By Tim Ash
Tried to hire a high-tech professional lately? Time to get out your checkbook, if you can find a candidate at all. The high-tech labor crunch is not just confined to Silicon Valley. It has spread to all primary and secondary markets in the United States. Younger workers with a bare minimum of experience in specialties such as Java, C++, databases, and system administration are demanding and winning turbocharged compensation packages. Job candidates are acting more like free agents in professional sports. Company loyalty is a quaint anachronism. As they say in real estate, it is a buyer's market. What do these increasingly fickle candidates care about?
Money. The total compensation package has to be sweet. High base salary, signing bonus, relocation expenses, long vacations, medical and dental plans, and retirement plan contributions are just the ante to get into the game. Then there is the upside based on individual or company performance. Profit sharing or project completion bonuses are increasingly common. Many people, especially in startups, also demand an equity position in the company.
Cool work. The only job security in high-tech is being up to date on the latest technology. The stronger the résumé, the more marketable the candidate is for the next position (and there will be a next position).
The latest technology and tools are also the most fun for software developers. Your application should ideally involve the Internet or use object-oriented development methods. This is similar to having the latest gadgets for personal use or fashionable clothes. No one wants to be caught dead wearing COBOL or DOS this year.
If the technology itself is not particularly cutting edge, the application of it has to be as exciting as possible. The all-time favorite, of course, is game design. This is the ultimate in play as work. Even if your company does not develop innovative multimedia games, software developers will still prefer interesting over mundane applications. For example, your company is considering some blue-sky e-commerce initiatives in the face of unproven online demand, and also needs to fix an annoying rounding bug in your thirty year-old accounting system that costs millions of dollars per year in lost revenue. Which do you think your software developers want to work on? No contest. Cool e-commerce applications win every time, often overriding business needs and common sense.
A customized life. The lifetime employment compact is long gone. Most high-tech workers today are not willing to subordinate their lives to the demands of work. In fact, they expect their work environment to be tailored to fit the needs of their life. From dress code to working hours and the ability to telecommute, it is your responsibility to accommodate them. Spending time with family or pursuing meaningful hobbies is more important than any easily replaceable job. What you are buying is the full engagement of a human mind. This is very different than the more obvious productivity of muscles and assembly lines. In order to creatively produce for you, the employees must be fulfilled in other aspects of their lives.
There are several things you can do to deal with this difficult environment.
Use every available means to attract candidates. Finding good candidates is critical. A coordinated and ongoing campaign should use every possible venue to attract candidates. This includes advertising, referrals, search firms, online job boards, and advanced features on your company's Web site. If a good candidate is found, the offer must be extended immediately. Of course, this offer can be contingent on background checks and other procedural matters, but it must be made fast. To wait is to lose.
Pay people competitively. Even if you think that your package was competitive a few months ago, it's time to reevaluate. Once the local labor pool is tapped, salary offers can go up dramatically in a very short time. There is nothing worse than consistently being the runner-up in the bidding war for talent. You have expended the effort to find and screen the candidate but have lost them over a few thousand dollars.
Keep your workers happy at any cost. Many estimates put the price of replacing a high-tech worker between ten and fifty thousand dollars. This includes not only attracting, screening, and hiring the candidate, but also the additional cost of training and bringing them up to the same level of productivity and knowledge. The impact on the morale and productivity of other people at the company should not be underestimated. The departure of a coworker may increase the workload of those remaining, and increase the chances that they look for work alternatives themselves. It is not uncommon for one dissatisfied person to create a cascade effect that plays out over time, resulting in the loss of several people, affecting product delivery schedules, revenue, and profits.
Be redundant. Make sure that all work and procedural knowledge is documented and organized in a uniform manner. Do not accept that key information is in someone's head. Insist on externalizing it into a more readily accessible form. If it is not written down somewhere, it does not exist. Keeping documentation current and complete should be a key requirement of any technical position. Documentation is often overlooked and not built into schedules or work requirements. This can lead to disaster. Ask yourself the simple question: "If I had to take over these duties tomorrow, what would I have to know?" You must insist that all information provided is complete and verify its validity by personally testing it. Stay in the loop on important matters. You may not have to do it, but you should know how to do it. Ideally, more than one person in your organization should be able to carry out each critical task.
Consider outsourcing. Analyze what is core to your business. Even if you are developing software products, this activity can be outsourced. It is important to understand project requirements and have deep knowledge of the underlying technologies in-house. However, some development can be done by outside software developers working from a precise specification. Outsourced projects must be managed by concentrating on the schedule and deliverables, not on the place or manner in which the work is performed. This is both challenging and liberating at the same time. The headache of finding, training, and motivating project teams can be transferred to your development partner.
Automate. Minimize the labor required for the development and ongoing support of your products or services. By providing your people with the proper tools and support, you can increase their productivity dramatically. Buy off-the-shelf components instead of developing custom solutions. Use widely available products and technologies that are stable and require little troubleshooting.
One final bit of advice: grin and bear it. The high-tech worker situation will continue to get worse in the foreseeable future.
Copyright 1998, Miller Freeman, Inc.
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