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Despite Favorable Job Market, IT Pros Stay Put

Ever since the early 2000’s economic downturn, IT pros have endured the slings and arrows of an employer’s marketplace. Employers slashed benefits, eliminated perks, froze—or increased only modestly—salary and compensation levels, and through it all placed more responsibilities on the already brimming plates of their employees. Don’t look now, but it might just be payback time.

That’s the upshot of new research from IT workforce watchers Robert Half Technology and Careerbuilders.com. For one thing, the two companies say, more than half (51 percent) of the hiring managers they surveyed for their 2005 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report indicated that it was difficult to find qualified candidates 12 months ago, while more than 81 percent said the same today. There’s good news for IT pros with experience and certifications, too: more than half of hiring managers who said they had experienced trouble recruiting cited a shortage of qualified professionals as the biggest problem. The result, Robert Half and Careerbuilder.com say, is that almost 40 percent of hiring managers expect to boost starting salaries to help attract new talent.

It hasn’t always been this encouraging, assuming the Robert Half and Careerbuilder.com survey isn’t just an anomalous blip on the radar screen. But a range of other indicators—including a recent report from market watcher Gartner Inc.—point to the emergence of a job-seeker’s market. For example, a Gartner poll of 188 U.S. IT organizations found that approximately 61 percent of respondents project some level of IT staff increase between now and early 2007.

More telling still, respondents reported a 1 percent increase in worker-initiated turnover compared to last year’s survey results. The upshot, Gartner says, is that CIOs expect to spend money—in the form of salary increases or other perks—to hire or retain top IT talent. The average 2006 salary increase for IT employees is likely to be in the neighborhood of 3.5 percent, according to the company.

A Long Time Coming

IT pros have long expressed dissatisfaction with their compensation, benefits, and work responsibilities. It wasn’t until recently, however, that many have determined to do anything about it. Consider the case of a former production support engineer with telco giant Sprint Nextel, who says he leapt at the chance to take a voluntary severance package in April after eight years with that company.

“My pay was, for the most part, stagnant after 2001, really until very recently. Just looking at my tax records, [pay was stagnant],” this IT pro—who asked that his name not be used since he’s still seeking employment—said.

This professional was among several hundred Sprint employees who were outsourced to IBM Corp. one year ago as part of an ambitious global services win for that company. He didn’t get a raise or see much in the way of compensation perks when he came onboard with IBM, he says, but he was given a raise when Sprint “backsourced” most of its former employees in March. That was part of the telco giant’s prominent about-face on the outsourcing front.

“I got a raise when I came back, but really, the amount of work [I was expected to do] increased even more. Part of that problem was not that there was more work but that the members of the team had left or had chosen to take earlier opportunities to leave the company and move on. Either way, I had more work and they were paying me the same. That’s why I opted to leave when I had the chance.”

This IT pro hasn’t yet found work, but—with a healthy savings account and the added padding of a three-month severance package, courtesy of Sprint Nextel—he says he’s taking his time and that he’s determined to find a job that he likes. Not everyone will follow his lead, of course. Representatives from Robert Half Technology argue that rank-and-file IT employees are still somewhat cautious about their job prospects and are consequently less willing to try to negotiate higher salaries. Fully 40 percent of survey respondents categorized the job market as difficult 12 months ago, while 85 percent say it is equally or more challenging today. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of workers say they are less likely to ask for more money from a potential employer in the next 12 months, while the number of those who were more likely to try to negotiate for better compensation packages dropped significantly compared to last year’s results, Robert Half representatives confirm.

The Robert Half results jibe to some extent with those from IT staffing specialist Spherion, which—in a survey released last month—found that fully half of IT workers surveyed said that they were unlikely to look for a new job in the coming months. That might not seem all that encouraging, but it’s a marked improvement from Spherion’s previous tally, which found that 56 percent of IT workers anticipated looking elsewhere for new employment in the coming months.

What accounts for the disparity between the thoughts and perceptions of hiring managers and prospective job seekers? Spherion officials chalk the change up to improved talent retention efforts on the part of employers. Rival staffer Robert Half, for its part, says talent retention is only a part of it. More to the point, Robert Half representatives say, it has to do with the kinds of employees companies want to hire: namely, IT pros who are skilled, qualified or certified in often esoteric technology disciplines. As a result, the perception that it’s a job-seeker’s marketplace—but a highly skilled, highly specialized job-seeker’s marketplace, at that—could have a chilling effect on many would-be job seekers, Robert Half officials speculate.

“There is strong demand by employers for highly skilled employees to fill staff-level positions,” said Robert Half chairman and CEO Max Messmer, in a statement. Messmer attributes the strength of this demand to regulatory compliance requirements, which he says up the ante—in terms of complexity and in other respects—for companies.

Employees who have taken the plunge back into the job-seeker’s market—such as the former production support engineer with Sprint Nextel introduced above—have found the going to be somewhat unpredictable. Things are perceived as better than they were last year, to be sure, but job-seekers are still cautious, Robert Half representatives say. Last year, for example, 55 percent of employees said it was difficult to find a job during the 12 months prior, while 42 percent said it was even more challenging at that time (i.e., during July of 2005). In 2006, job seekers are more optimistic, but still relatively sober, too: 42 percent of respondents polled this July said it was difficult to find a job during the 12 previous months, 37 percent said it’s even more challenging today. Another 36 percent believe it will be even more challenging next year.

Salaries Rising—But Who’s Hiring?

The good news—for qualified IT pros, anyway—is that a significant percentage of hiring managers (one-fifth) seem to think that the difficulties they’ve experienced finding qualified candidates can be attributed to the disappointing compensation packages they’ve been offering.

Last year, 28 percent of hiring managers said they had increased compensation levels for job offers in the 12 previous months. Encouraging, yes—but this year that figure increased to 36 percent. While one-third of hiring managers surveyed last year anticipating increasing hiring levels over the next 12 months, 38 percent anticipated doing so over the coming year.

Meanwhile, workers seem less inclined to negotiate more lucrative compensation packages. Twenty percent of professionals reported they were less willing to negotiate a more generous job offer today than 12 months ago. Thirty-two percent of workers said they are likely to negotiate more lucrative compensation 12 months from now, down from 47 percent in 2005.

The Robert Half survey, which was co-developed and hosted by Careerbuilder.com, includes responses from more than 1,000 hiring managers and 3,000 workers, and was conducted from July 27 to July 31, 2006..cnn.com/2006/08/30/news/economy/best.over50.fortune/?postversion=2006090611″>50 best companies for employees over 50

This year, the AARP’s list gives special preference to companies that offer flexible hours. Plus, job sites for people who want to keep working through ‘retirement.’

The AARP’s latest list of the top places to work for people over 50 includes some household names, like Volkswagen of America (#6), drug maker Hoffmann-LaRoche (#10), L.L. Bean (#43), and John Deere (Charts) (#50).

As in previous years, however, by far the largest group of companies on the list are privately owned health-care providers, like No. 1-ranked Mercy Health System, headquartered in Janesville, Wis.

What they all have in common: They offer flexible work hours to an increasing number of their employees.

Volkswagen, based in Auburn Hills, Mich., is typical. The company makes flextime, compressed work schedules, job sharing, and telecommuting available to both full- and part-time workers, as well as letting some of its employees ease into retirement gradually by working part time first. After they do step aside, many of Volkswagen’s retirees are offered consulting projects, temporary assignments, and part-time jobs.

Nonprofits like winner Mercy Health System, which runs 63 health-care facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois, offer other flexible-scheduling opportunities, like weekend-only work and on-call assignments involving a limited number of hours per month.

A recent study by the AARP and human-resources consultants Towers Perrin says that employees age 50 and over will account for 20% of the workforce by the year 2012, up from 13% now.

As a result, says smart employers are trying to create a “mutually beneficial work environment” for older workers, says AARP chief executive Bill Novelli. “Flexible arrangements can be a big part of that.”

The full list of this year’s honorees are below.
Web sites for older workers

Unfortunately, most of the employers on this year’s list are limited to relatively small geographic areas. What if you’re an over-50 job seeker who doesn’t happen to live near any of them? Not a minute too soon, nationwide job sites for the older and wiser are beginning to appear on the Web.

Consider, for instance, RetirementJobs.com. Launched in May, the site acts as a matchmaker between the 50-plus crowd and employers who want to hire them for part-time, full-time, and temp jobs. Its services are free to job hunters, and so far some big names - H&R Block (Charts), Home Depot (Charts), Bank of America (Charts), and the American Red Cross among them - have signed on.

RetirementJobs.com also offers other resources, like resume-writing help, and features intriguing profiles of people who have found their dream jobs after retiring from their original careers.

Monster.com, meanwhile, has built an online job-search center called Careers at 50+ (careersat50.monster.com). A joint venture with AARP, the site features special advice for career changers, and interview and resume tips tailored to job seekers who have decades of experience. Check them out! Top of page
Best Companies for Employees Over 50
Rank Company City State
1 Mercy Health System Janesville WI
2 Lee Memorial Health System Fort Myers FL
3 Bon Secours Richmond Health System Richmond VA
4 Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages Regional Hospital Leesburg FL
5 Yale-New Haven Hospital New Haven CT
6 Volkswagen of America, Inc. Auburn Hills MI
7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA
8 Oakwood Healthcare System, Inc. Dearborn MI
9 First Horizon National Corporation (FHN) Memphis TN
10 Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Roche) Nutley NJ
11 Centegra Health System Woodstock IL
12 Stanley Consultants Muscatine IA
13 Scripps Health San Diego CA
14 Brevard Public Schools Viera FL
15 Beaumont Hospitals Southfield MI
16 Principal Financial Group (PFG) Des Moines IA
17 The Aerospace Corporation El Segundo CA
18 Inova Health System Falls Church VA
19 The YMCA of Greater Rochester Rochester NY
20 Saint Barnabas Health Care Organization West Orange NJ
21 SC Johnson Racine WI
22 Atlantic Health System Florham Park NJ
23 St. Mary’s Medical Center Huntington WV
24 Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond VA
25 Carondelet Health Network Tucson AZ
26 SSM Health Care St. Louis MO
27 Busch Entertainment Corporation Clayton MO
28 Bon Secours St. Francis Health System Greenville SC
29 Pinnacle Health System Harrisburg PA
30 University of Kentucky Lexington KY
31 St. Mary’s Medical Center Evansville IN
32 Cornell University Ithaca NY
33 Yuma Regional Medical Center Yuma AZ
34 MidMichigan Health Midland MI
35 West Virginia University Hospitals Morgantown WV
36 Pinnacol Assurance Denver CO
37 ACUITY Sheboygan WI
38 Hospice of Marion County & Affiliated Companies Ocala FL
39 Massachusetts General Hospital Boston MA
40 Florida Hospital Waterman Tavares FL
41 University of Colorado Hospital Denver CO
42 Scottsdale Healthcare Scottsdale AZ
43 L.L.Bean, Inc. Freeport ME
44 Mitretek Systems, Inc. Falls Church VA
45 Ochsner Clinic Foundation New Orleans LA
46 UNM Hospitals Albuquerque NM
47 Cabell Huntington Hospital Huntington WV
48 University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston TX
49 Adecco (ADO) Melville NY
50 John Deere (DE) Moline IL