Hunting for Rare Game
by Ian Palmer

The following is reprinted with permission from the May 2003 issue of The Talent Economy. Copyright New Work Media. All Rights Reserved.

Bengal tigers, mountain gorillas and polar bears have something in common with IT workers: they're all being hunted by ruthless poachers.

Bengal tigers in India are being killed so that their skin, bones and body parts can be used in Chinese herbal remedies. Adult mountain gorillas in Uganda are being killed so that their orphaned babies can be whisked away and sold to disreputable collectors. Polar bears in Russia are being killed so that their hides and gallbladders can be sold for thousands of dollars on the black market.

While IT workers in the United States are not being poached in the traditional sense of the term – namely, illegally taking or possessing game, non-game, protected, threatened or endangered species – they are being lured away from familiar stomping grounds and towards supposedly greener pastures. And projections for a severe talent shortage by 2010 suggest that incidents of poaching will increase in direct proportion to the diminishing IT talent base

"Companies need to be sure they have the right people in the business and that means selection," says Joyce Gioia, a strategic business futurist and author, adding that keeping and attracting good employees is the only way to survive during the approaching labor troubles. "They need to be sure that their organization has an employer of choice position, meaning the organization is respected as one of the best companies in its industry."

Also the president of Greensboro, N.C.-based The Herman Group, a firm of consulting futurists concentrating on workforce and workplace issues, Gioia co-authored the book Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People. In the book, Gioia, Roger Herman and Tom Olivo suggest that a number of trends will soon converge to create a severe labor shortage.

Futurists, human resources professionals and company representatives say management at IT firms should be working overtime to ensure they are prepared when the times of plenty – there are currently thousands of unemployed IT workers and about 10.1 million people working in the IT sector – become the times of scarcity. But some pundits suggest that even if there were a labor shortage in other industries come 2010, the available talent at home and abroad would be enough to sustain the IT sector.

The Future is Now

In late 2002, Impending Crisis made headlines for suggesting that the U.S. workforce would soon suffer a head-on-collision with catastrophe because of the combined effects of several demographic factors:

• Factor No. 1 – Baby Boomers Slow Down – The majority of the working population in the U.S., in their 40s and 50s, are nearing the peak of their earning and spending years, which is enough to keep the economic engine churning for the time being. But once these Baby Boomers reach retirement…
  


• Factor No. 2 – Economy Cools Off – The U.S. economy has gained at least 10 million jobs every five years since 1980, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that between now and 2010, there will be 10 million jobs over every eight years instead of five.
  


• Factor No. 3 – Economy Picks Up, But Employers Unprepared – Until the mid-1990s, the U.S. had more people than jobs. A reversal in the late 1990s, when there were more jobs than people, resulted in some serious poaching. Then the economy slowed in 2000, 2001 and early 2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics now projects that the U.S. will have 167,754,000 jobs in the employment market in 2010 but will only have 157,721,000 people in the labor market, a shortage of 10,033,000 workers.
  

Says Gioia: "Companies are not giving this enough serious consideration. [They] need to change the way they function." She adds that strategic workforce planning necessitates "looking at what you’ve got on board, assessing their strengths and weaknesses," and determining whether these workers fit into the company’s short- and long-term plans.

Laying the Foundation

Statistics show that, in general, it takes four or five years for a worker who was brought aboard with some level of training to reach his or her peak in a working capacity. The average tenure at a job, however, moved down from 4.6 years in 1990 to only 3.5 years in 2002, and the trend is moving downward. Because the job market of 2010 promises to be kind to skilled talent, firms should start building and maintaining bridges now rather than later, if only to prevent disgruntled employees from pushing down the average tenure rate any faster than it is already dropping.

"My feeling is that HR can encourage and promote training and education within the organization," says Carol Hacker, a human resources consultant who started her own company – Carol A. Hacker & Associates, based in Alpharetta, Ga. – after spending years working in various HR positions. "There are companies out there that have brought university and college courses to their employees. With IT people, if they’re not offered the latest technology, training and development opportunities, they’ll leave you as an employer and go to an employer offering those things."

Also the author of 11 books, including How to Compete in the War for Talent: A Guide To Hiring The Best and Retain or Retrain: How to Keep the Good Ones from Leaving, Hacker says certain industries should be particularly alert when it comes to preparing for any looming shortage of skilled workers.

"Some industries are more prone," says Hacker. "Healthcare and IT are two top areas. They’re moving at the speed of light. [Companies] need to be anticipating those trends."

Desperate companies in desperate times will sometimes resort to desperate measures to keep afloat. Some will even recruit workers from other companies as opposed to going through the onerous process of placing ads, interviewing candidates and hiring workers. But even so, proponents of people poaching believe that poaching is a necessary evil, given that as little as four percent of the population actively searches for employment, leaving recruiters scrambling to fill positions.

Oddly enough, there is some evidence to suggest that people poaching is as much a symbol of Americana as homemade apple pie or baseball. The term first found its way into the corporate lexicon, after all, in Silicon Valley when companies, struggling to find enough talent, employed nefarious tactics to attract workers. Since then, the phenomenon has spread like wildfire, crossing industry lines, cultural lines and geographical lines. But people poaching come 2010 could make the people poaching of today look like a leisurely stroll through the company parking lot.

Hacker says that while some of her clients would never poach, other IT firms she has serviced see the fight for talent as nothing short of guerrilla warfare – and, in such an environment, anything goes.

The Way it Should(n’t) Be

Billing itself as the first online navigational guide to the Internet, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based Yahoo! leads the pack in traffic, advertising, household and business user reach. It is also the most recognized Internet brand globally, reaching over 237 million unique users in 25 countries and 13 languages.

Although Heidi Burgett, Yahoo!’s internal communications manager, says it’s hard to predict what the future holds for the U.S. workforce, she adds that Yahoo! has already proven itself to be a survivor, having outlasted competitors that have succumbed to the wounds inflicted by the dot-com bust.

"We have employees who work here because they know they’re going to work on projects that will change the Internet," she says, adding that the firm is always committed to providing development opportunities for its employees. "We’ve done exceptionally well at keeping our talent here…Our company continues to change and evolve just like the Internet has changed and evolved."

While Burgett addresses the way it should be, Hacker addresses the way it shouldn’t be: "I’ve seen companies that were revolving doors," says Hacker. "People don’t quit their jobs because of money in most cases. People quit their bosses."

She adds that HR departments will have to do a better job of hiring people-oriented leaders in order to keep prized employees from jumping ship.

Gioia, who has previously said that about 72 percent of people employed in the U.S. do not like their jobs, says that in-demand employees could soon ditch ungrateful employers, which means companies should start bonding with their employees before it is too late.

"They have to…make sure the bond with current employees is strong," says Gioia, adding that if they must terminate employees, they should ensure that those employees leave with their dignity intact so that employees left behind will want to stick around. "If employees are abused in the separation process, the employees there now will start" looking around for an alternative job just in case they get the same treatment later on.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Futurists have sounded the siren, warning the masses about an impending catastrophe on the labor front, but Zeus Kerravala, VP of the Yankee Group, based in Boston, Mass., isn’t buying any of it.

"I don’t believe there is a shortage in the IT market," says Kerravala, adding that the many unemployed IT workers sitting on the sidelines disprove arguments advanced by the likes of Gioia and Hacker. "A lot of [the unemployed IT workers] are going back to school, getting MBAs and business degrees," he says. "If there’s a shortage of talent in the future, I don’t think it would apply to the IT industry."

As for the poaching debate, he says people-poaching and job-hopping are simply present day business realities in a capitalist society.

"It happens all the time," says Kerravala. "We live in a capitalist society" that allows people to go and work wherever they want.

Proof is in the Pudding

Although Kerravala questions whether Impending Crisis overstates the problem, Gioia and the other co-authors believe that the proof is in the pudding. Statistics, they say, suggest that by 2010 the U.S. job market could be in for a rude awakening.

Not enough companies are heeding the warnings, says Gioia, whose headquarters – located on Battleground Avenue – seems appropriately named for the task ahead for The Herman Group, as it tells corporate leaders to wake up, bond with their troops and prepare for the impending crisis.

On second thought, IT workers in the U.S. have very little in common with Bengal tigers in India, mountain gorillas in Uganda and polar bears in Russia. This time it’s the employers, not the employees, who’ll be left to cope after the poachers poach the best and the brightest.

Ian Palmer
The Talent Economy Magazine, May 2003