by Robert J Morton
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A New Way Of Working by Robert J Morton |
Could the Information Technology [IT] skills shortage be largely a skills wastage? I submit that there is a vast national reserve of IT skill which is never used to anything like its full potential. The reason is that the only way the market will allow it to be used is, for many tasks, far too inflexible. A proven more flexible way of applying IT skills exists. However, that alternative way is rarely used. This is because it invariably meets an undeserved degree of blind market resistance. And this must be to a large extent because it has never been properly marketed.
I think we should explore fully every possible way of realising the full potential of our indigenous base of IT expertise. If we do this now, then by 1992 when the barriers to free trade within the EEC disappear, we should have a lucrative market ready and waiting for the IT expertise which we are particularly well equipped to provide.
Once an employee has gained enough experience, however, permanent employment may not be the best way of applying that person's skills to the nation's IT needs. Permanent employment can at this stage leave the employer with a vital but underused overhead and the employee professionally unfulfilled. A long serving permanently employed specialist may come to feel that he is now being paid far below his market worth. On the other hand, his employer can neither make use of his full potential nor afford to pay him what he is worth.
An employee who is single, and has no location-critical family ties or obligations, can relocate relatively easily and get a higher position with a different employer. But most, since starting with their original employer, will have married, bought a house and got children settled in at school in an area where that employer is probably the only one who can use their respective skills. So they must either accept the situation, or up-root their family from its established home and social environment and move to a different part of the country, or perhaps even the world.
Furthermore, if they are to keep their family intact, they will both have co-incidentally to find jobs of the right kind in the same new locality. Having moved, it is likely that their move will have been away from easy reach of their extended families making family backup and child minding expensive and less emotionally-secure.
Permanent employment thus restricts a person's skills to use by only one company when that company may not need the full use of those skills all the time. Indeed, can any one employer ever tap the full potential of any professionally-mature individual?
A significant drawback is that once on-site, the contractor (like the permanent employee) is effectively cut off from the outside world. He can never therefore be available to give on-going telephone support to his previous client for whom a quick question and answer could save hours of fruitless effort.
Many a contractor has turned down a job for which he is ideally suited because it is beyond commuting distance. And why shouldn't he? He (and his family) have a right to a home and social life in the area in which they live. It is not right that dad should have to be a stranger who calls in at weekends - and sleeps most of the time to recover from excessive travel on top of a week of very demanding mental effort.
This has opened up another way of working which offers a far more flexible and efficient means of applying the knowledge and skills of the IT expert to the currently unsatisfied national thirst for that knowledge and those skills. This method is off-site working - topically known as telecommuting.
The telecommuter has his own office equipped with all the usual necessities like a desk, telephone, answering machine, modem, computers, printers, filing cabinets plus a wealth of technical knowledge and expertise. His facilities are invariably better than those provided by a client to an on-site contractor or by an employer to an employee, and they are eternally familiar to him. His office is quieter and therefore much more conducive to concentrated productive work. He arrives there in the morning after a minimal journey (or even no journey at all), not having had to expend half his daily reserve of mental concentration on a stressful car journey, or having his mind numbed by the noise and crush of the morning commuter train.
The knowledge and skills of an IT expert anywhere in the country can thus serve any client anywhere else in the country (or even the world) for any duration of time. His skills benefit those who most need them, when they are most needed, for only as long as they are needed. An off-site consultant can get a distant client 'on the air' again by giving a few guiding words over the telephone, or by logging on to the client's system directly from his own office to make a simple strategic adjustment to their software. Ten minutes later he can be helping another company or continuing with a long-term software development job.
Telecommuting thus frees the familiar tasks of systems analysis, design, specification, programming, testing and commissioning from geographic and corporate constraints. It gives the IT user access to a vastly expanded army of relevant human resources without the costly long term commitment of employing them as permanent staff or the problems of accommodating, equipping and managing temporary on-site contractors.
About two years ago, I wrote an open letter on this subject to the computer industry press. My letter was published in several journals and over 50 people responded, the majority of whom were small software companies and independent IT professionals.
All concurred strongly with the comments in my letter regarding the vast proportion of time that had to be spent finding work rather than doing it and the consequential need for some form of central marketing enterprise to find the work and despatch the expertise and skills of such IT experts to the corporate departmental and small company IT user market. Such a response to just one short letter suggests that there must be an abundance of off-site IT expertise available.
The government's publicity drive to get businesses to adopt information technology as a means of boosting efficiency and world competitiveness has resulted in a large number of personal computers and local area networks being installed in both small to medium sized companies and individual departments of large corporations. However, in the wake of this come the many tales of woe of how firms have seemingly wasted large sums of money on boxes of electronics which they do not know how to use. Frequently, management does not understand the technology, but then they would not have to if they took advantage of the readily available professional help.
The problem is that all but a few of the dealers from whom these systems are bought are what are known in the industry as 'box shifters' - dealers who simply sell the contents of cardboard boxes and do not have the expertise to provide the technical support required to enable their customers to make full and proper use of the technology they have bought. This results in the customer's investment in IT being under-used, and often, not used at all. This is not the dealer's fault. A dealer cannot maintain a base of expertise in applying computers to every possible business requirement. This is not his function. His function is to supply and maintain the computer hardware and standard off-the-shelf software.
What the user needs is software and application expertise in the area required by his particular business. Such users are frequently desperate for help, but cannot afford or justify full-time computer staff or on-site contractors. For the most part they only need help to get started or when they have a problem. The solution is to have a consultant based off-site on retainer or for short periods as required. But neither the user nor the dealer knows where to find one. This is because such experts do not have the means to market themselves effectively.
Management attitudes in the large corporate IT skills market pose a similar problem. Sadly, the majority of managers within large corporations will only use off-site resources as a last resort, and even then, very reluctantly. Underlying the excuses given lurks the fear that since the company cannot keep a constant eye on anybody working off-site, then that person will not be as committed to the work in hand and will take unlimited time out to do other (personal) things.
This shows a grave lack of understanding of the psychological forces that motivate the independent expert. The most important goal for such an individual is to achieve and maintain a good name - his whole livelihood depends on it. Knowing that the only measure of his worth is the results he produces, the last thing he is going to do is risk his reputation by default. He wants to be recommended.
In order to combat prospective client resistance and open up these sectors of the IT skills market to the telecommuter, it is therefore necessary to do two things:
If we expect to have a significant role in the future world of Information Technology, then we cannot afford to impose upon ourselves handicaps which other nations do not impose upon themselves.
Their traditional field is the large corporate marketplace into which they market and sell IT skills in the form of on-site contractors and permanent staff. This marketplace needs a large constant turnover per client. They therefore need only a few clients to maintain their business at a desirable size. They can therefore justify their method of marketing which is to maintain close contact with key people in client organisations, keeping a high visibility and presence by such means as regular telephone calls and lavish client entertaining.
To maintain a comparable turnover and profitability in the small business or corporate departmental markets where the turnover per client would be far smaller, the above method of marketing would be prohibitively expensive. Sadly, my agency mailshot suggests that practically all the agencies feel ill equipped to diversify into a market which requires quite a different approach to the marketing and selling of IT skills.
Independents have at times attempted to provide such a means by forming themselves into loose associations and clubs and by setting up professional grapevines. However, these rarely succeed and they invariably evaporate away as each member becomes preoccupied with his next big project.
Telecommuting Associates Ltd, it is hoped, will develop as a centrally managed yet physically dispersed provider of information technology expertise. It will be cemented together by comprehensive state-of-the-art voice and data communications facilities. There will be a strong formal relationship between member and the central enterprise. This will secure each member's commitment to the enterprise while preserving each member's sense of independence.
The central enterprise will provide its members with:
Consequently clients can be confident of the quality of service they will receive.
Because through hi-tech communications we can link-in expertise from anywhere in the country without the constraints of time and travel, we are the most likely to be able to provide the expertise a client requires quickly and for any duration.
Because we each work from our own fixed bases - home or local office, we remain individually accessible, even after a project has finished, for on-going client support.
Because we are not pre-fatigued by commuting or emotionally deprived by long continuous spells away from home, our days are longer and more productive, giving the client better value for money.
Are you an IT expert who would like to work as a properly equipped independent IT telecommuter? If so, what skills and experience can you provide?
Are you a potential investor, marketeer, manager or administrator for our new enterprise. If so, what can you contribute?
With comprehensive wide area communications being such a vital part of our corporate structure, what facilities and support would the common carriers and value-added network service providers be able to supply us with. For example, when can we expect to be able to have ISDN Basic Access at home or in a small local office at an affordable price?
I look forward to hearing from you.
RJM 30 December 1990