "love my work, love me" syndrome and we need to do a better job of communicating with those in charge in order to move our career along.

Q: What's Worse Then An Unhappy Worker Leaving? A: If They Stay...

We all know that having high turnover can at best be disruptive and at worst can throw projects off schedule, kill budgets, and doom overall employee morale. So you would think that if you are somehow able to have a low number of employees leaving that everything would be hunky dory, right? Wrong -- you might now have lots of unhappy employees who have for one reason or another decided that they can't leave right now. They'll keep coming into work each day (or logging on if they are unhappily telecommuting), but they will be dragging their virtual feet and just going through the motions. They are not going to be helping the company be a success.

Why are so many non-leaving employees unhappy? I think that I know the reason and the author Patrick Lencioni has captured them quite nicely in his book "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job". In his book, Patrick states that he believes that people become unhappy in their jobs when their basic social needs are not being met. Yeah, yeah, yeah -- we all love a paycheck and the bigger the better. However, we really go to work in order to have some very basic human needs met: to get a sense of accomplishment, to boost self-esteem, and to feel that we are part of a community.

When we aren't geting these needs met, Patrick calls the problems "anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurability". Great, now you've got the silent problem of unhappy IT workers lurking in your department. What to do?

Don't dispair! In order to reach out and change unhappy workers into committed employees you have to tackle these key issues one by one. One-on-one feedback is the key to providing emplyees with both a sense of accomplishment (they know who I am!) and boosting self-esteem (they like what I do!). Developing a sense of community is somewhat more difficult -- in the IT field if this is done incorrectly, it can come across as fake. However, if done correctly you can turn a lackluster department into a team of overachievers. Now that's something to cheer about!


Tags: community, motivation, self-esteem, sense of accomplishment

The Power Of A "Thank You"

So here we find ourselves in the powerful 21st Century and yet still we are looking for ways to motivate and keep our teams together. Hmm, some things never change. I recently had an experience that once again reminded me about the power of something that I already knew but had just once again forgotten about.

I had an upcoming trade show and somehow I got sucked into "booth duty" -- standing for hours on a cement floor trying to interest walker bys in your product. With just four days left before the big show, I now realized that I had no material to hand out that would describe the product that I'm responsible for. I quickly pulled together a 1-page handout and then I ran smack dab into the company's legal and layout teams. These two groups are never easy to work with nor do they move quickly ("you want it when?"); however, things were even worse because they were involved in a major company marketing material overhaul and had even less time than normal to deal with requests.

I tracked down a technical material expert, we'll call her Carole, and asked for her help. She started by letting me know that what I wanted to accomplish in such a short time was probably impossible, but she was will to give it a try. She made edits to the handout herself in order to get it to flow through the legal department easier, set up calls with the legal team and she worked with the layout police. In the end, it was through her efforts that on Friday at 5:00 pm I got a final, approved copy that could be handed out at the show -- an internal company record if ever there was one.

For most IT departments, the story would normally stop here. However, I was so impressed with Carole's efforts when I so clearly did not deserve her attention that I sat down over the weekend and wrote a thank you email to her boss. I explained what the situation was, what Carole had done, and why it meant a lot to the company. Here's the amazing part: her boss shot me back a thanks for thanking her note. Then I got a thank you from Carole who had been congratulated by her boss. Finally, I got a thank you note from Carole's VP -- clearly my original email had been forwarded up the chain of command. One simple thank you had accomplished a great deal.

So what's to learn from all of this? Well first off, thank yous still count -- none of us send enough of them and we all really should spend some time each day thanking those who help us to get our work done. Next, when you do send a thank you, be sure to include enough info so that the person who is receiving it can understand the whole story and realize what was done. Finally, when trying to keep an IT team or department motivated, sometimes the best strategy might be to get folks one the outside to send a note reminding everyone that they really are doing a good job!

How Come All Of The Good IT Workers Are Already Taken?

So why isn't your IT staff performing up to your expectations? Don't they understand just how important the work that they do is to the company? Why is it so hard to keep the really good ones -- they just seem to keep leaving!

If you work in an IT department or -gulp- manage IT workers you know what a challenge it can be on a daily basis to keep everyone onboard and motivated. Hey, it's hard for YOU to stay motivated let alone trying to make sure that your team / department are feeling good about themselves, their career, the company, etc. Man, where do you even start?

I can't promise you that we'll have all of the answers; however, I can tell you that IT workers are a special breed. We're smart, we can be motivated, and we like a challenge. You just have to figure out how to reach us. How to do that is what this blog is all about...