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UK Companies Love IT Workers, Love Not Returned
Roblimo writes "'The study, completed in early July, showed that U.K. employees working in the information technology industry are more valued than they think they are,' says a story at ITMJ.com, but it also says, 'According to the results of the survey, only 45% of IT workers feel valued at work, and 70% don't believe that their job reflects their true potential.' Not only that, but 'Seventy-five percent feel discriminated against because of their age; 43% say their bosses think they are too young, and 32% feel too old.' That leaves only 25% who believe they're the right age for their jobs, and only 30% who feel they're working to their true potential. Does this mean U.K. employers need to worry about a mass exodus from the I.T. field, or is this just normal griping?"
70% don't believe that their job reflects their true potential
I'm not surprised. I don't think anyone wants to imagine "Help Desk II" being the maximum of their potential.
A think a key failing with IT people is believing you can storm in at 20 and somehow be a senior developer.
No, I think a key failing in the IT field is the application of double-standards.
For example, one job I had in my early twenties, I was relatively inexperienced. I'd had a lot of "hobby experience" and only one proper job on my CV (a company that ceased trading, so it looked pretty suspect).
Naturally, I was taken on in this new job as a "junior developer". What I wasn't told was that 75% of the development team had handed their notice in, including basically everybody who was capable of doing what it is I was taken on to do.
Within a few months, I was basically doing the job of this 75%. I was barely keeping up with the work (a lot of putting out fires), but the owner of the firm wasn't willing to hire anybody with experience - or, for that matter, anybody who could actually code.
See, I was desperately unhappy at that job, for various reasons. The main one, though was that I was treated as the junior developer for the purposes of salary, and my opinion on things was taken as seriously as a junior developers would be, but when it came to responsibility or workload, I was treated as some kind of hero programmer who could fix everything.
The owner wanted it both ways - a cheap junior programmer he could ignore, and a skilled programmer who could do the work of many. While I can't say for sure that this sort of attitude is widespread, it certainly looks that way to me. So don't be so quick to assume that it's an inflated ego that causes young people to think they can do a lot - maybe it's just that they are actually doing a lot, and just not being treated accordingly.
I've been working at my job doing verification work for about 5 years. I generally feel like I'm doing the same job I was doing 5 yeas ago without any real change or growth.
But today I had one of our new hires come in and ask a few questions about solutions that are pretty much daily routine - obvious - to me now. And I realized that 5 years ago, I had to ask very similar questions. Since then, I had become the expert. And thinking about it, there are a lot of job proficiencies and responsibilities I've acquired over the 5 years that I just wasn't consciously aware of on a daily basis without actually stopping to think about them.
It's easy to forget that you didn't always know everything you know now, and that your job has changed more than just salary grades and amounts.
paintball
I want to feel valued by having a wage increase. I don't care much for the smiles and congratulations.... they're few and far between anyway, and then what are they going to say? "Thank you for keeping the network up, like it should be anyway"?
As far as I'm concerned, nobody knows I exist until the network goes down - then they all start to care.
I don't mind. I just want the cold hard cash anyhow.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
In my opinion, IT workers generally have an over inflated view of their own importance. They serve a business function that helps the organisation run, same as personnel, finance, facilities, etc. So many IT folk think they are the company. The guys who bring in the money and make the actual product are the ones that count, the person maintaining the mail server is no more or less important than the person who makes sure the air conditioner is working correctly.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I'm not convinced about this. I've worked in many companies where IT staff are treated visibly worse than those in other roles. The only exception is remuneration -- we're paid better than those in other areas. But this in itself leads to problems. Many companies see IT as a huge drain on their pockets, and resent us for it. The biggest problem, though, is that many companies fail to see IT as core to their business. They think of themselves as a bank or a publisher or an insurance broker first, and as an IT shop second. True, IT isn't the reason for their existence, but they can't grasp how much their business would fall apart without it.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Excellent FP! I spent 15 years "digging ditches" before spending another 15 yrs "sipping lattes". I have never written a pearl script but I appreciate the knowlage that my proven ability to "work it out" enables me to swap one well paid job for another whenever I feel like it.
The very first thing that spun me out about "office" bosses as compared to a "dirt" boss was that they said "please" and "thank-you". The idea that a boss would let you manage your time without a clock card was also a new experience.
To All the wasted talent out there:
If you think someone is under-estimating your talent, then quit. If you can't afford to risk quiting because, say, your boss won't stop you, or you will have trouble getting another job. Then it's likely you are full of yourself, and that, rather than the job, is making you miserable.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I think it's fair to say that 100% of poms are upset about the recent Ashes result.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
>my IQ is way above the top half percentile line required by the definition of the term genius.
Here we go again...my IQ.
Seriously, how intelligent is it to claim that having a high IQ is the definition of genius? Who defined that? Certain people have high IQs; many of them are intelligent; some are not. Other very intelligent people have lower IQs. Haven't you read Myers-Briggs'/Jung's (etc.) stuff on intelligence?
In a field of work where high IQ (but not necessarily intelligence) is common, you will naturally find people who over-rate themselves and therefore consider themselves under-valued or discriminated against in some way. And their IQ will lead them to observe (but not prove) patterns in this so-called discrimination.
Someone of true intelligence will not need to gripe or make claims (true or not) that their IQ defines them as a genius; they will have the intelligence to know how to forge their way forwards/upwards and be happy in the process of doing so.
I'm submitting as AC; I'm not sure how the moderators will view this. For the record, some test told me I had an IQ of 150. Am I intelligent? Hell, who cares? I enjoy my life; I enjoy my work and feel no superiority over anyone.
No, I don't buy that. I've worked in an IT (developer/analyst) role in a number of companies, and they've pretty much all treated their IT staff badly in comparison with other groups. Systemic problems common to all have been:
- a complete lack of knowledge or interest in how they do their job; or, more pertinently how long it takes to do things
- repeated promises by people in charge to get jobs done far quicker than they can actually be done, leading to horrendous crunch periods
- an assumption that anyone in IT is happy to work nights
- understaffing
- no career path leading to promotions other than into management - ie it's impossible to rise through the ranks as a coder, even a spectacularly good one
etc etc.
These have been the case in every place I've worked, as well as everywhere my friends and workmates have.
Is there going to be a mass exodus? Probably not. The money is ok, and most people aged 30 and over don't have the financial option to retrain into something else and take the paycut. Luckily for me, I do, so I'm going back to what I used to do pre-IT - law. Having worked in both jobs, I can honestly say there's no comparison when it comes to the complexity of what you do, the respect your job title accords you, stress levels, and the money you get at the end of the month.
You only know if you are loved based on how the lover treats you. A lot of times, I know I was 'valued' by the company highly. But the treatment I received indicated that management valued me as an asset, not as an entire person. I was valued, but many qualities I consider integral to my sense of self were viewed as 'inconvenient', and 'obstacles to my advancement'. This is a very mixed message. It doesn't say, "we love you", it says, "we -would- love you if you were a little different; all you need to do is to stop being -you-."
Many managers, both in and out of IT, are very poor at communicating with employees.
Another problem is that many IT people are dissatisfied with "the way we've always done things." A lot of times, management insists on doing various things in very sub-optimal ways, and it can grate on the nerves of people who can't help but see better and more efficient ways to do things.
When your ability to patch the same broken software, on your day off, for the 300th time is 'valued', but your repeated requests to be allowed to -fix- the damn thing once and for all are ignored, it grates on the nerves.
In the post titled, "PHB - leave us alone!", AccUser points out another thing. It can be reslly frustrating to do something really spectacular and have management ignore it, while simultaneously misrepresenting and over-praising accomplishments that the IT staff knows are technologically crap.
A lot of bosses can't step outside their world view enough to really communicate with techies who have very different values. I've turned down some very lucrative jobs because there is no way I could reconcile my values with those of the firm's managers.
Managers focus so much on delivery dates, market share, product names, what color the splash screen should be, etc. These are necessary things, but a smart manager will realize that these are -never- going to be the motivators for the tech staff. Getting defects under control, smooth and predictable integration, automating bullshit tasks or removing them entirely; -these- are the IT staff motivators.
You are a cog, a part, a line in the overhead, like lights and rent and shrinkage. You should be grateful you have a job because we are thinking of shipping your job off to the place that had a thousand people drown in the monsoon flooding last week.
What an arrogant SOB. Help Desk isn't some kind of punishment. Help Desk is hard, and apparently requires skills this crowd doesn't have. People skills. Not only do you have to be technically proficient. You need to be able to handle people. Of course most "I really want to be a developer" types don't have that skill, so their miserable all the time, and take it out on those who are good at what they do.
I can't figure out if you're trying to be a smartass or not. Yes, I work in the IT field (but I'm in the US, not the UK). Yes, people are leaving.
So far we've got one that just left to do a masters degree in social work, another went to library school, another went to law school, and I'm looking at a masters in accounting (even though I've got an IT undergrad). Ages range from late 20's to early 40's. Of course we've got a couple of folks doing MBA degrees at night. We've even had a few go into construction.
Some of these folks no longer give a damned about the money, and give more consideration to work environment, future prospects, and social responsibility.
And here's the ego part: every one of us are considered top flight employees. The marginal employees seem to be the ones who are sticking around.
The secret? Live within your means. Retraining is virtually imminent nowadays.