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Ask Slashdot: Comparing the Value of Skilled Admins vs. Contributing Supervisors
HappyDude writes "I've been asked to manage a department in our IT group. It's comprised of UNIX, VMWare, Citrix, EMC and HP SAN Admins, Technicians and Help Desk personnel. The group covers the spectrum in years of experience. I am a 20-year Admin veteran of Engineering and Health Care IT systems including UNIX, Oracle DBA, Apache HTTP/Tomcat, WebSphere, software design plus other sundry jack-of-all-trades kinds of stuff. Although I consider myself a hack at most of those trades, I'm reasonably good at any one of them when I'm submerged. I also have 10 years of Project Management experience in Engineering and Health Care related IT organizations. I do have formal PM training, but haven't bothered to seek credentialing. I'm being told that I'll be worth less to the organization as a supervisor than what I'm making now, but the earning potential is greater if I accept the management position. Out of the kindness of their hearts, they're offering to start me in the new position at the same wage I'm currently making. Does this make any sense, Slashdot? "
Read on for further details.
HappyDude continues: "I think their rationale is crap; the primary reason behind their valuation is that I have no leadership experience. I would be a 'rookie' supervisor with no more value than a 4-year grad coming in off the street. It seems a couple things are missing from their calculations. One is that they don't give me credit for the 'global' projects I've led to complete success (completed on time, under budget, all goals met, blah, blah, blah). Apparently PM doesn't have anything to do with leadership in their eyes. My current employer doesn't actually understand what PM is and has no one with the skills I have who actually practices it other than me. How would you recommend I 'educate' our HR department about what real PM is all about and convince them that it surely does satisfy their leadership experience requirement?
The other thing missing (in my mind) is a fair valuation of my current skills, or of the worth of a supervisor skilled in almost all of the trades I'll be managing. They use 'market' analysis data from a third party when gauging salaries, probably like most employers do... but I know individuals in my field who wouldn't even talk to these folks for a starting wage less than 25% greater than what I'm currently making. HR suggested if I could provide adequate data that contradicts or adequately augments theirs, they would reconsider. How would I go about gathering that kind of data, from reputable sources, that would even stand a chance of these people's paradigms? As a final request, can anyone please provide me with first-hand knowledge of salary ranges for the two positions described? Maybe I'm all wet, but I think I'm a steal at the wage I'm being paid right now."
The other thing missing (in my mind) is a fair valuation of my current skills, or of the worth of a supervisor skilled in almost all of the trades I'll be managing. They use 'market' analysis data from a third party when gauging salaries, probably like most employers do... but I know individuals in my field who wouldn't even talk to these folks for a starting wage less than 25% greater than what I'm currently making. HR suggested if I could provide adequate data that contradicts or adequately augments theirs, they would reconsider. How would I go about gathering that kind of data, from reputable sources, that would even stand a chance of these people's paradigms? As a final request, can anyone please provide me with first-hand knowledge of salary ranges for the two positions described? Maybe I'm all wet, but I think I'm a steal at the wage I'm being paid right now."
Truth be told, most program managers, me included, are pretty shitty at leadership and management. If you take the job, remember that the only thing that matters is making yourself look good. To do that, make your boss look good. That means solving his boss' problems. Technical skills keep me from getting fired, but sucking up to my boss' boss and communication skills are the reason I have been promoted well beyond my management abilities. Good luck.
It sounds like the thing to do is get some solid offers for similar positions elsewhere, then show them to HR. Once HR understands what you -could- be making, they're more likely to offer you a better deal to retain you. On the other hand (though it sounds unlikely given the circumstances described) if you -can't- get any competing offers to refute HR with, that will give you material to re-evaluate with.
I am worth a ton to my organization as a working supervisor. Not only do I know the work that's being done quite well, but I'm also more well respected by my employees because I'm in the thick of it with them.
While I don't always have to put in the same amount of time into various projects that they do, I still have a part in the work and keep fresh on my skills, something I personally disliked in every single "solely personnel manager" I ever had--one of the reasons I left my last job in fact.
While you may be worth less, depending on your work/supervision balance, they're right, your potential is much higher. If you're seriously interested in management, take the job. As long as the team is cohesive and fairly drama free, you should be able to do very little extra.
If you're going to be doing the same amount of work you always were and now have an additional amount of supervisory work to do (1:1s, PTO forms, tracking comp time, developing documentation for new hires/exit process, etc, etc, etc, etc) then you would certainly be getting the short end of the stick.
However, you must realize that if you pass up this job (assuming you're currently employed there and it's a "promotion") that they will be unlikely to provide you the chance again in the future. You will be ignored as management material and others will grow up faster around you forcing you to exit for another organization.
Best of luck. I enjoy my current role as it gives me the flexibility to get away from the code and into something else but also keep my skills sharp and my interests high.
YMMV.
They are taking advantage of you. Speaking as someone who went from technical to management (operations and projects) then back to an engineering role, I can tell you that if you do the job well you should be making more as a manager. That isn't a popular opinion around here but it is true. Note that I said if you can do the job well. Too many people get thrust into management roles who do not have the talents or training to do them justice. Properly executing a management role will take more effort and more hours than most technical staff ever spend on their jobs.
You should be getting at least a 10% bump in pay. They are playing you.
Your services to this company are worth whatever value your negotiate with them. There is no way to assign an objective value based on evidence of salaries in the industry. What other employment opportunities do you have? What other options does the company have besides placing you in that position? Once you've taken stock of the answers to those questions, you'll have a better idea of what leverage you have here. The HR department is not a neutral decision maker that will rationally weigh whatever convincing evidence you present to them about market salaries and maybe decide in your favor. They are your negotiation adversary. Don't plead for them to pay you more and harp on other peoples' salaries for different jobs elsewhere - that's not relevant. Negotiate. Sometimes this doesn't even involve stating a basis for your demand. If they NEED you in that position and can't achieve the same business goals otherwise for anywhere near the same price, then all you need to say is, "Those are fine arguments, but you'll need to pay me 50% more to take the job." But if they can use a different management structure and avoid the position, or hire a new grad who doesn't do as well but costs half as much, then you'd better take their offer or find work elsewhere.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Rule of thumb: if it pays the same or less, don't do it. That is, if you don't hate what you're currently doing. If they want you to do this, they'll pay more. If they don't, why the fuck are you going there in the fist place?
This is normal for anywhere that has fixed salary scales. The management stream starts lower, but finishes higher than the fact that. That they'd be willing to move you laterally pay wise is a pretty reasonable concession. What they're trying to avoid is the "peter principle" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle), where you would be promoted based on your extensive experience in one are into another where you will completely train wreck and waste everyones time and money.
In terms of how you prove the experience, or what your job is you get documentation. You have written reports about your duties from your supervisor and subordinates about what you were doing (and telling them to do) right? Good. If not you can still write a description of your duties that demonstrate leadership and give HR the option to submit it to the relevant employees themselves and get their opinion as to whether or not it is an honest reflection of what you did, give them references about a previous employer. Essentially you're applying or a new job, treat it as such. You're taking the chance that one of your boss or subordinates will not try and fuck you over, but if you're narrow enough in focus, that part of your responsibility was leadership, that doesn't mean other people didn't also, but you had to lead kind of thing. You can be diplomatic in highlighting what you did, without suggesting anyone else didn't do anything as well.
Imagine you were going from completely orthogonal fields. Your experience at being an assembly line worker doesn't count towards your experience as a medical doctor. Sure, you may have had to supervise people before, and done some half assed project management. But you're not a project manager. If you want to be a project manager you have to prove yourself as a project manager. And no, project management has nothing to do with leadership or strategic direction for a company. Or at least it might not where you are. Project management is about managing the implementation of a project created by leadership. At least some places.
If you think that a reasonable starting rate is 25% more than you're making that might be fine. Tell them that, (but remember, my friend who makes X is not statistically significant), and ask how quickly you can expect to see salary growth and based on what metrics. I know a lot of people who started at 45-50k this time last year and are now at 70k-80k. If they're willing to say you can get a 25% bump in say 3 months or 6 months well... then they're just trying to cover their own asses.
As for salary range for what you're doing.... depends on where you are. A lot. And on one piece of information you haven't provided, which is how many employees would be under supervision.
They changed the name, but still do the salary surveys.
https://www.usenix.org/lisa
I noticed you said "contributing supervisor" by which I take to mean that you will also do a share of the "grunt" work.
I've had several roles managing / team leading from 2 to 25 people, but in all of them have felt compelled to design and code somewhat as well. Beware, doing both of these in the same job is incredibly stressful, because real tech work takes lots of time, and it is incredibly difficult to do a quality job of both roles at once, and other managers will not recognize the difference in your workload compared to theirs, so won't understand when you might skip/half-ass a few commitments.
I've tried to make the break. I have a yellow sticky on my monitor frame that says "DNC" (do not code).
But that's easy to say, hard to do unless you are surrounded by rockstar hero-coders/software engineers (or in your case IT wizards) who really excel up to the standards you'd like to see or think are needed. Not a situation you often find.
Still, my advice is choose one, not both.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Leadership - doing the right things. Infusing "vision" into the project and being able to "sell" that vision to stakeholders, picking the means and adjusting the priorities based on the team (capabilities, their state at any given time, etc.)
Note: I'm not saying the same person cannot do both in the same time. But based on the confusion I'm seeing in your post between the two and the emphasis on PM, I'm inclined to think you may have a deficit in regards with leadership. (I certainly may be wrong.)
BTW, one thing I noticed in regards with a "exclusively PM attitude persons": they speak about their team members in terms of "resources"; if anyone in the team gets named, it's for giving a name point to a "resource contention" or blame for the delays in the project.
They also use "project goals" most of the time and for them the "project vision" is a blah-blah paragraph of the "project plan" document; as such, they also hate to switch between approaches in the middle of the project, even if mandated by unforeseen circumstances (chosen technology doesn't actually support the vision) or opportunities to add something better to the outcome of the project.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
1) Try to get the person you will be reporting to involved. HR usually has no idea what you do or how you do it. Your direct manager will at least have an idea, if not a full understanding.
2) This can be tricky in a low-level management because your value is largely based on your ability to control/influence others. You need to draw connections between your past actions and the goals of the business.
4) Finally you don't add value to the business by being a tech who leads, so don't sell yourself that way. You add value to the business by being an interpreter, you can make your subordinates more productive by insulating them from the push and pull of the business. And you make the business more able to achieve its goals by being able to effectively communicate technical concepts to them without making their eyes glaze over. The most important thing in this capacity is the ability to mirror someone to build a report if you are unable to do that or don't know what that means then that should be item number 1 for you to learn.
I think their rationale is crap; the primary reason behind their valuation is that I have no leadership experience. I would be a 'rookie' supervisor with no more value than a 4-year grad coming in off the street.
This is a fair assesment on their part until you can prove otherwise.
they don't give me credit for the 'global' projects I've led to complete success (completed on time, under budget, all goals met, blah, blah, blah).
This doesn't have anything to do with leadership, your job was to keep the project on-track and you did that nothing more. Not to say that you didn't use leadership skills to keep it on track, but this statement doesn't address that. When you look at the project from a 50,000 feet view then you aren't demonstrating your skills you are collecting statistics, and unless you have a massive number of them then you have no real data. But if instead you look inside Project X at a specific point when the project was at risk, Then demonstrate the risks and the subsequent actions you took which turned the project around and thusly earned/saved the company Y dollars. This is how you can demonstrate leadership and business value.
I know individuals in my field who wouldn't even talk to these folks for a starting wage less than 25% greater than what I'm currently making.
You are either (1) not worth what these other individuals are (2) working for less than your value. It is quite simple. Simple but irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that you are making what you are making because at some point you made a decision that either made perfect sense or not a lot of sense. The only way you change that is to present the business case and hope that you presented it well. These other individuals have different skillset different experience to draw on and different abilities.
How would I go about gathering that kind of data, from reputable sources, that would even stand a chance of these people's paradigms?
One final thought, you aren't going to win this one with salary surveys and similar data. This is not how compensation is determined. Factor 1 - Companies Budget, Factor 2 - Employee Requirements. If they have budget to pay 2.4M annually but you are willing to work for 50K, they are not going to split the difference with you, and they shouldn't, they will pay you the 50K you require and pocket the rest. Now considering you are an existing employee you need to demonstrate the value that you bring in order to be able to change your requirements. So don't
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
AOL (but it's spelled "principle")
Why would one think it's a "promotion" to go from senior sysadmin to a mid-level manager? Anything less than a division head would be a de-facto demotion. Much like a sergeant major is technically ranked lower than a warrant officer, he's got more real clout - and more pay.
Then again, my experience with working for a major healthcare company was that the "midrange" group and its "sysadmins" were nothing of the sort - they treated Unix servers as if they were Windows boxes, with scheduled reboots, total inability to understand permissions, and their top guys coming from the mainframe world and believing that 100% load is a good thing.
What you do is take the position so you have the title. Then you take your resume, beef it up and THEN look for solid offers for positions elsewhere.
Agreed. Lots of good comments on this page but I think this is one of the most insightful.
I'd take it a step further, however. I saw another comment that said you should be getting at least a 10% increase, with which I agree. You also commented you are being told the earning potential is greater if you go for a supervisor position. Run with that. Sit down with the powers that be and say, okay, earning potential is greater, let's put some metrics around that. Give me some measurable KPIs which I have to meet. If I meet those figures within six months, I get a 10% pay increase. Don't get too hung up on the exact figure; if they agree with this idea but make it eight percent, you're still good. Point is, are they willing to play ball with some good measurable performance definitions? If they do go for this, make sure you understand the criteria you have to meet to get your pay increase, and have at least one mid-point review with your direct manager to assess how well you're doing at accomplishing those specific goals or metrics that will get you your pay increase.
The bit about "you're worth more to us in your current position" sounds pretty suspect. If they won't go with the suggestion in my previous paragraph about putting some hard metrics around "if I achieve A, B, and C, you give me more money", then do what silentbozo says and get prepared to look for another position. But take the supervisor position anyway; it's going to improve your resume, regardless.
By the way, I've also seen some comments about "project management" does not equate to "good leader of people". Very true. Which leads to my final point.
You might want to consider some kind of safety net. I've known people who have moved to a very different position within the same company and nobody's been too sure how they'll do. So they have a mutual agreement - revisit in six months, and if either you or your new manager is unhappy, you get to go back to your old position. If you're really that valuable to them, they should at least be willing to contemplate the idea.
Hello HappyDude
As a manager / supervisor of operations or projects - what do you think leadership means for any company CEO ? Who would the CEO value more ? WHY ?
A manager - needs to think about improvement of services, optimization, do more with less, innovate, basically better Return on Investment. ( From the CEO's / CFO's perspective )
You are in an excellent position to manage those services technically. However, as an operations manager - you need to think like a "service provider" - a profit center manager. Example: What if I made you the Head of Operations and Customer Support at Apple - to keep the whole itunes, appstore front etc running and customers happy. And you are told - to manage it profitably. How would you think ?
This is how I would respond to HR...
Example: All those services that you mentioned - would cost the company atleast a 20 million in Hardware and services costs annually. The business relies on these systems and the business revenue from these systems may be atleast 10 - 100 times the 20 million. i.e 200 mil - 2 Bil.
As a manager of these services, I would lead a team ( either internal or contractors or service providers) with a total salary of about 2-4 million. I would manage contracts, hardware/software/services/outsourcing/insourcing etc of atleast 20million per year.
If I provide new benefits of 10% either improved productivity or cost savings or new opportunity - that would be 2 million per year.
If I take away 10% of that as my salary - that would be 200,000 $ per year as a manager.
Now, I can definitely make arguments about the size of contracts that I make decisions on - the 20 million - and say how I can benefit more - by understanding product lifecycles, selecting better partners - so in the long term, I may benefit the company more - selecting better technologies etc. Thus providing 1 - 10 % productivity gain on the business revenue impacted - i.e. 1 - 10% of 200 Million or 1 - 10% of 2 Billion.
That would mean - I can benefit the company by atleast 2 Million - to a max of 200 Million.
How much should I ask for such benefits to the company ????
200,000 to 2 million $ per year.
NOW:
Can you make such commitments and take accountability for the said department ? Then you are the leader HR is looking for.
cheers
venu
PS: Most often - a manager / any person falls into the trap of self pity - and blows his chances of success. Focus on the results and the conversation is of a higher quality and helps all. ( I learnt this the hard way - I got fired before I generated results more predictably )....
REFERENCE: Read - "Leadership and Self Deception" by Arbinger.
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics - National Compensation Survey - Wages
The job category is likely "computer and information systems managers" or "information systems managers" (Over $53/hr in wages in Atlanta, for instance = $138,000/yr. @50hrs./wk.). You also may want to look at the different levels of regular managers to see what the pay trajectory typically is and use that to scale the number for your specialty and region.
Also see the NCS databases section here.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
You're getting royally screwed. Use those salary sites and point out the discrepancy + your skills + experience and tell them for the additional headache of dealing with other people's shit, you need 20% more. Out of the goodness of your heart, you'll settle for X, otherwise, no thanks, not worth the headache.
By saying "no", you might have made a career ending move, however, so, start looking for another job.
So, I truly believe the reason they've asked me to do this is because I will be good at it and I will be more valuable in this new role than in the current.
Why are you yelling?
Anyhow, if they think you will be more valuable, they will be willing to prove it by splitting some of the extra value with you. If they won't, they don't.
I understand that he insulted you personally. Still, take a moment to recognize that you're arguing with an AC on Slashdot. The fact that he got you to respond means that he won.
If you're to manage people, know that some of them will be jerks and play petty games. Generally, you should not fire back. Take the high road. Let them look like fools. Private straightening-outs are worth an order of magnitude more than public outbursts. They might not seem public, but people know that they're taking place. If you ever say "I'll talk to him about that", do, even if it's only to give them a heads up.
Plan ahead of time. What is worth appearing upset over? Human safety? Certainly. Company policy? Sometimes, but which ones. Theft or destruction? Usually, but to what dollar amount?
I'm sure this doesn't come as news. Just a friendly reminder.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I am a health care CIO and a seasoned PMP and there are several aspects of your post that concern me. The first a general attitude that you know better than everyone else. I'm not saying I'm the best leader or even a good one, but I expect my managers to have some humility with their employees and I do my best to maintain that as well. IMHO, humility is the beginning of respect and the beginning of great leadership. Many of the best decisions I have ever made have come from ideas generated by my management team. How will you ever even know about those ideas if you already know more than they do? A leader's job is not to know everything, but to know all of the options and to choose the best one. Your employees will never feel comfortable bringing forth ideas with the kind of attitude that permeates your post.
The other thing that concerns me is that you seem to think management/leadership is the same thing as PM. As a PMP, I definitely recognize how PM can develop and sharpen leadership skills but they are no where near the same thing. When managing a project, you are aligning resources to accomplish specific tasks to complete a specific project. A good project manager will inspire the team to work cohesively and productively. I have seen very few good project managers. Managing a team that is juggling many tasks every single day is very different. You are responsible for their success, for their morale and engagement. It is no longer checking off tasks on a to do list like what you have experienced in PM. The few paragraphs I see above give me doubt that you have the attitude and interpersonal skills to develop the necessary relationships with employees to motivate them to perform at their best.
Lastly, your current skills, while still valuable, diminish in value when you switch over to management. That is because you should be spending much less time performing the actual work, and more time managing your team and collaborating with other management. I started out as a software developer spending 90% or more of my time writing code. The day I moved over into management, that dropped to almost zero. My software development skills went from being my strongest asset to one of my weakest overnight. Low performing managers have a difficult time with this and try to hang onto work they have no business doing.
I know this post is harsh. However, if you are serious about moving over to management, then you need to hear these harsh realities. I hope you can incorporate this feedback into your strategy. I wish you the best.
Sorry All, not yelling. I just thought it was easier to see my replies this way. Since you're all willing to take time to reply to me, I certainly feel compelled to do the same.
I'll stop yelling from here on out.
Cheers.
I was "promoted" to IT Manager when I was a happy, senior sysadmin. I eventually got a little more money than I would have but had to deal with the vilest shit from upper management. Walked out after sixteen years and could not be happier. YMMV
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
About 15 yrs ago, I switched from being the lead developer on a team to being 100% management. My role made it so I didn't have time to code anyway, so it was just the VPs way of telling me it was expected that I wouldn't code anymore. He took my cube name-plate and duct-taped it outside my new office and told me to remove the compiler from my PC - loudly, so all my guys could hear it. No raise and I didn't want that job.
I took that as a hint. Got my resume in order and started interviewing outside. Found out that I was worth double my current salary, if I accepted a shitty commute of 45 minutes. I set my start date at the new job to be 6 weeks out and gave the company 4 weeks notice. I hoped they would escort me from the building immediately. They did not. They offered $20K more and a company paid lease car. I declined - never stay in a position once they know you've interviewed with outside companies. NEVER.
* if you stay without any change in compensation or role, they know you'll never leave
* if you stay with a small bump in pay, you are money driven and HR hates those people - you will be moved to unimportant projects and fired.
* if you stay with a title change, you are a rube.
You need to leave.
Whenever a boss says they are doing you a favor related to pay or position, you need to leave. You've earned whatever they are offering. It is a competitive world and they think you are cheap.
You need to leave this team, and maybe this company.
You need to leave this team, and maybe this company.
You need to leave this team, and maybe this company.
You need to leave this team, and maybe this company.
For me, leaving was the best thing I've done. 10 yrs more and I retired. I've been retired 5 yrs now, travel, lots of free time, AND I have a few pet coding projects that get all they time I can stand. I didn't hate that job, but the new job was 100x better, which lead to another job less than a year later designing very large scale systems. The budgets were $50M-$500M. Working on larger projects isn't aways fun, but when was the last time you signed off on buying (5) $4M servers and (30) costing $200K ea or $200K for a UPS? Don't get me started on all the network gear, DS-3 lines and $20M in software. At this job I designed projects for wireless, wifi, laptops, speech systems, GPS, mapping, routing, broadband, large scale VoIP, HA, redundancy, disaster recovery and had huge teams working together on all sorts of projects spread across thousands of locations and 20 different countries. It was a pretty damn cool job.
You should leave. Even if you discover that the new job sucks, coming back 8-15 months later to the old job will get you a bump, you'll appear as an outsider with "new ideas" and still know the insides - I've seen that lots of places.
You should leave.
First off, I highly recommend you read the book "Becoming a Manager" by Linda Hill. It follows the first year experiences of a group of star individual contributors that are promoted to managers and discusses the transformation process they undergo to become managers. Becoming a good manager requires that you change as a person in ways that are hard. Those who do not change end up being bad managers.
What you do not understand, and no one really understands until they do it, is that being a good manager is very hard. Management is like multi-dimensional chess. As a spectator you almost never understand what is going on. You can see the results, and recognize that one person did a decent job while another person did a poor job, but you have no idea what it took to make it happen (even if you had a front-row seat as an employee). As an engineer I was generally critical of management when it was bad and indifferent to it when it was good. Now I look at my company's senior and executive leadership and am in awe of how they manage to do what they do. The difference is that I now know a little of what it takes to achieve results and recognize how much skill it takes.
Management is also like running a machine with a million switches and levers where none of them give the same result twice. The fact that you have so little awareness of this is a bad omen for your chances of becoming a good manager. Project management experience is good, but is really only about 10% of what is needed to be good at management.
Oh, and the reason that people who have been managers are worth more is pretty simple once you realize how hard it is: People that have a track record of doing a half-way decent job at management have already learned far more then you can imagine even needing to know.
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it