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Companies More Likely To Outsource Than Train IT Employees
snydeq writes "IT pros feeling the pressure to boost tech skills should expect little support from their current employers, according to a recent report on IT skills. '9 in 10 business managers see gaps in workers' skill sets, yet organizations are more likely to outsource a task or hire someone new than invest in training an existing staff. Perhaps worse, a significant amount of training received by IT doesn't translate to skills they actually use on the job.'"
Guys, seriously. Nobody wants to spend money on an employee they aren't likely to have around in a year or two anyway; and even if they did, it's easier just to phone HR and say "Hey, I need a dozen people with xyzzy skill." "derp derp derp" "Okay then! I'll see them on monday." The idea of the company taking care of you died in about, er... the 1950s. Deal with it.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Slashdot Cruiser covered in Grits.
Money talks... Shotsighted decisions for quick profit and cost cuts are "in" these days. But in the end all cuts on wrong places will come back and bite whoever will be in charge. The sad thing is it is already someone else because the one that decided for outsourcing is most probably safe up the ladder for the money he "saved".
A manager is insulated from the real costs of hiring a new employee, whereas costs for training for an existing employee show up nice and neatly on his budget.
Why? HR. HR ensures it's own existence by hiding the costs of new hires. Managers are happy to take advantage of this.
Most of what I do, is come in after the outsourced contract workers are done and make things work. Granted, that's for custom software development, but the principal is the same.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Most computing related jobs are learned by reading large manuals, training courses can only impart a very low volume of information in comparison. If people are repetitively asking for training, it just might be the case that the wrong people have been hired. It takes an expert in any given field to hire and supervise any given type of expert, I wonder if it is time to look at the skill set of the people hiring and controlling jobs.
The purpose of existence is to make money.
But I've received online security training by IT, ethics training by legal, harassment training by HR, business development training by BD, health training by our new insurance provider, all delivered by automated Flash apps voiced by a kindly sounding lady, after which *I had to get 80% on a 5-question multiple-choice test* to get my printable Certificate of Compliance! I have a hard time remembering which side of this keybored thingy to bang on sometimes, but by God I know company policies!
A lot of public companies decimated their college hire programs over the last decade. Usually the focus has become MIS grads groomed for middle management of offshore resources. Basically it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. "We use off shore because we can't find people." Yeah and you can't find people because you refuse to put money into college hires.
College hires are more likely to get involved with start ups and small consulting companies. Both are fine, but neither prepare one for corporate work.
FTA:
As it stands, 57 percent of respondents said training or retraining staff would be their strategy to closing the skills gap. 38 percents said they would go with outsourcing or contractors; 28 percent said they would hire new employees.
Yea, that adds up to over 100%. Whatever.
Message here is that if you consider yourself a skilled employee, you (not your employer) are responsible for keeping your skills up to date. Companies don't train Luddites.
In my experience, the summary touches on the chief cause of this problem: If an organization can't train in-house then they have to look to 3rd parties to provide the training, and all too often those 3rd parties lack the skills and/or knowledge to effectively educate the employees in anything practical. And in most cases they're never held to account for their lack.
So at that point it simply becomes cheaper to outsource the job to someone who has to get the job done in order to be paid, rather than pay employees to learn worthless skills.
This has been this way since I can remember. 17 years in this business and I think I have received maybe two formal training sessions, both two days. Not to mention the real value of what is being delivered for that $2495.00 session is sh*t. The costs of IT to the business and individual is incredible. If an individual were to go out and get a current MCSE, what is the expected life span of that certification? What are the real costs in terms of fees, tests, software, and hardware to achieve such accredidation. If you are working for a company, you really can't deduct those expenses. If you are on your own, you won't see that return until the next year. And when the economy tanks, what you used to be worth is double digits less that what you were before. I am self tought by in large because I love to help people, I love to solve issues, and I love to build things, but what I am experiencing in terms of my lack of paper pedigree is hurting my future prospects and at this point I can't really afford to spend thousands on what I already know or if I don't, I know where to find it. To business on the otherhand, this is all a write off. Pay well, educate, support and respect your IT staff and you won't have a lot to worry about.
with LOWER wage keyboard monkeys.
See EDS. EDS has been doing this for 10 years, not just recently.
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout, C.I.O.
Make execs hold 20 year stock, instead of the year or 2 bs.
If you're getting into IT now, probably better have a backup plan - because when you're in your 40s and 50s, nooooooooooooobody's gonna want you.
They train the off-shore people so that they'll be competent in our jobs.
I wish I was kidding...
Here's your opportunity. Learn it yourself and be more valuable to your company.
Or don't, and whine, and be the next guy laid off.
Most of what I do, is come in after the outsourced contract workers are done and make things work.
Most of what I do (as a contractor) is come in and do the work existing employees are afraid to touch or can't do in the first place.
Then, despite succeeding in the task, I seldom hear from them again. And it takes damned near forever for clients to bite the bullet and call someone in to handle the raging fire.
Employees think they have it so difficult with low pay, lousy hours, HR, yada, yada. Try contracting.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
FTA1: "... organizations are more likely to outsource a task or hire someone new than invest in training an existing staff." FTA2: "As it stands, 57 percent of respondents said training or retraining staff would be their strategy to closing the skills gap. 38 percents said they would go with outsourcing or contractors; 28 percent said they would hire new employees." Something.... something's not right here. How the hell anyone could draw the conclusion that companies are less likely to train when the percentage that would train is 57%? oic 57+38+28=123% 38+28=66% 66% > 57% therefore... more
expletives welcomed
It's not any more that economies in recession are cheap, most of South America are not in recession and even have a similar living costs to the US, yet are heavy outsourcers with a flawless track record (look at Globant). The actual reason why outsourced companies are cheaper is that in US the skill-cost curve is exponential, while in most of the rest of the world is linear. Add to that that high level education in many countries (such Argentina) is completely free and as a result you have very cheap skilled teams.
I noticed this years ago, so I started contracting. With the extra money, I paid for my own training. If a company is not going to help you, why should you show any loyalty? They have not earned it.
The last time I received any kind of IT training was when my company was in the process of switching from Quark to InDesign for publication layout. My role would involve checking articles in and out of the collaboration system and making a few minor text edits while they were in the system; nothing more. The "training" we were scheduled for involved something like four consecutive days of three-hour group training sessions. Needless to say, I said, "Thanks, I think I've got it..." and walked out during the first coffee break of the first session.
I suspect most corporate training is similarly asinine, so I'll ask: Where do these employees expect their companies to go to find training that isn't a total waste of time and money?
Breakfast served all day!
Part of the job is learning it on your own, volunteering for new things, and sometimes exaggerating your experience to get into new technologies. No company has ever spent a dime on my training, yet I've managed to build a killer resume just by never ever saying "No" to anything.
.NET experience. My coworkers are exceptionally good at Java and I know they'd figure out C# over a weekend, but nobody volunteered! Except me. I got a 12 week gig (with paid overtime!) and all the latest Microsoft buzzwords to add to my resume.
I'm working in a Java shop and the PHB sent out a group email looking for volunteers with
:wq
If they train an existing employee that only get someone who "knows" the material. If they outsource or hire someone new that can get someone who actually done it before. As anyone who has tried to get hired on the strength of a newly learned skill can tell you, companies only value skills that have already been applied at other companies.
If you run a small/medium business, it makes perfect sense to outsource your IT as long as you do it locally. Also, if you're an IT technician, then you need to start your own IT firm or work for an existing firm. Most small businesses don't need to hire an IT guy for $50,000+ a year just so he spends 8 hours trying to remove the malware from some unimportant employee's laptop. You can pay half the cost for a local IT company to proactively manage your network, provide remote and on-site support, and in-shop repair services. Not to mention, your IT firm can hire dozens of local IT techs and give job opportunities to many people. You make more money, and companies save money, and IT techs actually have the opportunity to grow and learn more about bettering the services they offer their clients. It just has do be done locally.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
how many times did we hear how difficult it was to put another office suite on desktops? Does anyone think this is just the Windows user base and not the Windows IT crowd too? So it's not surprising new IT projects get outsourced instead of using inhouse employees. If this was different, we'd probably see more open source used in IT but that's not the case with Windows shops. They only want to do what they know.
As a software developer, I have seen contractors brought in to get the team up and running on new tech and that worked great. But the team did have lots of UNIX background and learning new tools was nothing new to most of the team. I mentioned dropping in an open source CMS system to a friends team of Windows developers at lunch one time and they were all against it. Open source is too hard to figure out is what I got back and there's nobody to call for support. waaaaaaaaa
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I thought all companies were like this?
If my company needs a specific technical skill, like if they need someone to use .Net to program our Sharepoint site, or they need someone to develop an iPhone app, if they don't already have someone with that experienc ein-house, their choices are to pay someone to learn the skill and "learn on the job" as they become proficient at the skill...Or they can send the task outside and let someone (or some company) who's already experienced in that skill do the work.
However, if they need help with a specific app, like their accounting system, payroll system, etc, then they will pay for training because there aren't that many people out there that already have experience with that specific system and it's almost always cheaper to train internal employees to run the system than to pay the vendor every time they want to write a new report.
Also, when they pay an employee to learn a marketable skill, that employee will likely use his new-found skill to seek a better paying job. But when they teach an employee how to run XYZ accounting system, there's much less chance of the employee finding a job with that skill, so the company's investment is safer. (not impossible though, our company lost our payroll specialist after he led us through a payrolll implementation and he went to work for a different company that uses that same payroll system).
The biggest joke is that they still make us come up with professional development goals for the year with the illusion that the company will give us the training to help us meet those goals, but of course it never happens. The guy that wants to learn .Net so he can help put financial data on the Intranet Sharepoint site ends up getting sent to an XYZ Accounting report writing class instead.
This is why I'm going to school after my wife finishes her MA. I'm in my mid 30's,have been in IT since I was 21, and honestly see no future in my current job.
Increasingly, my employer outsources tasks that we have the in house skill but not the time to perform. Our current staffing is at 1999 levels, the year I started here, and there is no relief in sight. All we have time to do now is fight fires and maintain existing systems.
Two rounds of layoffs ago, we did interesting things and got to implement new technologies we adopted, but no more. We now spend more than the equivalent of an additional staff member on maintenance contracts, and contractors fees.
I see more value in a paper clip at least it holds things together and is cheap.
I have hired people like this, and found many of them less than desirable. I have hired people with anywhere from 3-10 years of experience in exactly what I am looking for. When they start working, I find their skill level much to be desired. They try to apply a method they used before, which is completely inappropriate for the situation at hand. I find them taking short cuts they think I won't notice. They argue with the standards we have in place, not because they point out why they are bad, but because they are too much work. Now, I have also hired great people this way. What I am really looking for is someone who works to understand the problem and can learn, research and develop a solution. Sometimes the guy right out of school is the best one for this. Other times it is someone we already have on hand who has no experience with what we are doing, but is very flexible and can learn quickly.
This is likely to be an unpopular opinion on slashdot, but the fact is most companies are not in the IT business. That means their primary service/product is not IT. If a company is selling shoes for example, they're not exactly going to be innovators in the IT world. In fact they'd much rather hire an external IT agency to handle their IT requirements because let's face it, there isn't much tie in with IT for their shoe selling business.
You can replace shoes with nearly anything. Now if your company's business relies heavily on IT infrastructure like certain engineering and technology segments, then perhaps it makes sense to bring in your own in-house IT department.
This applies not just to IT. For example the same shoe selling company isn't going to have a spectacular accounting department. They're either going to hire an accounting firm or just enough accountants to make the wheels spin for accounting.
The quicker you realize this the quicker you should be able to find a position that is stable for your own profession. If you want true stability and you want to stay in IT, then it is time to start your own IT business and bid on IT contracts.
Try the opposite side of things. I am in what I thought is a good position. I am highly skilled both technically and in the soft skills. Yet all I see is hesitant businesses testing the waters. They pull the pin then pull back. Extremely frustrating. I would like to have a good full time job right now but the proper opportunity has not presented itself. It seems like barriers have been thrown up by business/HR to prevent normal discourse.
True, companies are not mentoring like they used to. This meant a lot to the continuity of the professions. It was a method of giving back and to everyone else. Businesses which don't mentor or give back are just consuming resources. You have to be the judge of that opportunity. I pray I don't have to make that decision to work for a questionable company.
I think businesses are way over thinking their various aspects. Too much analysis means over think. Over think gets you nowhere and wastes money.
Good luck in your search. At some point, if you have the proper work ethic and attitude, your worth will be accepted with open arms.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Why the fuck is this "workers responsibility"? You were basically spending your own resources to increase companies profits without any compensation from company's side.
See, company wants more skills and more output. Employees want more skills and more money.
First part is the same and second part is in direct relation, so it's only reasonable for company to meet the worker half way there - a subsidy and days off work for studying looks reasonable.
If not, they would have been laid off!
The ones who don't care about building their own core competency usually outsource to a myriad of companies. While they get their work done at a reasonable price, it also means they get a lot of hold music when something breaks. If you have a server/network link that could break and it would require an explanation to the board...you're probably better off having someone in house who can fix it quickly (and find other problems before the big ones go BOOM).
That usually doesn't happen in sub Fortune-1000 companies.
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
It is also a bit of hogwash too...
*MANY* of the companies I worked for had some sort of company matching with education. So long as you had a C or higher they were willing to pay a good % of it. I only knew of about 3 people who ever took advantage of it. That is out of the 500 or so different people I have worked with...
Outsourcing is all about accountability. If the project is not working out, it is much, much easier to term a contract with a consultant than to fire an employee. Managers are also less likely to take the blame if the high priced consulting firm was at fault (even if they weren't). Finally, what manager wants to claim that they don't have enough work to do to keep the current staff busy (otherwise, how would they have the time to develop the new project).
Outsourcing usually isn't in the best interest of the company, but it is for the decision makers.
Need to know how to do X thing in five minutes? Google, my friend! Today it was figuring out how to unlock a locked virtual server via RDP... whoever decided to make it CTRL ALT END was a genius, a sheer genius. I could have spent $500 for a seminar on virtualization and never been told that, but Google told me in ten seconds, for free.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
19990704
The Financial Times by Rebecca Christie
Reprinted in the Kansas City Star
Business wary of high-tech training
WASHINGTON - Companies often are uninterested in training workers for high-technology jobs, preferring instead to compete for a limited pool of existing talent, according to a Commerce Department report.
Short development cycles and product lives contribute to some companies' reluctance to train workers, said the report prepared by the departments' Office of Technology Policy. This is compounded by fears that a worker might take a new job before employers are able to reap the benefits of training investment.
The report quoted one technology executive from Arizona who said: "I am afraid, as an employer, of getting people who would require an awful lot of training. We have eight hours to learn a new system. We don't have three months or six months."
Labor Department statistics show that between 1983 and 1998, demand for employment in core technology occupations grew six times faster than the overall job growth rate. Central recommendations from the new report included tax breaks and government-funded training initiatives designed to expand the labor pool.
The report also said the U.S. education system needed more emphasis on science and technology, particularly for middle school children. Some schoolchildren rule out a career in science as early as middle school and stop taking the classes they would need to study mathematics or engineering in college, the report said.
Why should any company meet you on the halfway mark?
When you gain the skill, it's yours to keep
When you leave the company you take away those skills with you
I don't know if you do not see the benefit in making yourself better, or if you just do not WANT to see
Making yourself better means you get a better chance of landing a better job, within the SAME company or with other companies
All I see in this thread and many others is that there are just too many whiners in Slashdot - whining about everything while at the same time do nothing to make themselves better
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I think that the Traditional College system is not the best fit for lot’s of jobs and there are better ways to learn and to show that you have skills.
Harvard Study: Too Much Emphasis On College Education?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0202/Does-everyone-need-a-college-degree-Maybe-not-says-Harvard-study [CC] [MD] [GC]
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/02/harvard-study-hey-maybe-were-placing-too-much-emphasis-on-a-college-education/ [CC] [MD] [GC]
“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”
“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”
So you went through elementary school, high school, and college all on your own.. that was your responsibility and you completed it.
But once you got out of college.. it's no longer your responsibility? It's the company's responsibility that you learn?
WTF?
*MANY* of the companies I worked for had some sort of company matching with education
Many of you guys are luckier than those of us old-timers
There weren't too many corporations offering "matching contribution" scheme when I started working
I only knew of about 3 people who ever took advantage of it. That is out of the 500 or so different people I have worked with...
That's my point
You see how many of them whiners on this thread?
They whine and whine and whine, but in actual fact, how many of them actually pick their ass off that lazy-boy and start doing something to make themselves better?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Except the "no competing" clause, that actually forbids you to use the same gained skills. So, no, you are wrong.
The issue isn't that companies have some sort of moral obligation to train their employees. They are free to train, outsource, hire, whatever.
The point is that it usually ends up more expensive to not invest in your workforce. It's one of those save a penny today. lose a pound tomorrow.
My personal experience is in very small business, so maybe I'm missing something here. But I find the ability to research and adabt to any required technology to be a core part IT. Something I expect any competant IT employee to be able to do themselves on an as needed basis (and in the case of people with aptititude for the work, something they would do even if not needed.)
If IT workers need to be lead by the hand to a training course, that's probably a job that would be better outsourced anyhow. IT is not the secretary pool, or people who know how to click and double click. (That being said, I work for a company that will, within reason, gladly expense anything I submit in expenses for 'training', including books, seminars, etc.)
Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
Your company is going to fire you when they find out you stole books.
If they don't find out you will be promoted to a new tech support lead position.
In India.
You are clearly a square peg trying to fit into a round entitlement-filled /. hole. A response such as this, suggesting people take personal responsibility for their career growth, is clearly never going to fly around here. Don't you realize the company/government OWES you free training?
A major contributing factor to me taking the job I've now been at for several months, was that in the job offer, they said they'd send me to NYC for a week of training. Word.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Canucks sucks and luongo sucks the blackhawks are better. who run the cup? who had big riots after the games where over?
You are clearly a square peg trying to fit into a round entitlement-filled /. hole. A response such as this, suggesting people take personal responsibility for their career growth, is clearly never going to fly around here. Don't you realize the company/government OWES you free training?
LOL !!
Thanks for the reminder
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Did you miss the "meet halfway there" part? This is something we both desire and profit from, why only I must bear the costs and responsibility?
If you think a bit, same applies to school - it was my responsibility to learn and the state's responsibility to provide education, because again it's desirable and valuable both for me and for state.
I'm not sure about your other programming skills, but you've definitely mastered println() function.
Good for the goose good for the gander.
The only way this will get fixed is if the outsourcing/guest worker/temp worker option is legislatively taken off the table, along with forcing companies to do the right thing.
Make temporary work cost more for each level of indirection or difference from full-benefit FTE. Short work that would normally dodge costs, would end up costing everyone down the chain a ton except for the worker. Long-term work that takes in people of all skill levels, especially the the long-term unemployed, and produces more value down the road would be rewarded.
Once you take away all the ways a business can fuck with a worker, including outsourcing, the more likely they'll do the right thing and actually invest in the worker as a long-term asset. That's a value the US has held for quite a while, something that only is dying thanks to Contractor's Disease.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
no text
This is bullshit. The companies don't want IT people that trained themselves. They want IT people some other company trained AND have X years of experience.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Sounds like your friend was on a team of developers that weren't very good.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
This is bullshit. The companies don't want IT people that trained themselves. They want IT people some other company trained AND have X years of experience.
Frankly I am surprised that you have a 5-digit UID and still utter such crap
Companies don't care where the fuck you get the skill
They just want to hire people with a certain skillset, that's all
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I see both sides of this.
Employees ONLY see one environment.
A contractor sees dozens.
I prefer to use employees (who know the business) but call in contractors at least annually for auditing for best practices. I also prefer to pull in a contractor when we have something unusual. Why waste 30 days of an employee's time and then fail when a contractor can fix it in 2 weeks and be out the door.
However, my company has tried to replace employees with hordes of contractors (i.e. not high quality experts but just cheap labor) and the result is pretty poor. The quality of the contractors has fallen a lot since 2003-2005. And their turnover is increasing.
For a long time, I worked extra hours to try and make it work but my health finally took a hit and i'm done with that. If the business people aren't going to be putting in 60+ hours and nights right along side me then I'm not. And even if they were, I'm probably done since i have reached financial independence. The bridge to retirement age is finished. Now it just gets better each year I continue to work.
I will probably retire in 4 years regardless. But if I were to leave sooner.. well let's say I only have 80 hours of life per month... retired I'd have at least 320. Every year retired would be like 4 current years and I wouldn't feel exhausted any more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
With more iPads deployed in companies, the needs for MS trained IT would be shrinking considerably, it would make sense to hire new ITs instead of training old ITs.
Indeed, I'm tired of everyone at work bellyaching about how they don't get any training. I'm always gaining new skills, it's called FUCKING AMAZON! Curiostiy and $10 dollars later I have a book coming. Two weeks later I have a new skill and experience applying it. Tough I tell you. Who does it benefit? ME!
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
We had a saying in a restaurant where I used to work, and it still brings a smile to my face: "If you don't like it, leave!"
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I look at this way; I'm there to increase my skill-set and move on. They are happy with that, I'm happy with that. What is the problem?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Because that is the nature of the beast. If you are not willing to move on and get another job, don't whine to everyone else about it. Maybe they will see the light when a bunch of employees gain new skills and leave with projects half finished. You see, that doesn't happen because employees are lazy. If the company needs a better skill-set they make a phone call or ask you to do it for them.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Frankly I am surprised that you have a 5-digit UID and still utter such crap
That my friend is the "lamer curve."
Stupidity of the comments in direct relation to the ID number of a slashdotter on a parabolic curve from origin. Lamer curve.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Yes, I'm sure many interviewers love to hear you "read about it" when asked about your experience
If you are not willing to move on and get another job, don't whine to everyone else about it.
Non-compete clauses prevent that for many people. The system is rigged in favor of the employers.
You can't get the skill on your own, because they want to hire someone with X years of experience. That means you need to have been working with that skill, professionally, for X years, to meet their requirement. So basically they want someone else to train you, or for you to train yourself and then work somewhere else at it for a while, and then get tired of your job there and quit so you can work for this new cheap-ass company.
If they just wanted you to have the skill, without the "X years of experience" bit, that'd be one thing and perfectly understandable. But the fact that they want you to be experienced, meaning having worked somewhere else, means that they want someone who's already an expert at it, and don't want to get any of their existing employees up to speed on that skill. Then, when they can't find that expert-level person (because their salaries are too cheap, or they want you to move out to bumblefuck and then give you a shitty salary because "the cost of living is low!" (nevermind that you'll have to move cross-country if this doesn't job doesn't work out), then they run around bitching and complaining that there's not enough skilled workers out there and that the government needs to do something about it.
If you hire someone, you take rsponsobility.
Tomorrow new technology comes in, that is so much better than what you use today. You have choice, of being responsible and update knowledge of your work force, or not and outsource shit to someone else. It is also matter of moral.
And btw, when you pay small money for job that NOT EVERYONE can do, you have no moral right to expect people who work for you to educate themselves on matter that are beneficial to YOU. And most IT pro, and PRO IT managment will agree with me here, most IT jobs are underpaid.
Employers take advantage of IT folks for a while, it wll bite them back in the arse. you will see it. One way or another.
Nobody Buys Drills, They Buy Holes
Because the companies I worked for aren't responsible to train me - their only responsibility is to make as much money to their stake/share holders
Because of that not only don't they take any responsibility for training their employees, they also burn people out, leaving them no energy to learn new things. Have you noticed that machines are often taken better care of than humans? If you break a machine you can only blame yourself, if you break a human you can blame the human. Nice, we're less than machines. And in case you look down on people who aren't strong enough to withstand more and more pressure (and in my experience pressure has been increasing steadily over the last decades): they have talents too, it's wasteful not to use them.
If the only responsibility a company has is to its shareholders, then the shareholders are their real customers: they use money to buy more money, and everything else is nothing more than a means to produce the money they buy. If you put money in that role you decouple it from its original purpose: to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Without that original purpose money becomes meaningless, you might as well replace it with shells you found on the beach. We're stacking abstraction layer upon abstraction layer upon abstraction layer on top of the notion that money represents the value of goods and services. Taking that disconnect from the underlying reality too far is the cause of the recent crises, in my opinion, and this way of looking at what a company is is part of this disconnect.
But fortunately you also mention stakeholders. Has it occurred to you that an employee is a stakeholder too?
"Pros feeling the pressure to boost skills should expect little support from their current employers. '9 in 10 business managers see gaps in workers' skill sets, yet organizations are more likely to outsource a task or hire someone new than invest in training an existing staff. Perhaps worse, a significant amount of training received , doesn't translate to skills they actually use on the job.'"
There, now the article is a little more accurate. Now to make your post a truer statement.
It's about time we stop blaming the economy for things. This crap happens in the best of times and the worst. It's because sales, marketing and other people (who are usually in charge of the purse) see no real value in people unless shit is broken. They see folks as a dime a dozen that are easily replaced by some outsourced solution. WHICH the later regret in most cases. (not sure where you were going with that last sentence, but it's the same regret you get from waking up with a toothless humpback dwarf after a bender in the bars downtown)
My point for the lost is "things are tough all over might as well find some illegal vocation and pretend I'll be able to retire"
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If you are not willing to move on and get another job, don't whine to everyone else about it.
Non-compete clauses prevent that for many people. The system is rigged in favor of the employers.
Yes, and instead getting up from our asses and rigging the system back in our favor, we whine yet again!
I agree completely. That's why when my boss sends me travelling I insist on paying for the flights and hotels myself. They tried to give me a computer to use for work, but I wouldn't put up with that sort of nonsense and bought my own instead.
Heck, I don't even turn on the lights in my office lest my kind and generous employer have to bear that expense in the course of my humble service to them.
A major contributing factor to me taking the job I've now been at for several months, was that in the job offer, they said they'd send me to NYC for a week of training. Word.
Why would you even want Word training...
Non-compete clauses are of dubious legality in various localities. In many cases, they can be nixed from the separation agreement if requested by an employee (though HR will pressure the person to accept it). In other cases, they may be ignored and the old company will be hard pressed to prove the agreement to be both legally binding and breached. Furthermore, if the old company did not think you were important enough to retain with a competitive salary, then it would be hard to argue that you were important enough to cripple their business by competing with them. They may be able to argue about revealing trade secrets, but that is a different matter.
Many professional organizations have support to help their members with issues like this. A lawyer is the definitive source legal advice, but is often too costly during such a transition time.
multiply the $10 times the number of times you do this in the year. Add in the time spent learning it at your hourly wage. Then add in the extra money you could be earning using this skillset for your current employer.
All this is on your dime.
How much money is your company stealing from you?
Why waste 30 days of an employee's time and then fail when a contractor can fix it in 2 weeks and be out the door.
This.
When you need a fruit today (or yesterday), you don't go out and plant a tree sprout, you go on market and buy a fucking fruit! Of course in the long run you save more and you earn more if you make your assets in-house, but predicting future is hard and making things done is critically more important then saving some money in the process.
Ergo, every employee should see the writing on the wall for themselves, look around for greener pastures, and update their own skills on time. Always have another trick up your sleeve.
Cut costs to near zero. Quality doesn't matter. Output matters. Companies should even have to bear any costs of rent and utilities either. Steal those things or simply do without. The chairman of IBM, Sam Palmisano slashed human resources costs to the bone for years and for his noble sacrifice awarded himself 10's of millions of dollars in bonuses for efficient cost cutting. His weakness is he didn't go far enough. Outsourcing? I say concentration camps are the future.
co-op or internship are nice but they need to be cut off from the college mind setup and opened up to any one wanting to do them or at least make part of some kind of tech school / Community college. But not just AA, AS, BA, BS or higher level. no more a like a 6mo-1year track.
1. college CS does not fit that in to IT
2. college CS at 4 years is to long and comes with lot's of fluff and filler.
3. Tech / IT needs on going education and lot's of on the job work to learn. As well less time in class at one time. The old college system is poor at that.
4. Tech school / Community colleges are a better fit for people who are working / need to get new skills / update old ones.
5. There needs to be better ways to show off what you know other then AA, AS, BA, BS, MA, PHD.
That is where a Badges system can work a lot better.
http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/
I'm curious, are you physically unable to use a period?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
"We need to hire more A-Players."
(Executive mandate issued to to project leaders at a certain Company X, when the appalling failure of Outsourcing (then ten years old) became too horrible to ignore any longer.)
-kgj
This is why I prefer working at companies that use open source software for the core of their systems. You are able to teach yourself and stay up to date on what is going on, and maybe even give back. All of that documentation is out there just for you to learn. And you can set up any number of scenarios in your labs without having to buy licenses for things that likely won't work for you anyway. Let's not forget that we no longer have to deal with constant harrassment from sales droids, instead focusing on growing our own skillset while benefiting the company.
'Training" is for "consultants" working for places like the DoD. I've never met a group more dedicated to striving for mediocrity, including government employees and contractors alike. Your value is seen as what you've been trained in. The majority of those folks simply don't know how to think, only how to regurgitate feature sets of commercial products that the government is overpaying for.
Excellent, concise post.
Why should any company meet you on the halfway mark?
Because it is cheaper, in the long run, for them to do so. Turnover costs money in lost productivity. Even if a new person comes in and is a rock star at %randomtech% they still need to learn the environment and everything else about the company. If you train your workers, and make them feel valued, they won't be nearly as likely to leave.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
If you are not willing to move on and get another job, don't whine to everyone else about it.
Non-compete clauses prevent that for many people who don't know that they're usually non-enforceable. The system is rigged in favor of the employers but people should find out what their options are regardless.
FTFY
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
No surprise here!! With out sourcing you (hopefully) get someone who is trained, has practical experience and cheaper. However they don't know your business and will take time to get up to speed. In addition there is no loyalty there and the company could let loose company proprietary information. The downside if is: you loose employee loyalty, you end up with a less experienced employee, and possibly a P.O.'ed employee.
Ugh so sick of hearing this. Have you ever tried to enforce a non-compete clause? The only way it helps is by making your adversary put up some lawyer costs. They are NOTORIOUSLY difficult to enforce...furthermore I can guarantee that no one in is bothering when windows admin guy quits his job to go be an admin somewhere else. This is slashdot whining. I'm going to go read youtube where at least the commentary is interesting.
A company can screw his employee by not training them, an employee can also screw his company by leaving after the company trained him. Given that option, what do you think company would choose?
Bullshit. They're only non-enforceable in California. Here's a clue: not everyone lives in California.
You got a few tens of millions of dollars to try to rig the system in your favor? That's what it'll cost, because there's other people (like the Koch brothers) with much more money than that working to rig the system in their own favor.
Don't hate or mark parent as 'Flamebait'. MOD PARENT UP.
I've been 'keeping my feelers out' for a job for over a year. This may not be a popular response, but it is, in my experience, 100% spot on.
I've worked at my current job for about 4 years. About 1 1/2 years ago I started not having anything to do. So I asked for more work. When that work wasn't there (the work load here has dropped incredibly in the last 2 years), I started learning new things & picking up new skills.
I now find myself at the end of the line with this job (last day is the end of April). I have ~7 years of industry experience and 2 in an area I'm trying to move into. I've aced every tech screening / test I've been asked to take & still no one will hire me. You'd think that someone who's worked hard, shown initiative, and is well-regarded by his co-workers could get someone to hire them.
So far what I've found is exactly the sentiment expressed by parent poster (Skapare). Companies are looking for exactly what they think they need (which is usually more than the position actually requires) but is completely unwilling to take any chances whatsoever. If you don't have 5+ years in their exact technology (never mind that the Android platform isn't even that old... I digress), with the exact skill set they're looking for, there's the door, buddy. They'll want you back in 5-7 years after some other company has 'vetted' your skill set.
Give me a break.
Companies likely to hide employee!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Technically you're right but in reality non-competes are limited. Worst case I guess people would have to move out of state if the court actually upheld the non-compete.
VA:
"a Plaintiff must show that it is not unduly harsh or oppressive in restricting the employee's ability to earn a living. In Virginia, a CNC is not unduly harsh or oppressive if balancing its function, geographic scope and duration the employee is not precluded from (1) working in a capacity not in competition with the employer within the restricted area or (2) providing similar services outside the restricted area.[8]"
MA:
"Even when a CNC is limited in duration, geographic reach, and scope, it will be enforced “only to the extent . . . necessary to protect the legitimate business interests of the employer.” [23] Recognized legitimate business interests are generally identified as the protection of trade secrets, confidential information, and goodwill.[24]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
That sounds like a state run economy. Not going to get into an argument about captialism vs socialism here though.
If you want anarchocapitalism, you're not going to find many places to practice it.
The point is, that if you're in this field and you can't even bother to keep yourself current with side projects/ open source, etc. you don't deserve to be working in it. I myself am entirely self-taught, and I started out doing it for the love of it.
You're a rare bird amongst many.
People used to have to work in the fields or hunt 12 hours a day and die at 35. If it's too much work for you to sit down at a computer a few hours a week and learn about fascinating shit, you deserve to be replaced by someone who does love this stuff.
You're implying that I'm in it for the money and only the money. Some people like yourself are fine with being nomadic, but plenty of others are not and do with the secure, conventional arrangement of regular FTE work. The fascination is there, but not to the exclusion of paying the bills.
My point is that if voluntary measures fail to establish a balance - legislation is necessary to restore it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In the long run, since this practice generally leaves people jobless long-term! That gives people savings, which has to come first for personal security. Then, they can spend freely greasing the wheels of a healthy economy. Long term steady employ allows savings and then disposable income (extra money). Now, without disposable income, they aren't consumers of your products anymore (provided your product's not a 'staple good' like food, shelter, etc).
You see it all the time. The 1st things to go are bars, restaurants, movie-theaters, and the like (fun stuff, but not stuff required to continue existence).
This nation is starting to become the victim of economics 101 'bad' in greed, because greed is NOT good (despite what movie character Gordon Gecko, a giant crook, said no less in the film "Wallstreet").
Greed is never good and ends up turning on those practicing it.
However, what does work is shearing a sheep many times, instead of skinning him once (the latter is happening now). The only way out of such things is to give people good paying long term jobs, they save for a year or so, then start spending again once their 'consumer confidence' is up. This, in turn, keeps those companies alive.
Our "leaders" (bought and paid for puppets in politicians, bought by the 1%-ers crooks who are victims of this 'virus of the spirit" called greed) seem to have forgotten this (not that they ever knew it: Most of them have no clue in economics, the biggest problem in this nation no less, and yet they are our "leaders"? Give us a break!
Hell - Jesse Ventura, former gov. himself no less, explained EXACTLY how it works - it's a big "put up job"! There is no 'democrats vs. republicans' - there is big money putting in puppets on either side to do their bidding! Look at their campaign contributions, backing BOTH sides, no less - tells it all, and substantiates + verifies what Jesse Ventura stated).
NO... it doesn't take a political or economic genius to figure out that the "occupy wallstreet" people had it right & figured it out also.
Being forced to move out of the state to get a new job seems like a pretty severe thing to me. It's like you're being run out of town.
Absolutely and I did say worst case. I would like to think, as cynical as I am, that any judge would block a non-compete that keeps someone from earning a living whereas I could see a judge allowing a non-compete if someone starts up a new business and tries to sell to all the existing businesses customers or whatever.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
So you have to pay $5k to retain a lawyer to represent you in a lawsuit over being able to get a job? By the time the question is settled, your new company will have filled the spot, or decided you're too much of a liability.
You want to know the "real" reasons that this problem exists?
First, the hiring process. Today's processes work to look for the candidate with the best team fit, not the candidate with the best technical fit. Many times a candidate will be hired just based on the fact that they got along with everyone. Therefore, when it comes to the heavy project lifting, there are usually major skill gaps in the existing employees.
Next, add in the cost of hiring an employee. Basically an employee is the most expensive single asset that a company has with the exception of specialized machinery, Have you ever thought about what it costs a company to have you as an employee? Let's break it down... There's your salary, which in IT is usually more than just about any other position in the company other than sales. Next there is the cost of your benefits. As a manager, we use between 115% and 125% as the "fully loaded" cost of an employee. Next there are the other positions that support your position. If the company has 100 employees, then 1/100th of the total cost of the HR department is you. Add in your workspace, those cubicles, laptops, cell phones, etc. aren't free. What about utilities? Power, telephone, cell phone service, internet... a portion of each of these services is allocated just for you. The list goes on and on. You are already costing the company a ton to employ.
Next, the effect on share prices for those of you at publically traded companies. There's a ratio that is in the annual report which is "Earnings to Headcount". How many employees make how much money each. The higher that ratio is, the better the stock price. BTW, for those of you in private companies, this ratio comes into play when the company is looking for equity financing as well. Contractors and consultants (professional services and outside services) don't count towards the ratio, only "FTE's" (Full Time Employees).
One more employee based item. It's more expensive to let an employee go than it was to hire them in the first place. There is the separation assistance, the HR and Legal time to ensure that the company isn't going to be sued. There's all the time spent by the manager documenting why the employee isn't a fit. There's a ton of time involved in looking for ways to reassign the employee to avoid the costs of termination. There's paperwork with the state and federal government that has to be filed if it is termed a layoff. It gets expensive, fast.
Now a project statistic for you. According to Gartner, more than 80% of all major projects and programs fail.
And a financial concept. 1.00 today is not worth 1.00 tomorrow. The cost of money over time is a killer. Read up on it. Most companies will use a discount rate of 8-10% when projecting money over time. This means that, if the company paid you $100 for day 1, then to recover that cost, they would have to make $108 one year later to actually break even. For multi-year projects, this adds up fast due to compounding. Yes, this applies to contractors too, but overall the contractor will be cheaper to the company than you are (in terms of TCO) for a major project, especially if you have to be trained to do the work.
Now, given these factors, put yourself in the company's shoes. You have a project you need to complete that is going to give a major boost to your profit margins. Do you A) Hire a new employee, the cost of whom is going to give you an immediate negative return on the project that has to be overcome when the project is complete, IF it is completed? B) Train existing staff who will have a new skill that will only be employed for the new project, IF it succeeds? C) Hire an outsource firm that already has the skills needed and whom can be released with minimal or no repercussions if the project gets derailed?
For a long-term project that will require in-house support after deployment, the order of precedence is A, C, B For a shorter project that will not need specialized in-house support, such as a web app or programmin
The burden of proof would be on the company hitting you with the non-compete but yes, that's the way our capitalist system works.
With regard to the new company...you would still be working unless the judge granted an injunction against so not sure.
Unless you're really trying to fuck the company you left, in which case the non compete would be valid, I doubt that they would bother to harass you in any case.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial