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I've been thinking about this subject for a few years now. Like many HN'ers, I work deep inside the tech industry. I'm also fortunate enough to have watched the

I've been thinking about this subject for a few years now. Like many HN'ers, I work deep inside the tech industry. I'm also fortunate enough to have watched the operations of dozens of different companies. I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers. I'm not talking about managing projects, or how to coach or train. I mean the whole thing. The technology sector of the economy has no idea of exactly how many workers, in what configuration, it needs for accomplishing any job. Weird situation, I know. But where that leaves us is a lot of "open" job positions that are little more than unfulfilled wishes. Sure would be nice to have another 40 guys on the helpdesk. Would that be as nice as 10 more developers? Who knows? Or -- we've got that big government project coming up, so we'll need at least 500 IT workers. Why do we need it? Who knows? It's a big project. It should have a lot of people on it, right? The implications of this is that there's a huge downward pressure on wages. People want a certain number of tech workers, but there's no market pressure to hire them or even to lay them off if they've hired too many. They just want a certain number. So what they really want is really cheap, disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes. The U.S. labor market isn't really geared for that.

ntakasaki 12y ago
>I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers It's not just the tech industry, almost all companies struggle to measure productivity, especially as a comparative measure. People like salesmen do have defined metrics like sales, but it's harder to do that for people in HR and Accounting, for example.
- cpher 12y ago
  That's usually because sales, engineering, etc are "profit" centers, while HR/Accounting/Reception are "cost" centers. One group produces while the other consumes. So, it's really comparing apples to oranges.
001sky 12y ago
* disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes* This is a very underestimated point. most hiring is not about skill or productivity. But about building a political base within an organization. In some areas, this means hiring friends, fraternity brothers, or members of some other in/niche chohort. In other areas it means hiring people of a different stripe. It also shows up in HR very often as the term "head count", which an asset quota that is horstraded amongst managers. Headcount brings with it both momentum and inertia. And is a favorite tool useful for building subtle forms of leverage in an organization. Its useful to be aware of these dynamics in places like startups and politics because they exist there, too.

ntakasaki 12y ago

>I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers It's not just the tech industry, almost all companies struggle to measure productivity, especially as a comparative measure. People like salesmen do have defined metrics like sales, but it's harder to do that for people in HR and Accounting, for example.

cpher 12y ago
That's usually because sales, engineering, etc are "profit" centers, while HR/Accounting/Reception are "cost" centers. One group produces while the other consumes. So, it's really comparing apples to oranges.

001sky 12y ago

* disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes* This is a very underestimated point. most hiring is not about skill or productivity. But about building a political base within an organization. In some areas, this means hiring friends, fraternity brothers, or members of some other in/niche chohort. In other areas it means hiring people of a different stripe. It also shows up in HR very often as the term "head count", which an asset quota that is horstraded amongst managers. Headcount brings with it both momentum and inertia. And is a favorite tool useful for building subtle forms of leverage in an organization. Its useful to be aware of these dynamics in places like startups and politics because they exist there, too.