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The Naked CIO: IT staff disloyalty
What makes UK employees so fickle?

By Naked CIO

Published: Monday 31 March 2008

There's been a shift in attitudes among IT workers, argues the Naked CIO. Gone are the days when loyalty to your employer counted for something.

What most readers found provocative in my column on recruitment problems was the idea that employees lacked loyalty to their organisations.

Many seem to think an employee's lack of loyalty is a direct consequence of employers' autocratic attitudes to staff.

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But the lack of loyalty is not created by UK companies being elitist and oppressive in their management of IT workers. Disloyalty is an industry condition.

Employees have assumed the mentality of the freelance workforce. This change of mentality has eroded a sense of community in IT and in the business environments servicing IT workers.

The issues with offshoring and outsourcing that are having such an impact on IT employment are a result of this casual attitude in the UK's IT worker community.

IT salaries are at an all-time high. IT skills shortages are ever increasing. Those in favour of outsourcing or offshoring critical IT functions are bound to take the high cost and skills issues into consideration. It becomes a chicken-and-egg debate.

Does the act of considering an offshoring contract make me a disloyal employer? No, because the offshoring debate is an industry one.

Offshoring shouldn't be looked at from a company perspective. Staffing, skills, costs and business dynamics are industry issues. So what if the industry is choosing offshoring to control costs?

And surely if I am looking to hire local skilled staff, that should breed loyalty because we are not sending work off to some distant shore.

My company as a matter of standard operating policy gives generous bonuses, healthcare and life insurance. We even have incentive schemes for innovation and creative ideas. We treat our staff properly from day one.

So what more can an employer do to earn loyalty than offer great working conditions, a good environment and better than average compensation?

Grassroots innovation, venture capital and new ideas stemming from the creative minds of young talent is the key to the success of UK technology in years to come.

That future is being compromised by an overzealous, disloyal and over-capitalistic IT working community in the UK.