For a small but growing number of dot-com job seekers, the lure of Internet riches is looking more like fool's gold.
Startup job pressures can be intense, with long hours the norm, and employers assuming staff will put work over other priorities. Add high capital burn rates, stock options of questionable value, high-profile Net flameouts and layoffs, hellish commutes, or the outrageous cost of living in high-tech centers (in San Francisco, housing prices have more than doubled since 1987), and you have a recipe for disaffection.
Internet companies continue to leech employees from more established businesses, but signs of fast-lane fatigue are in evidence. "Even six months ago no one was leaving," says Marcy Lerner, director of content for career information site Vault.com. "Now I see a few people saying, 'This isn't for me.' . . . [Back then, the] Internet industry was new to most people, and very experimental. There was a much greater willingness to say, 'I'll just take whatever [job] comes along.' " But stress takes a toll, she says, and not everyone thrives under these conditions.
Lerner says people's priorities change as they grow older, so it's important for workers to associate themselves with a company at a stage that matches their own. For example, if vacation time is a priority, as is often the case for workers with families, she recommends working for an older organization. "As businesses mature and get larger, there are more people around to help cover vacations," she says. "Good companies are aware of the change that comes with age."
Get a life!
It's pricey to replace employees, so companies need to strike a balance.
As the companies and culture that make up the dot-com world slowly mature, many employers and employees are finding they need something different. Libbi Lepow, the "people effectiveness guru" for E*Trade, has worked in human resources and organizational development for 25 years. She says the cycles found in any startup are "concentrated and more intense in dot-coms."
"There is craziness, but also incredible excitement and the joy of building something new," Lepow says. "People are drawn to dot-coms for the mix, the openness, and the creativity. There is pressure, but you can [work] how you want toâ€"if you have the skills."
But as companies grow and the wonder years end, Lepow says, "You've got to have structure, you have to account for money spent, and you're hiring slightly more traditional folks. You start looking at profitability.
"What I'm observing in people leaving high-tech," she says, "is that the rewards aren't worth the effort any more. They want to have a life. They may buy wonderful homes and great cars, but they never sleep in the homes, and the cars are just used to commute. They find that it's not the work they enjoyed at the start." Now that the Internet bubble has burst, she says, those counting on stock options "are not going to get rich anymore."
Given the high cost of turnover for any company, which Lepow pegs at 150 percent to 300 percent of a departing person's salary, businesses that ignore the changing needs of their employees aren't going to get rich either.
Jon Slavet, co-CEO of Guru.com, a job board for freelancers, says, "I can speculate that this lifestyle is not for everyone. I've personally found it hard to maintain, at some points, any balance between work and anything else. . . . One thing that we've started encouraging people to do at our company is to find that balance and take care of themselves. Because you can't work 90 hours a week forever."
