Sorry, already answered turnover in another post, but 2 of our guys are taking some of their long service leave. The average length of tenure here is just over 4 years, and that is with hiring 3 new guys in Februrary this year for a contract that we won. I think this is pretty good for an IT company.
So retention and turnover isn't really that much of a problem for us. We have our 1st and 3rd employees still with us from 12 years ago. They are the smartest guys in the room. We really try to make the work as challenging as possible and we listen to our workers. We started out as a straight outsourced IT department, but two of the team were really interested in dev work, so we got a couple of small projects and came up with a biggish internal project we could manage ourselves and we now have a thriving dev team who build some pretty cool stuff.
One other thing, we are in Australia - not sure how working conditions compare to the US, but we have 4 weeks holidays, 2 weeks sick leave, 13 public holidays. Sick leave can be taken for a sick member of family. It works out to 9 weeks of unpaid leave per year.
So, I could have put a little more background into the question, but we speak fairly frequently about this with the team. Some of the team have been with us for all of their IT career, so they don't really know what the options are. We talk to the team collectively often as do we individually but it is quite challenging to build a dialogue around
And about the guns - we have done pistol shooting, single action shooting, paintballing and shotgunning. Among the more favoured corporate activities we have done:)
I worked in ICU for a while and the statistic that gets through around there is that often 75% of a person entire healthcare bill is spent on their last stay in ICU. Dealing with palliative care is a little different, but based on my experience with death and dying, it is up to the patient. When they think it is time to go. A lot of the therapies are pretty invasive/painful/make you feel really bad, so a lot of it comes down to a kind of risk/reward.
You also get the healthcare system you pay for. In from Australia, and healthcare is a lot cheaper here than in the US, but the US has a lot more aggressive interventions that save more lives.
If you want to cut the cost of healthcare, sure doctors wash their hands!
Wearing a hard hat is not going to increase your chances of getting hit on the head. One of the hospitals I worked in 'offered' flu shots and by offered I mean strongly offered. I said no, because I didn't think it would do any good. I was meant to have a meeting with the charge nurse the next shift I was in about it, except he ending up sick with 3 days off with "flu like symptoms" after the flu shot. Needless to say the meeting never happened.
Immunization is very important in some circumstances, annual flu is probably one that can be skipped for some of us.
The larger the company the more resources you have to share the cost of IT Support, so for a start up, unless you have a large pot of money, outsourcing will be the way to go.
Using outsourced IT should be fine, you get a team of people with different skills, you don't have to worry about them leaving, being sick or taking holidays. Look for a local IT provider that can provide boots on the ground. It will work out a lot better in the long run.
The sad trend in IT support is managed services that allow support companies to sit around and run reports and do things remotely, but they hate coming out to see their customers, because they can't bill 2 customers at the same time. The commoditisation of IT support is creating this downward spiral in services offered.
I work for a small IT company most of our guys are out the door on time. The work is varied which helps keep it interesting.
I don't think the IT industry is too bad. I used to work as an ICU Nurse and let me tell you it is a lot easier to tell a customer that they have lost $100,000 worth of data than it is to tell someone that their husband is dead.
Like a lot of things it depends on the the place you work and the people you work with. The company I am with now is pretty good although it hasn't always been that way. It was the same when I worked in health care. Some ICU units were great fun and others sucked.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
You probably just need to look around for an employer that has some more modern work practices. So dev firms are dickensian factories, but others are a lot better. Good flexible employment practices make it easier to attract great talent.
The Lunar Track Database has a list of Four Wheel Drive tracks on the moon. I can't wait, pristine wilderness, exciting tracks and views that are out of this world, it's just the cost of getting my truck to the moon from holding me back.
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Sorry, already answered turnover in another post, but 2 of our guys are taking some of their long service leave. The average length of tenure here is just over 4 years, and that is with hiring 3 new guys in Februrary this year for a contract that we won. I think this is pretty good for an IT company.
So retention and turnover isn't really that much of a problem for us. We have our 1st and 3rd employees still with us from 12 years ago. They are the smartest guys in the room. We really try to make the work as challenging as possible and we listen to our workers. We started out as a straight outsourced IT department, but two of the team were really interested in dev work, so we got a couple of small projects and came up with a biggish internal project we could manage ourselves and we now have a thriving dev team who build some pretty cool stuff.
One other thing, we are in Australia - not sure how working conditions compare to the US, but we have 4 weeks holidays, 2 weeks sick leave, 13 public holidays. Sick leave can be taken for a sick member of family. It works out to 9 weeks of unpaid leave per year.
So, I could have put a little more background into the question, but we speak fairly frequently about this with the team. Some of the team have been with us for all of their IT career, so they don't really know what the options are. We talk to the team collectively often as do we individually but it is quite challenging to build a dialogue around And about the guns - we have done pistol shooting, single action shooting, paintballing and shotgunning. Among the more favoured corporate activities we have done :)
I worked in ICU for a while and the statistic that gets through around there is that often 75% of a person entire healthcare bill is spent on their last stay in ICU. Dealing with palliative care is a little different, but based on my experience with death and dying, it is up to the patient. When they think it is time to go. A lot of the therapies are pretty invasive/painful/make you feel really bad, so a lot of it comes down to a kind of risk/reward. You also get the healthcare system you pay for. In from Australia, and healthcare is a lot cheaper here than in the US, but the US has a lot more aggressive interventions that save more lives. If you want to cut the cost of healthcare, sure doctors wash their hands!
Wearing a hard hat is not going to increase your chances of getting hit on the head. One of the hospitals I worked in 'offered' flu shots and by offered I mean strongly offered. I said no, because I didn't think it would do any good. I was meant to have a meeting with the charge nurse the next shift I was in about it, except he ending up sick with 3 days off with "flu like symptoms" after the flu shot. Needless to say the meeting never happened. Immunization is very important in some circumstances, annual flu is probably one that can be skipped for some of us.
The larger the company the more resources you have to share the cost of IT Support, so for a start up, unless you have a large pot of money, outsourcing will be the way to go. Using outsourced IT should be fine, you get a team of people with different skills, you don't have to worry about them leaving, being sick or taking holidays. Look for a local IT provider that can provide boots on the ground. It will work out a lot better in the long run. The sad trend in IT support is managed services that allow support companies to sit around and run reports and do things remotely, but they hate coming out to see their customers, because they can't bill 2 customers at the same time. The commoditisation of IT support is creating this downward spiral in services offered.
I work for a small IT company most of our guys are out the door on time. The work is varied which helps keep it interesting. I don't think the IT industry is too bad. I used to work as an ICU Nurse and let me tell you it is a lot easier to tell a customer that they have lost $100,000 worth of data than it is to tell someone that their husband is dead. Like a lot of things it depends on the the place you work and the people you work with. The company I am with now is pretty good although it hasn't always been that way. It was the same when I worked in health care. Some ICU units were great fun and others sucked. The grass is always greener on the other side.
You probably just need to look around for an employer that has some more modern work practices. So dev firms are dickensian factories, but others are a lot better. Good flexible employment practices make it easier to attract great talent.
The Lunar Track Database has a list of Four Wheel Drive tracks on the moon. I can't wait, pristine wilderness, exciting tracks and views that are out of this world, it's just the cost of getting my truck to the moon from holding me back.