John Brand, Meta Group senior program director, today said that emotional and psychological conditions such as change-rage and information fatigue are now commonplace throughout the industry, as its workforce adjusts to new global market conditions.
Brand's statement follows the release of the Meta Group's annual staffing and compensation guide, which suggests that burnout among IT professionals is reaching critical levels in the United States. According to the Meta Group's survey, 71 percent of US-based IT managers rank burn-out as a serious concern in their organisations.
Brand said that while Australia's brand of burn-out unique in that it is more prevalent among senior executives than top-tier ranks, its impact could be severe locally. It appears that Australian senior managers are being hit from both ends, under increasing scrutiny from their masters with fewer resources at their disposal.
According to Brand, Australians are being asked to tackle the diverse needs of a large number of offshore markets with a narrow skills-base, while their employers are subjecting them to performance measuring programs that are matched more closely than ever to those used by investors.
While performance reviews were once annual said Brand, now they are commonly conducted quarterly - and in extreme cases monthly.
"What you're seeing in response to this is the idea of 'extreme productivity' where you've got a small number of employees, on incredibly small budgets trying to propel the organisation on incredibly ambitious projects -- that seems to be becoming the norm in Australia," said Brand.
Exacerbating the senior managers' problems, is the fact that Australia's skill base is "misaligned" with the requirements of the markets that it is trying to compete for in Asia and Europe. According to Brand, Australia has the right level of skill to compete in those markets, but not the right type.
He said Australian companies did not have the right kind of training, incentive and support schemes in place to adjust to global market conditions.
"I don't think we have any of that in place and that's why we've seen a lot of the commoditised work move offshore and we haven't replaced it with anything - we haven't really re-trained ourselves and got ourselves in a position to make best use of that," said Brand.
According to Brand, one of the widest and most concerning gaps in Australia's IT knowledge base is in project management. Brand said Australia lacked IT executives capable of aligning IT projects to business goals. Consequently, those skills are not being handed on to the industry's newer participants.
And that, said Brand, could leave Australia in danger of having to import expertise from offshore.
No *hit! I was once a creative and eager IT guru, but now I couldn't care less if we went back to chalk and slate!
I hate computers with a passion, but seeing they have been apart of me for the past 20 years, distancing myself from them is just about impossible!
Arrrrrrr the days of pre-pc's and the like - the world would be a better place of peace and quiet instead of the drone of power supplies.
Hmm now where did I put my guitar :)