IT Workers Confront 'Job Shock'

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August 01, 2005 (Computerworld) -- Thirty-five years ago, my former boss Alvin Toffler coined the term future shock to describe the shattering stress and disorientation experienced by individuals when they are subjected to too much change in too short a time. While working on a multiyear project examining the future of IT work, researchers at the IT Leadership Academy discovered a related concept -- "job shock," the vocational vertigo IT professionals are just now beginning to experience as their careers and developmental aspirations slam full throttle into a radically changed and rapidly transforming world of IT work.
The first thing the research revealed is that IT work and IT jobs aren't synonyms. The work of IT is increasing -- more bits are being moved, manipulated, transformed, stored, personalized and protected. They are sent to more places, to more people and for more purposes than ever before. This fact hasn't made it into public consciousness. There is more work to do. But there may not be more jobs to handle that work.
Any B-school professor can recount hundreds of stories about why students are in class and not in the workforce. It's not unusual to hear things like, "Four years ago, I was making $180,000 designing Web sites. That work is now being done in India." Truth be told, that work is probably being done by users themselves with the aid of smart machines. One of the major transformations taking place in the IT industry is automation. IT work that used to have IT jobs attached to it is now being automated and done by the end user.
Laura Tyson, former dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, is always quick to remind the "antimachine" people among us that the invention of the automobile eliminated thousands of jobs in the buggy industry but created even more jobs in the fledgling auto industry.
That's historically true, and Jeremy Rifkin, author of The End of Work, agrees that "the Information Age will create many new products and services." But, he adds, "unlike the past, however, when mass labor was required to produce these goods, in the future, they will be churned out in nearly workerless factories and be marketed by nearly virtual companies." This is a very real worry.
Serious-minded and very smart future-thinkers are pondering the questions: What if paid IT employment was to steadily disappear? What would become of the men and women for whom such employment, especially good jobs, was a central organizing element in their lives?
If you wanted to continue to feed yourself, you'd need to do three things:

1. Network with the people in your local economy who best understand the trends and current economic "rents" associated with a given set of skills -- the IT staffing firms. They have great data and would love to talk to you.


2. Understand the next three strategic steps your organization is going to make, and build deep personal relationships with the executive platoons that are going to drive those initiatives.


3. Get yourself trained and educated.

You will face pressure from machines getting smarter, similar-skilled global labor alternatives getting cheaper and executives paying less attention (if that is possible). Knowledge and networking will help you through the trauma of job shock.
Thornton A. May is a longtime industry observer, management consultant and commentator. Contact him at thorntonamay@aol.com.

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