Firms impose higher effort demands on workers; workers have to complete more tasks (for a higher wage) or be fired.
This sounds correct, but I thought it was specific for IT. I mean the popular trends of being “full-stack developer” and “dev-ops”, which in my opinion both mean: -- Why should I hire two or three specialists, when one person could do everything alone? And if the project size requires hiring two or three people anyway, at least this will make them more replaceable, and I can immediately move one of them to another project when the worst crisis is over. And if being unable to maintain top-level expertise at too many things at the same time makes them feel like impostors, at least it will keep them humble.
Do you suggest it also happens in other industries? Your articles has “technology” in its title, but seems to talk about economy in general. Could you perhaps provide more specific information about other industries? Unfortunately, I am not qualified to comment on the second part of your article.
I will admit that the claim American workers have become Stakhanovites is a bold one. It’s the sort of claim that immediately raises all sorts of objections and questions, like: how is that even possible in a capitalist economy, and why hasn’t it also happened outside of the U.S?
I don’t have enough data, but is it possible that this is more about IT (and also in other countries) than about Americans? Because the hypothesis “nerds suck at negotiation, and are easily brainwashed” would explain a few things we see. I mean, even comrade Stakhanov didn’t spend his free time improving his Github portfolio.
I’m in shipping and I can confirm it’s happening there too. I’ve actually been turning down promotions for about a decade now because I can see how fast most people burn out on the next level, both in executive and management tracks, from being asked to do multiple jobs at once. As recently as two weeks ago I was offered somebody’s job right in front of him. I laughed right in my regional manager’s face (from across the room; it’s 2020 after all). As it is, I’m already doing three-and-a-half (much easier) jobs and picking up the slack (created by bad hiring practices) in another as needed. Getting promoted would mean doing planning work over the largest group at our location, being my own secretary, taking on a number of minor managerial tasks, and interfacing directly with two different chains of command (who often want different outcomes, of course). All this and I’d still be expected to cover for the position I’m in now from time to time. The pay increase for what amounts to each of my current jobs getting promoted while still having to retain almost full functionality in what I do now would be about $1K/month. The answer will always be no.
Oh, and we have a hard time keeping entry-level workers because they are expected to work at least six twelve-hour days every week, again due to many years of bad hiring practices. There are promotions from that position in both executive and management tracks. Both involve adding a more focused and responsible skillset to everything else they were already doing. The pay increase is about $1/hr for executive, and I think they end up making less in the management track since they usually end up working fewer hours (except when we’re busy, of course). I’ve seen countless people drop back down to entry level after burning out on the next level up. This, of course, means that many of our entry-level workers are highly skilled, which seems to have (upper) management convinced that we don’t need to hire a larger workforce.
My father is a pastor who often complains that he has to be a spiritual leader, an administrator, and often what equates to a politician at the same time. In his case, the overload is a result of the church (on all levels from the institutional to the congregation) being in a partially-necrotic/zombie state that is unable to support the appropriate staff, unwilling to step in and take on the work to let pastors do the thing they trained for, and absolutely unwilling to consolidate resources and move on in a new form (I’ve noticed that churches tend to be extremely allergic to change).
My neighbor is a retired school teacher who was increasingly stressed out about being required to be teacher, counselor, security guard, and negotiator (with parents) in addition to all the constant retraining as technology becomes more and more integrated in the “educational” environment. Moreover, her teaching role was already badly over-constrained by the need for the students to do well on standardized tests as well as actually trying to learn something. Students of more and more widely differing abilities were being integrated into the same classroom. And all of it was getting incrementally worse every semester. She would have been entirely unprepared for 2020. As it was, she was already extremely motivated to get out of that situation before she burned out; many of her colleagues were less fortunate.
In the meanwhile, I also talked with a friend who works outside of IT… I forgot what exactly she does, but she now has to work with five or six clients in parallel, carefully dividing each day in approximately one-hour chunks, because each of them requires to see some daily progress. This would drive me crazy.
Okay, so it definitely seems not limited to IT.
I still disagree that it is US-specific, though. (This friend of mine, also not an American.) There are many global companies; if they learn they can squeeze some extra work out of workers in one country, they are going to re-use the strategy in other countries, too.
This sounds correct, but I thought it was specific for IT. I mean the popular trends of being “full-stack developer” and “dev-ops”, which in my opinion both mean: -- Why should I hire two or three specialists, when one person could do everything alone? And if the project size requires hiring two or three people anyway, at least this will make them more replaceable, and I can immediately move one of them to another project when the worst crisis is over. And if being unable to maintain top-level expertise at too many things at the same time makes them feel like impostors, at least it will keep them humble.
Do you suggest it also happens in other industries? Your articles has “technology” in its title, but seems to talk about economy in general. Could you perhaps provide more specific information about other industries? Unfortunately, I am not qualified to comment on the second part of your article.
I don’t have enough data, but is it possible that this is more about IT (and also in other countries) than about Americans? Because the hypothesis “nerds suck at negotiation, and are easily brainwashed” would explain a few things we see. I mean, even comrade Stakhanov didn’t spend his free time improving his Github portfolio.
I’m in shipping and I can confirm it’s happening there too. I’ve actually been turning down promotions for about a decade now because I can see how fast most people burn out on the next level, both in executive and management tracks, from being asked to do multiple jobs at once. As recently as two weeks ago I was offered somebody’s job right in front of him. I laughed right in my regional manager’s face (from across the room; it’s 2020 after all). As it is, I’m already doing three-and-a-half (much easier) jobs and picking up the slack (created by bad hiring practices) in another as needed. Getting promoted would mean doing planning work over the largest group at our location, being my own secretary, taking on a number of minor managerial tasks, and interfacing directly with two different chains of command (who often want different outcomes, of course). All this and I’d still be expected to cover for the position I’m in now from time to time. The pay increase for what amounts to each of my current jobs getting promoted while still having to retain almost full functionality in what I do now would be about $1K/month. The answer will always be no. Oh, and we have a hard time keeping entry-level workers because they are expected to work at least six twelve-hour days every week, again due to many years of bad hiring practices. There are promotions from that position in both executive and management tracks. Both involve adding a more focused and responsible skillset to everything else they were already doing. The pay increase is about $1/hr for executive, and I think they end up making less in the management track since they usually end up working fewer hours (except when we’re busy, of course). I’ve seen countless people drop back down to entry level after burning out on the next level up. This, of course, means that many of our entry-level workers are highly skilled, which seems to have (upper) management convinced that we don’t need to hire a larger workforce.
My father is a pastor who often complains that he has to be a spiritual leader, an administrator, and often what equates to a politician at the same time. In his case, the overload is a result of the church (on all levels from the institutional to the congregation) being in a partially-necrotic/zombie state that is unable to support the appropriate staff, unwilling to step in and take on the work to let pastors do the thing they trained for, and absolutely unwilling to consolidate resources and move on in a new form (I’ve noticed that churches tend to be extremely allergic to change).
My neighbor is a retired school teacher who was increasingly stressed out about being required to be teacher, counselor, security guard, and negotiator (with parents) in addition to all the constant retraining as technology becomes more and more integrated in the “educational” environment. Moreover, her teaching role was already badly over-constrained by the need for the students to do well on standardized tests as well as actually trying to learn something. Students of more and more widely differing abilities were being integrated into the same classroom. And all of it was getting incrementally worse every semester. She would have been entirely unprepared for 2020. As it was, she was already extremely motivated to get out of that situation before she burned out; many of her colleagues were less fortunate.
Definitely not just the IT industry, I’m afraid.
Thanks for the data. This sucks.
In the meanwhile, I also talked with a friend who works outside of IT… I forgot what exactly she does, but she now has to work with five or six clients in parallel, carefully dividing each day in approximately one-hour chunks, because each of them requires to see some daily progress. This would drive me crazy.
Okay, so it definitely seems not limited to IT.
I still disagree that it is US-specific, though. (This friend of mine, also not an American.) There are many global companies; if they learn they can squeeze some extra work out of workers in one country, they are going to re-use the strategy in other countries, too.