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July 5, 1999

Labor Intensive

continued...page 4 of 4

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Some industry observers say not enough companies are taking advantage of the largely untapped market at the other end of the age spectrum: older programmers. While many blame this on age discrimination (see story, p. 48), others say it's more the perception that older workers lack current skills or are too expensive to hire or train.

"A lot of employers categorize employees and have the mistaken belief that a Cobol programmer can't become a Java developer," says Larry Schuldt, senior systems programmer at Chicago Title & Trust, a subsidiary of $1.9 billion financial-services firm Chicago Title Corp. "Employers need to start looking at the staff they already have and develop them--let them break out of the molds and use new skills," Schuldt says.

Bill Payson, president of Senior Staff Inc., a San Jose, Calif., job-placement firm that operates a national database of 10,000 IT workers age 50 and over, agrees. "There is a huge reservoir of untapped talent out there, and we're having a terrible time getting employers to take this market seriously. It boils down to the fact that employers think older workers' skills are rusty. But they have to start realizing there's no other way they will fill all these positions."

To address the apparent lack of communication between employers and older IT personnel, Senior Staff launched a program this spring to provide online training to older workers. "We're saying to employers, if we find people who come close to the job description and they're willing to train at their own expense and pass the course, will you interview them?" says Payson. Then he asks companies that hire these staffers to reimburse them for the training cost. So far, companies have shown enthusiasm for the program, but it's too soon to tell if it will be successful.

Larry Schuldt Photo by David Joel A few IT departments are turning to technical solutions to their labor problems. Belk Department Stores is using SkillView Technologies Inc.'s SkillView software to track IT workers' training and skill levels. "We create skill-gap reports that compare a job description with the person's current skills," says staff manager Harris. "That lets us determine the best training course for that person." He also uses the software to search in the company for employees who have skills needed for a particular project.

Capers Jones, chief scientist at Software Productivity Research Inc. in Burlington, Mass., says improving software design would free programmers and others from costly and time-consuming maintenance of error-prone programs. Jones says about 60% of the U.S. software workforce is engaged in fixing errors that can be avoided. "The [labor] shortage isn't because we're too busy doing work--it's because we're wasting time and spinning our wheels on stuff we shouldn't be doing." A greater focus on software quality control could reduce the labor shortage in five to 10 years, according his studies of process improvements.

Some executives say companies can also be more efficient in the way they manage their IT staffs. In April, Baltimore Gas and Electric began a major IT reorganization to manage IT skills better. The project combines all the company's telecommunications and IS workers into one unit, and classifies employees by their IT and business skills instead of along traditional titles.

chart The utility also hired four professional development coaches to oversee the performance and training of the IT staff, and a resource-management program was created to oversee IT staff allocation. "We're constantly looking at our needs and where the job skills are," Lash says. He hopes the new structure will help the company keep its IT employees and better compete in a deregulated utility industry that has an average IT turnover rate of 12%. Baltimore's IT turnover is about 5%.

By paying closer attention to IT budgets and resources, GTE's Grim says the company is more productive--but the trade-off is more work for the staff. GTE averages 100 open IT positions at any given time, but Grim doesn't see any delays in GTE's IT projects resulting. "If you tell a manager that he or she has `X' head count and `X' dollars for a project prior to design and development work, the manager tends to think more about what they're doing and how they're doing it," he says. "If you have the right talent, you can do more with less."

Doing more with less may be the bottom line during these lean labor times.