The Contrarian Technologist

Typically, an employee is hired to work on a project and technology for which a rate has been established with a customer. At first everyone is happy the employee has the right skills and is earning a salary commensurate with those skills. Management is happy that the project is covering overhead and perhaps even producing a bit of profit for the company.

At some point in the process, the employee and employer agree on training and the employee takes a week of training. The employee is happy, they are getting trained and they are also getting a change of pace. The customer and employer are less thrilled – the company is loosing billable revenue and the customer is loosing a resource on the project, but each has anticipated the down time and planned for it.

Once the employee is trained, hopefully skills have been learned that will help them with their current job, but most likely if the customer was pleased with their performance before the training; there will be little measurable performance gains for the customer. However, the employee is now trained, perhaps certified, and invariably there is now a sense of worth that certainly will be communicated in the next performance review. Unfortunately the employer is now stuck between a rock and a hard place – the employee wants an increase, but the rates for the contract are set (hopefully with a cost of living adjustment each year). The employer knows that he/she will have to pay the employee more, but will be unable to increase the rates with the customer. The employee and employer negotiate an increase at the next performance review that is more than the cost of living planned into the contract, but probably not as much as the employee thinks their new knowledge justifies.

After some time, the employee again wants additional training and the employer is now less enthusiastic which results in denying the request or more likely trying to push it off to a later date. Now both the employee and the employer are unhappy. Eventually the employee gets additional training and perhaps additional raises and the point arrives that the margin on the project has been eaten away. The employee has new skills and wants to use them and either of two things happen, the employer finds a new project with a higher rate and moves the employee, (assuming that opportunities exist) or the employee finds a new employer and moves, all of which results in an unhappy customer.

The converse of this is the employee that asks for and receives no training. In many cases they are well liked by the employer and the customer for being "low maintenance". As the project progresses they learn some skills on the job and receive modest cost of living increases. But, technology continues to evolve, and at the end of the project, the employee finds that he/she doesn’t have the skills needed for the newest projects. At this point, either the employee is dismissed because their skills are no longer current, or most likely put on a new project in a junior role at a lower rate than their salary and promised training which then compounds the problem.

I am not arguing against the need for training - I certainly believe that it is everyone's responsibility to continue to strive to increase their personal knowledge, I just think that the expectations for what will be gained from training need to be clearly defined..