Young IT Workers Disillusioned, Hard to Retain

bednarz writes to mention that NetworkWorld has an interesting examination of young IT professionals and why many make unreasonable demands for their services. "'The issue managers are facing is with retention, not hiring. That means the work environment is not living up to the employee's expectation,' he says. For instance, many younger workers expect to get an office immediately or be paid at a rate higher than entry level."

Comments

Re:Sometimes it is not being spoiled..

[jroysdon]

Working for any government agency has other perks. You've got as many or more holidays as a bank and the same hours. The pay is lower, but the stress and time in the office is much lower. Short of committing a felony, you're pretty much guaranteed a job for life once past review periods.

This is just my two cents working at IT companies who do work for government agencies and in my experience interfacing with their staff.

Re:No age discrimination!

[DaveAtFraud]

I had four people with PhDs along with about twenty other folks with either an MS or BS working for me at one point (I have a MS in Math) doing software development. PhDs are actually really easy to manage if you aren't intimidated by managing people who are more intelligent than you. The trick is that you can't be into the "power trip" mode of managing where you tell subordinates what to do. The alternative is really simple. I'd get a "request" from my manager and I'd go to the person responsible and sit down with them and say, "This is what I've been asked to do..." At that point *we* would come up with the best approach to accomplishing or circumventing the request.

The idea is to use their intelligence; not ignore it. They appreciate it and the job gets done. Most managers I've dealt with can't get around the not telling subordinates what to do. Sad.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Unionize!

[Bluesman]

I think the best part would be the immediate flush of jobs to India once the IT union tried to strike the first time.

Unions are a pyramid scheme. It might work out great for the first few people on board, but it puts the company at a competitive disadvantage which in the long run will result in fewer jobs.

You can't get something for nothing.