Down To Business: The Tech 'Talent Shortage' And A Culture DivideDown To Business: The Tech 'Talent Shortage' And A Culture Divide

Effective it management is often about minding gaps: skills gaps, pay gaps, security gaps, gaps between disparate systems, between employees' technical knowledge and business acumen. But one critical gap--no, make that a gulf--that goes unminded in many business technology organizations is a cultural one: the gap between how executives and their employees view the future of the profession.

Executives, armed with surveys and demographic data, insist there's a tech talent shortage in the United States, or at least one on the near horizon as employers lose baby boomers to retirement (the first one filed for Social Security benefits last week) and find the talent pipeline insufficient. Disgruntled employees and their advocates produce stats and anecdotal evidence of their own that speak to an oversupply of tech labor and dwindling job prospects. The acrimonious debate goes on.

Management-employee tensions are nothing new. But in reading the responses to recent columns and blogs on IT professional issues, we're seeing a widening disconnect between those who describe themselves as "workers"--programmers, system admins, engineers, even front-line managers--and the CEOs, CIOs, and VPs who call the shots.

Worker complaints almost always track back to offshore outsourcing and H-1B labor importing. Responding online to a recent column I wrote on the so-called talent shortage, readers expressed how they and their peers have been commoditized. Setting aside the bile spewed by the Angry Young Man crowd (companies are evil, executives and editors are idiots, foreign tech pros are incompetent), you find articulate expressions of disenfranchisement, frustration, and resentment.

One reader who goes by "Tokharian" and describes himself as an IT hiring manager had this to say: "It's more than just cheap labor that companies have gotten addicted to. There's the ease of hiring by simply putting out a staffing req to some body shop ... and the ease of not having to develop or train workers, just order up a batch that supposedly already has the degrees and skill sets you want."

The manager also writes about unrealistic, often prejudiced, employer expectations. "To reject someone in their 50s because the boss thinks they won't stay on for 10-15 years is silly. I don't expect a 20-something tech to stay in the same job for that long, either. The cure for the staffing 'shortage' is for companies to cultivate hiring skills in their management, so that hiring managers learn to recognize talent when it walks in the door instead of being blinded by appearance and stereotypes."

Another online reader who goes by "s1329" compares the scarcity of IT professionals with the market for pro baseball players. "The waiver wire is full of pitchers. The computer industry is the same way, with much the same differentiation in talent. Companies want Clemens- and Schilling-caliber players who can come in and make a massive difference in the success of a project. There is a glut of AAA pitchers and fourth/fifth starters. ... This is a fact of life with supply and demand in the real world of unequal talents. If you're hiring bench players, why not hire foreign ones?"

It's a classic case of perception becoming reality. If you're a tech employer and think there's a shortage of domestic labor, your reflexive offshoring and body shopping could exacerbate the problem by discouraging the next-generation workforce. Meantime, IT pros with a victim complex refuse to believe that positive change is possible, so they'll always be on the outside looking in.

At some point, management and labor--to use the old collective bargaining terms--must start airing these issues with each other if this cultural gulf is to be closed. Even if the Chicken Littles on both sides of this debate are just vocal minorities, they're bringing to the surface issues that at least lurk in every business technology organization. Get the conversation started.

Rob Preston,
VP/Editor In Chief
[email protected]

To find out more about Rob Preston, please visit his page.