The Smaller Business' Edge: Treating IT Right

Newly minted IT grads are looking at higher than ever salaries from big business. Smaller businesses can't compete on the paycheck, but they can attract IT talent if they make their place of work a place employees want to remain. The high-tech job market is doing very well -- very, very well, in fact. According to quarterly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "U.S. companies kept adding information technology workers in the second quarter, lifting IT jobs more than 2% from the first quarter to hit 4.1 million employed." There's more good news -- at least for some IT workers. Continues InformationWeek: "U.S. IT employment's at an all-time high, having passed the 4 million job mark for the first time in the first quarter. With layoffs looming in the banking sector, a major employer of IT professionals, IT employment looked poised to falter in the second quarter, yet it held strong." On ZDNet, Jason Hiner cites The American Electronics Association's Cybercities 2008 report, which examines the high-tech employment market in 60 U.S. metropolitan areas. He notes that data indicates that the U.S. tech sector is not only continuing to grow and create more jobs, but also that high-tech jobs continue to pay very well. Very, very well, in fact -- so well that smaller businesses cannot hope to compete with larger businesses on salary. But smaller businesses can do something larger businesses apparently don't do: treat their IT staff well. Over the past year, Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Electronic Data Systems all experienced layoffs. And it is the midcareer IT workers who are always the first to go -- the IT folks who put years into a corporation, only to be swapped with a younger (still cheaper) replacement. In its piece on this trend, The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that "midcareer workers with larger salaries become a tempting target for budget-cutters." And while salaries for computer grads are soaring, they don't come near what a seasoned IT professional with decades of experience under his or her belt makes. And just why are IT workers fresh out of school getting offers their older colleagues only dreamed about way back when? A commenter on The Chronicle of Higher Education article summed up the situation: "Just tell your children to major in something else. IT is not a viable long-term career anymore. If you aren't replaced by someone younger and cheaper, you will be replaced by someone offshore (and cheaper)." High salaries are nice -- no doubt about that -- but when an industry doesn't treat its elder employees well, the result is a lack of interest from the next generation. This is from The Chronicle of Higher Education:"Employers face a shrinking labor pool, since the number of computer science graduates has dropped significantly since the turn of this century. Laws of supply and demand apply, so companies compete harder and pay more for a smaller supply of qualified graduates." Check out some of these other stats. The Sacramento Bee reports that over the past five years, "the number of IT degrees issued by the Los Rios and Sierra community college systems fell 65%, from 614 in 2002 to 213 during 2007. Declines, though not as pronounced, also have occurred at the University of California, Davis, and California State University, Sacramento. The number of UC Davis computer science graduates dropped 35% in the past five years; at CSUS, the drop was 20%." According to CIO, data from the Computing Research Association, which follows year-after-year enrollment and graduate trends at 170 Ph.D.-granting institutions, also indicates a drop in interest: "In the 2006-07 academic year, only 8,021 students graduated with computer science degrees from these schools -- the lowest number of graduates this decade. By contrast, in 2003-04 -- the high point of this decade -- 14,185 students were awarded bachelor's degrees in computer science, according to CRA data. This sharp decline in graduates may be about to level off. In the fall of 2006, new computer science enrollments were at 7,840, and the CRA says new enrollments are now at 7,915 for the fall of 2007." There are other reasons for fewer computer science grads: the dot-com bust and offshoring are two other good reasons why there are fewer college students choosing to major in computer science. But the fact is that small and midsize businesses cannot afford to pay the salaries that their large-size competitors are offering the smaller pool of computer science grads. Just this past January, Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch that "salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the best students. This year, Facebook is said to be offering $92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000 to get their share of graduates. Students with a master's degree in computer science are being offered as much as $130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google." It used to be that people went to work for the same company for 20, 30 years. The loyalty that engendered among employees was probably what built many of these companies. Those days are long gone -- and the IT industry is one of the biggest reasons why. Many people, like the commenter on The Chronicle of Higher Education article , don't trust the IT industry anymore. Companies think nothing of slashing departments and laying off employees who have worked hard for them for years, frequently escorting them out of the building just in case they'll mess with their programs on their way out the door. IT professionals have received a bum rap in the media. "The Office's" IT guy is surly, unhelpful, and distinctly uninterested in what the users want. And "Saturday Night Live's" Nick Burns: Your Company's Computer Guy -- which is seared into a good part of this country's brains -- parodies the know-it-all, patronizing IT guy who doesn't want to see the user succeed so much as see the user make a fool of himself. But anyone who works in a small or midsize business knows the truth to be very different. And it is here that smaller businesses have an edge. Smaller businesses can engender the loyalty that large enterprises once commanded. Very high salaries always are appreciated, but that only goes so far when you're constantly wondering if you'll get the ax. A fair salary, good benefits, and a culture of inclusion, in which the IT department is intimately involved in the workings of the business, can go even further. When is the last time you heard someone who worked for a big company go on and on about how much they love their job? And if you're looking for good IT workers, don't limit your smaller business to newly minted college grads. There are lots of middle-aged IT professionals who have been burnt by big businesses and would probably love to help your smaller business succeed.