Backlash In today's fast-paced Internet economy, business demands more than ever from technology, and IT professionals are feeling the heat. Is your company at risk of driving out its top talent? By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, Diane Rezendes Khirallah, and Michelle Lodge Michael Miller is a seasoned IT professional who thrives as lead developer of client applications at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. His job is both challenging and rewarding, and it affords him the flexibility to ensure he has time with his family--something that's very important to him. But things weren't always so rosy. Like too many IT professionals, Miller was once a walking zombie. A few years ago, while employed at a financial-services firm, Miller was working on a software project to streamline the company's accounting practices. "We were working six and seven days a week, 12 hours a day," he recalls. The overload not only taxed his waking hours, causing a mind-numbing fatigue, it led to a syndrome Miller dubbed "sleep programming." "You wake up tired because you were so busy all night working on those programming problems in your sleep," he says. The rollout of the accounting system coincided with Miller's hard-earned vacation to Cozumel, Mexico. He was nervous about leaving, concerned that the system might still have bugs. Miller feared the project was another example of ill-conceived planning by his boss, whom Miller says was out of touch with current technology. The boss' cluelessness, Miller says, typically led him to make promises to company honchos that left the IT staff scrambling to meet impossible deadlines. Miller took his scheduled trip--but, as he feared, system glitches abounded. When he returned, he stayed at the job for only six more weeks. The causes of Miller's job frustration and exhaustion, commonly known as burnout, were unrealistic expectations and over-promises. The result: He quit. Burnout is nothing new. But the backlash exemplified above may be growing. IT work has always been stressful. Projects have short deadlines and implementation schedules. IT operations and support require 24-by-7 availability. And every new IT paradigm shift brings with it the need for new skills. What's different today is the acceleration and volume of IT work, driven largely by the Internet economy. The race by dot-coms and brick-and-mortar companies to compete on the Web has hastened the demand for IT-dependent projects. Also, the IT-project floodgates have opened at many companies that had projects and budgets on hold while year 2000 work was completed. Exacerbating the situation is a Silicon Valley culture spinning out of control, with stress-induced psychological problems reaching an all-time high (see sidebar story, "Silicon Valley And The Culture Of 'More'"). Also, the influx of foreign workers hired by U.S. companies desperate for IT talent adds its own pressure: Many foreign IT workers, accustomed to long hours in poor conditions, are willing to bear 60 or more hours a week, raising the bar even higher for American IT workers (see sidebar story, "Foreign IT Workers Add To The Pressure"). Cumulatively, this grind is fueling a backlash within IT organizations--at traditional companies and, in particular, at dot-coms--that's manifested in reduced productivity from IT workers, abrupt career changes, even en masse departures when an overworked employee bails out and takes along several colleagues. Worse yet, disgruntled employees might take valued customers. The good news is that companies are tuning in to the increasing stress levels of their IT workers and taking steps to make things better. Of necessity, many businesses offer flexible schedules, telecommuting, and job sharing. Savvier ones seek to create a corporate culture that espouses mutual respect and shared values, open-door communications and mentoring, creativity and fun. IT workers are getting savvier, too. Many are seeking work situations that fit their lifestyles, such as respect for family time. And some IT workers who signed on for the breakneck pace and promised riches of Internet startups are returning with relief to more traditional work situations. In terms of job stress and stress-related problems, IT workers have plenty of company. An estimated 1 million workers are absent on an average workday because of stress-related complaints, according to the American Institute of Stress, a nonprofit organization in New York. Job stress is estimated to cost U.S. companies $300 billion annually, including absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, and medical, legal, and insurance fees. But IT workers may be contributing more than their share of that amount. At a long-distance communications company in New York, "Hell Week" was the term used to describe the seven days that led up to the launch of its Web site. Bob, the project's manager, recalls what the eight-member IT team faced as it was gearing up: The CEO disregarded the marketing department's estimation of 17,000 hits the first week and demanded instead that the IT staff re-architect the system to accommodate 250,000 hits on the first day. That fueled a whirl of 14-hour workdays, panicked calls to vendors, rushed dinners at 11 p.m., dog-tired staffers driving each other home at 4 a.m., and a 3-year-old girl playing in the office because her dad, the lead Web architect, couldn't find child care. The upshot? The IT team made its deadline, but the price paid was both immediate and lasting. The fledgling company and its staff went into the launch stressed and exhausted, damaged by broken professional relationships and an extra $50,000 in expenses, the project manager says. Shortly thereafter, three staffers left, including the CEO. And the Web site, true to the marketing department's prediction, got closer to 17,000 hits in the first week. Calling IT work a marathon that must be run at a sprinter's pace is both an understatement and faulty, says Elliott Masie, director of the Masie Center, an IT training and E-learning firm. Unlike a marathon, there's no finish line in IT. Projects often come rolling in one after the other, leaving little or no time to regroup. Meanwhile, technology itself has tethered IT people to their jobs round-the-clock. "We've changed our definition of what busy is," says Masie. "Now it's hyper-busy. Everyone's got a pager, a beeper, and 25 E-mails a day." For S-B Power Tools Co., a tool manufacturer in Chicago, eight back-to-back network projects cost the company three key network people, says Mark Appelhans, director of application development. The consequence of those departures: more pressure on the remaining staff. "It puts a burden on everyone," Appelhans says. "The jobs still have to get done." Worse still, sometimes a drop-everything-this-is-mission-critical project disappears in midstream. Management may know why, but the reasons are not always communicated to programmers who gave up nights, weekends, and family time. continue on to page 2, 3 continued...page 2 of 3 According to a May survey of 1,400 CIOs conducted by RHI Consulting, an IT job- placement firm, the greatest sources of workplace stress for IT professionals are increasing workloads (55%), office politics (24%), and work-life balance issues (12%). "Because companies are having a difficult time finding skilled technology professionals, it's just adding to the workload of an already stressed-out IT staff," says Katherine Spencer Lee, RHI Consulting's executive director. Diego Saenz says he's witnessed IT employees reach their breaking point--and it's not pretty. Saenz is executive VP and chief operating officer at PetPlace.com Inc., an online pet-services provider in New York. Before joining the dot-com, Saenz held CIO posts at Pepsi Latin America and Wackenhut Co. Prior to that, he was a consultant at Andersen Consulting. "Your staff has been working 18 hours a day, and you walk into a room and say the deadline has been pushed up a week," Saenz says. "Someone reclines in his chair and just starts attacking you, cursing and going wild. And you say, 'Calm down, it's not a personal thing, it's a project thing.' But to them, it's personal. And then tears start coming into their eyes." Nowadays, even when deadlines on hellish projects are met, the work isn't over- -especially when it comes to the Web. "Before the Internet, you needed enough time to get a project going, get it right, and get it delivered on deadline," says Gene Done, manager of IT engineering at storage products company Iomega Corp. in Roy, Utah. "But now, the work is never really done. Once you start an Internet project, there's always tweaking and updates needed." That's not to mention increasing demand for Web projects, and the related red tape. "People are given a task and then all of a sudden, they have to wait for the marketing people," Done says. "Work builds up, and the impact is tremendous." Meanwhile, he adds, other projects can't be pushed out of the way. The unfortunate result: Staffers get fed up. "People begin to say, 'that's enough,' and they leave for other jobs," Done says, adding with irony that some leave for startups, where things are often even more hectic. The dot-coms' entrepreneurial lure of get-rich-quick has been drawing IT newcomers as well as seasoned workers. But while stories abound about 20- something millionaires, the reality is that life isn't necessarily greener at dot-coms, and the push back has begun. "The backlash is the gap between expectations and reality," PetPlace.com's Saenz says. The harsh reality is that most dot-coms fail. Paul Daversa, president of Resource Systems Group, a Stamford, Conn., IT recruitment firm that works with dot-coms and brick-and-mortar companies, says 80% to 90% of Internet initiatives fail. Plus, the glamour of long hours spent creating something you love on a shoestring budget with a skeleton staff can wear thin quickly, especially when it becomes apparent that there's no guarantee of success. "The chaotic startup thing has run out of gas," says Richard Florida, professor of regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon University's H. John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management in Pittsburgh. "People feel challenged, but they also feel like they're running around in circles. They're looking for challenge and impact, but they're also looking for some level of structure." While working at a dot-com can be challenging and caters to the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of some IT workers, business disappointments can crush that enthusiasm. Earlier this year, 25-year-old Brian Herbek left IT consulting startup Gobosh Inc. for the promise of stock options and a half-percent equity stake in MyDestinations.net, a now-defunct portal-software startup in Saratoga, Calif. As the dot-com's sole IT professional, Herbek was quickly overwhelmed. And it's easy to see why: A normal week meant pulling two or three all-nighters. Herbek lasted six months before burnout took over and his confidence in the company disappeared. "I ran out of energy," he says. "It was a resource-deficient work environment." Although he warned management that they needed more IT people, the company insisted new IT hires commit to at least three years. Not surprisingly, the jobs went unfilled, and in midsummer, Herbek returned to his post as systems engineer at Gobosh, in San Jose, Calif., where by then a typical 60-hour workweek seemed like part-time. No doubt, the stakes are high at dot-coms. "You're measured every day in two ways: by your own performance and by market performance," Saenz says. "The lack of control related to market performance is something that makes people feel uneasy and can lead to burnout." That level of pressure is causing many dot-commers to seek jobs at the traditional companies they left behind, says recruiter Daversa. Where the last two years had been focused primarily on filling IT posts at dot-coms and the E- business initiatives of click-and-mortar companies, over the last six months many of Daversa's recruiting efforts have reverted to more-traditional IT positions. Dot-coms are infamous for shifting gears and canceling IT projects with little notice. But projects also get canceled at traditional businesses. Jane Landon, CIO at Prudential Insurance Co. of America's institutional investments business, advises that when IT managers know in advance that a project will be canceled, they should have new challenges ready for employees who need them. "You have to make sure you have new assignments for high talent," Landon says. "That's the one set you really have to be concerned about--taking care of your really high performers." Besides the innate pressure of deadlines and changes in project direction, IT work often requires frequent travel, which can wear people down. When he was CIO at Pepsi Latin America, Saenz's frequent trips to Brazil meant an overnight flight for a day of meetings, followed by a red-eye back to the United States-- often at a moment's notice. But he's learning: When negotiating for his current job at PetPlace.com, Saenz told the company up front that he absolutely won't work Sundays. Period. It's his time for church, rest and renewal, and family. No IT constituency knows more about the toll of travel than consultants. Cynthia Reese has been an IT consultant for six years. With a background in project management, specializing in backup and recovery of massive data centers, she's no stranger to hard work. To this self-described "everyday, middle-class hard worker," understaffing, technically difficult work, routine long hours, and emergency phone calls in the middle of the night are just part of working in a production environment. Yet when she joined the legions of Monday-morning-and-Friday-night frequent fliers as a consultant, burnout set in. Reese declines to name the consulting firm she worked for, in part because of the haphazard way it managed its clients and its employees. "If I give 120% [to the job and the company], I expect 120% in return," Reese says. What did she actually get? About 30%, she says. "There was no support. It was, 'Here's your address; this is where we want you. Now, go.'" More often than not, Reese found herself going into assignments unprepared. Her company didn't even provide its traveling IT experts with notebook computers. She handled the situation with aplomb, despite qualms about how her firm was managing the relationship. "You don't have time to gain the knowledge before you're thrown into it," she says. "It's embarrassing." continue on to page 3 return to page 1 continued...page 3 of 3 The situation tested her family as well. Her husband, a retired Navy man, was pressed into managing the home full-time--a complete role reversal he neither anticipated nor relished. He remained supportive of Reese's career, as she had been of his, but he was still stressed about what it meant for him and their two sons. Finally, Reese left for another firm, this time making a thorough investigation before signing on. One month into her current job as a consultant for Collective Technologies, Reese calls it "the best company I've ever found." Whether it's equipment and tools, support, or other resources, Reese says all she has to do is ask, and the firm is right behind her. She's also able to work from home, and Collective Technologies even adjusts work schedules to accommodate family events. And Reese's previous employer? It not only lost a valued IT expert, it also lost one of its clients, who preferred Reese's work over the firm's brand name. IT workers aren't the only ones affected by burnout in the Internet economy. Nontech users within fast-paced Internet startups can be equally affected by IT demands and pressures. Karl Sowa, VP of enterprise development for rrr.net, a Minneapolis Internet education company that licenses teaching tools to schools, has tales of his own nightmare job. A few years ago as the director of marketing at GeoCities, a company that sets up communities for individuals who want to publish personal home pages, Sowa saw the company grow from just a few employees to 170. As the seventh hire at the fledgling company (GeoCities is now part of Yahoo), Sowa had many jobs. He designed the ad server, laid out technical specs, and set up the print server. He worked seven days a week, sometimes 90 hours in one week. "When I got home, I couldn't even finish sentences," he says. And then there was the sleeplessness. "Sleep is what you need the most, but your mind is racing so much that you can't," he says. To avoid such a situation at his current job, Sowa attempts to manage his staff of 40 so that no one group is overburdened. For example, Sowa tells his employees, "If you ever find yourself sitting at your desk and think you've been asked to do something dumb, then immediately come talk to me." Communication, open-door policies, and good leadership are key if companies want to keep their IT staffs intact, say IT executives and experts. "The worst thing to do is isolate yourself, which is an issue we as managers struggle with today as our lives become busier," says Prudential's Landon. "People will tell you their issues if you put out the psychiatrist's couch." Some IT workers cite another potential stress-reliever: location. Mike Nolan, a senior project manager at Home Box Office, says his staff rarely has problems with burnout, partly because they're located in rural Iowa. Nolan says not having to deal with long commutes and congested traffic makes for a better quality of life than that of colleagues who work in offices in crowded metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas. "Our hours are as long as anyone's, but it only takes five minutes to get home," he says. The result: low turnover. Even companies in hot technology regions such as Silicon Valley have begun to wise up by offering stress-reducing perks to employees. High-tech employers of all sizes in the Valley allow telecommuting, build child-care centers, provide free passes for public transportation, and even open satellite offices to ease commutes for workers. This month, Cisco Systems plans to open a $10 million child-care center for 440 children at its headquarters in San Jose. Internet firm Respond.com, in Palo Alto, provides employees free notebook computers and subsidizes a second desktop PC. Non-technology companies that depend heavily on IT also offer programs to help IT workers better manage their work and personal lives. For example, brokerage firm Charles Schwab & Co. offers telecommuting, flexible scheduling, sabbaticals, and concierge services that help employees coordinate home repairs as well as plan events, says Randy Ynegas, director of human resources for Schwab technology innovation. "One woman in IT used the services to help plan her wedding," he says. Of course, one reason for the kinder, gentler Silicon Valley is that the region doesn't want to continue to lose scarce IT talent to other, more lifestyle- oriented areas of the country such as Austin, Texas. "Employers are finding in this tight job market that there's nothing more important than a satisfied employee who will remain with the company and remain productive," says Ruben Barrales, president and CEO of research firm Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network. "The whole issue of stress and making work more attractive for employees is becoming more widespread than ever before." IT workers are getting savvier, too. After his bad experience with a previous employer, Credit Suisse's Miller says he learned to interview prospective employers more than they interview him. "Once you've been to hell, you don't want to go back," he says. "I want to know where I'll be sitting, who I'll be working with, what the environment is like, how the company works, and how it gets things done." While companies' efforts to alleviate IT stress are admirable, many still don't get to the heart of overwork and the needs of stressed-out workers, says Beverly Goldberg, VP of the Century Foundation, a think tank in New York. "Companies have to accept that workers can only do so much," she says. "They can provide concierge services, child care, more money, more options--but at a certain point, people can't do more work." S-B Power Tool's Appelhans recognizes this. "One of the reasons we haven't offered any of those [concierge-type] programs is that people might perceive them as ploys to give up downtime," he says. While it's unlikely that the demands of IT and the Internet--and the resulting stress of the IT work style--will decrease anytime soon, some believe major changes are at hand. Carnegie Mellon's Florida says it may well be the next generation of IT workers that brings the technology work culture back to sanity. A lot of Florida's students view the Silicon Valley lifestyle as too sterile. They want a more balanced life, one that allows them to pursue interests beyond the world of IT, such as sports and music. At some point, "someone will get up and say, 'It's not cool to work so much,'" Florida says. "It'll be a generational phase--an informal, societal recognition." The good news: The shift may already be under way. "What's new is that we're beginning to think about it, we're aware of it, and we want to do something about it," Florida says. That's sure to be music to the ears of IT workers everywhere. return to page 1, 2 Illustration by Richard Downs Photo of Sowa by Sal Skog