InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
May 4, 1998
Managing That Churning Sensation
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Focusing on other issues has brought measurable results to Booz Allen, says Throckmorton. The consulting firm has slowed rocketing turnover rates down to the industry average by addressing its workers' needs and desires. "People used to come in and work their way up, learning to deal in a corporate environment. If they did leave, they sold themselves on that corporate experience," he says. "But today's young people want to sell a portfolio of discrete experiences. If you're going to retain and recruit people, you need to manage for that portfolio approach."
Booz Allen starts catering to young wor kers even before it hires them. "We send partners to campus to do interviews. We didn't used to send partners," says Throckmorton.
Satisfaction
Once hired, workers want to skip past intro-level scut work and get directly to the good stuff, both to build their portfolio of experiences and to make their job more satisfying. "People don't expect to be at Layer 15 of an organization; they expect a flat corporation where they see senior management on Day One and then see them on a daily basis," says Throckmorton. "They want exposure to the boss' thoughts, opinions, and ideas." Adds Silvers, "If you guarantee a new person that within 18 months they won't be doing maintenance, they like that."
Job satisfaction is another priority with the churning workforce. "Five years ago, there was an almost macho ethic on Wall Street, in consulting, and at top consumer-product companies," says Throckmorton. "People put in 80- to 90-hour weeks and bragged that they'd worked five weekends in a row. No w they want more balance between family, career, and the rest of their life. We have to limit how many weekends and how many hours people work--no matter how tough the problem is--or turnover goes through the roof. That means the team leader has to really work at keeping `scope-creep' down so that the core job gets done."
If all this talk about quality of life sounds too warm and fuzzy for the stereotypical IT manager, well, that's part of the problem. "The No. 1 reason people leave is because something happened in their work relationship with their managers," says Sue Towsley, an Alexandria, Va.-based partner with Blessing White, a Princeton, N.J., consulting firm that specializes in career development and retention of knowledge workers. "That's what makes them start looking. Even in the post-loyalty culture, the most important relationship is between the employee and manager."
The new workforce requires many IT managers to adopt a new way of thinking and managing. They must be prepared for workers who have identified their own needs and are trying to communicate them to the boss. "Managers need to consistently focus on individual values and needs," says Towsley. "Unfortunately, that's usually the weakest suit for technology professionals. They discount interpersonal issues, and they don't believe you when you tell them otherwise." Adds Silvers, who has used Blessing White's training with solid results, "Communication is the bottom line--communication to subordinates and to upper management. If you speak your mind, most of your problems will be gone."
Scream Team
Consultant Towsley tells the sad story of a programmer at a software company who got promoted to product development manager, with a staff of seven programmers reporting to him. "He screamed at them and he snapped at the customer," says Towsley. "Apparently, he had no other way of communicating. Within 30 days, four of his programmers quit, but he kept on doing it. Needless to say, the client relationship suffered, too."
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Illustration by Joe Scanfani
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