will the cloud rain on the direct hire employment model? 1

[boyze]

will the cloud enable or perhaps drive the demise of the direct hire employment model? i already see it starting in my world

Have Fun!

James A. Pike

http://www.xl4sim.com

http://www.erieztechnologies.com

 

[rb1957]

do you mean will "cloud" (i wrote clod initially, by mistake ... or perhaps not?) access encourage more part-time contract work ? as opposed to full-time staff ??

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[boyze]

yep

It's more of the idea of outsourcing as one needs the expertise/resource. It's really been going on for a long time in some professions. For example, I only hire a plumber when I need one.

For engineers and some other professions it's been a little different due to the need for interacting with others on the team, access to databases, infrastructure, etc. The computing cloud and the internet enables many of these needs to be handled within the confines of the business but outside the confines of the brick and mortar part of the business. What will slow the move in this direction will be the unease of management in their perceived loss of control.

Further potentially driving this trend are other business/cultural/political policy shifts such most US companies having moved away from defined retirement plans and the eventual move away from bennies like healthcare make the incentives for employees to be locked to an employer less attractive as well.

Have Fun!

James A. Pike

http://www.xl4sim.com

http://www.erieztechnologies.com

 

[rb1957]

have they lost control or gained it (by tuning who they hire and when)?

outsourcing is a curse in my industry, 'cause everyone who counts (and doesn't have to deal with the crap) loves it, and the poor soldiers in the trenches have to sort out the crap (to save the general's asses).

mind you, it came home to roust with Boeing and their B787; but i think they learnt the wrong lesson. they hoped "out of house = cheaper" but they learnt "out of house = out of control"; i think they should've learnt out of house will probably cost more in total but it might be cheaper for us, and we can use more resources than just our own, but we'll have to watch them like a hawk, herd them like a sheepdog, manage them like parents ... teach them how to do our work (oh, do we want to do that?).

in my mind the biggest problem with outsourcing is ...
1) it's your name on the tail of the plane (not their's), and
2) you probably won't see the problems (or the value) until a long time downstream, and
3) ultimately you're grooming your competitor.

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[JohnRBaker]

With people changing jobs more frequently (no more womb-to-tomb employment), the rapid changes in technology both in terms of things that impact whatever you were initially trained to do and the fact that totally new technologies show-up seemingly overnight (take 3D printing or the Internet as examples) as well as social changes, such as self-directed retirement accounts, guaranteed availability of private medical insurance (how many people stay working at one job because they already have coverage but also have some condition that would, until now, make them uninsurable on the outside), etc. Now when you consider that it will be even easier for people to take jobs that will NOT require them to be collocated or that will allow them more flexible hours and working situations (working from home or while on the move), I think this will be a natural evolution of what makes up a 'job'. I already work from home at least one day a week and when I'm on the road, I don't have to set stuff aside on my desk that has to wait until I get back.

Now whether this will all be painless, of course not, at least not in some people's mind, but it's inevitable. If you had ever read say Alvin Toffler's 'The Third Wave' or John Naisbitt's 'Megatrends' or something more recent, like David Weinberger's 'Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder' or even more on point, 'Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything', by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, then your saying "I already see it starting in my world" should not have come as a big shock or even a revelation as the so-called experts have been ringing the clarion bell for years. In fact, my having read these and many other books at least tangential to this topic, I'm only disappointed that it's taken this long. But since I'm on the verge of retiring (as if even that will not be impacted by the changes taking place) after nearly 50 years working in the field of engineering, I'm somewhat envious of what it will be like for my granddaughters (our three SONS have managed to only produce a generation of GIRLS) and their peers as it's impossible to know what it will be like for them in 10 or 20 years when they're part of the workforce in this country. I just hope that I'm still around to at least enjoy vicariously what it is that they have choosen to make of themselves and how they are contributing to our world. And since a couple of them are showing some particular interest in science and technology, I'm hoping that perhaps there'll be at least one engineer in the bunch (my wife and I have only 'produced' a pair of executive chefs and an systems manager).

Anyway, this is an interesting topic and one that I'm sure will be debated well beyond the confines of E-Tips, for years to come, but I hope not too long.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cranky108]

Not unless internet speeds increase, and costs go down. Just try to get good internet outside the city limits.

Otherwise cloud will be only a city thing.

 

[rb1957]

"I'm sure will be debated ... for years to come, but I hope not too long." ... just link to Climate Change as see how long it'll spin ! (sort of seriously, have you noticed an epic decline in CC posts ? maybe we've agreed to differ or realised it doesn't matter anyway).

but back on topic ... this is an extension of telecommuting. wasn't that supposed to cure grid-lock? not in my town!
but then wasn't the electronic office supposed to be paperless? the Only way to make it paperless is to remove all the paper (and the photocopiers).

i wonder if that's a skill for the future .. organising a virtual desk? or search engines for finding things in your virtual desk?

i've noticed that these days about 50% of the time i navigate to sites by searching for part of the name (rather than using a bookmark) ... ie the power of search engines.

how about a desktop that looks like, well, a desktop



Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[pennpiper]

You have to ask yourself:
Can a Cloud be Hacked?
What does that do for Corporate Secrets?

prognosis: Lead or Lag

 

[rb1957]

how often are credit cards hacked?

how often are military sites hacked? sure some hackers have gotten in, 'cause the front door wasn't locked; but how often have drones been hacked (except on TV)?

you can have security if you pay for it. probably the biggest security problem would come from people having dumb passwords.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[zdas04]

I spent 23 years as "the company guy" and the last 11 years as "the contractor". The work is not much different (a LOT fewer meetings, less tolerance for errors, less certainty) but the pay sure is different (I pay more taxes today than my gross salary was the last year I worked). A model that says that it good business to pay me $180/hour to do the same work I was happy doing for less than $50/hr is a model that has to fail. There is low hanging fruit, quick hits, easy gains and those will be widely touted as proof that the new model works. Then the reality (i.e., the bottom line) will come to the fore.

I see this outsource/cloud-Engineering as a knee-jerk reaction to two characteristics of the Baby Boomers: (1) there were so damn many of us; and (3) we started having children later than our parents did (my oldest was born when I was 31, all of the folks I knew in my age group were having kids, my older brother was born when my dad was 19). Right now Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce in droves. Taking huge blocks of knowledge/experience with us. The generation behind us was just a tick behind the curve in their start dates, so in many industries/companies there is a gap (the 30-50 year-experience guys are retiring and the next generation has 15-30 years--solid folks, but too many of them still see the world as black and white, experience lets you see that nothing is black and white). In 20 years, most of these issues will have balanced themselves out and the bulk of experience will have returned to inside companies instead of companies clinging to the retired white hairs (at outrageous consulting fees) who will be mostly in the ground by then.

The current upsets in the Engineering workforce are just the last twitch of the outcomes of WWII.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[JohnRBaker]

i've noticed that these days about 50% of the time i navigate to sites by searching for part of the name (rather than using a bookmark) ... ie the power of search engines.

That's precisely the theme of one of the books I mentioned previously, 'Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder', by David Weinberger. It's all about how search engines have replaced the old methods of organizing data, or for that matter, even the need to organize data in the first place. But that being said, it still takes a bit of 'skill' to know how to properly word a search string so that it both finds what you're looking for yet avoids creating a total blizzard of useless hits.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[rb1957]

yes, it helps knowing the answer of the search ! to find it in the haystack.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[JohnRBaker]

...we started having children later than our parents did (my oldest was born when I was 31, all of the folks I knew in my age group were having kids, my older brother was born when my dad was 19).

That wasn't our situation. I was married by 19 and our oldest was born when I was 22 (the youngest when I was 31). In my case, I'm the oldest in my family and my father was 27 when I was born, but then there was that little dust-up in Europe that keep him out-of-pocket for a few years, however, I almost made the first class of boomers (my wife is actually the quintessential baby-boomer having been born in early 1946, better than a year ahead of me). But I guess our sons are following the newer trend. Our first grandchild was born when our oldest was 28 (his wife was 36) and our middle son is just now having his first and he's already 43.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[zdas04]

There are exceptions to everything and anecdotes are certainly not data (even though I use them to illuminate data). The census data that I saw a few years ago showed your parents to be way on the right hand side of the bell curve (for The Greatest Generation) and you to be pretty close to the peak of the Baby Boom bell curve. As I recall, the mean of the Baby Boom generation was around 22-24 years old at the birth of a first child and for the Greatest Generation it was 19-21, just a bit shifted to the right, but the data I was looking at showed it to be a fairly large gap in entry-to-the workforce population. That data also showed a couple of tenths fewer children per couple than their parents (seems like it was 2.3 for the Baby Boomers and 2.5 for their parents, something like that). A slight shift in birth year and a slight shift in number of entrants to the workforce resulted in a lot of companies having an 8-10 year gap (or serious reduction) in hiring. All of my clients show this gap where 10 years ago the senior guy had 30 years experience and today the senior guy has 15 years experience (for example). The workforce age-curve is never smooth for a single company, but for an industry it can be a pretty smooth bell curve. Right not it isn't for my industry. It will be again.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[cranky108]

As I have heard, it is better to hire the number of people a company needs for there normal work, and hire consultants for the extra work you have once in a while.

It's not like they are going to pay in-house engineers overtime.

But on the other hand, it's not uncommon for companies to get bitten by the young consultant. So they will tend to the older consultant.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yea, the birth rate trend is holding-up, both my wife and I are the oldest of four and we had only three sons, and between them, there are currently six, soon to be seven grandchildren (five blood related, two not). And looking at their current situations, I suspect that that will just about be it. And of for my siblings, my next oldest brother has two and my sister has one and my kid brother's a priest so... And the trend is about the same for my wife's siblings. However, I have two cousins who were just a couple of years older than me and between them, they've something like 16 kids and by now, several dozen grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cranky108]

So is the birth rate from educated people higher or lower than uneducated people? Just interested to see if there is a trend for more or less educated people?

 

[zdas04]

I never saw the statistics broken down that way, but from reading the comments under articles on the interwebs I have to think that it is higher among the stupid.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[moltenmetal]

The peak population of the baby boom here in Canada was around 1960. Those folks aren't even scheduled to retire for another 10 years, and given current trends, many of the white collar fraction in that group won't retire for at least 15 years.

Birth rate was above the average between 1950 and 1970. The ones born in 1950 are just reaching legal retirement age.

As far as the great demographic shift everybody has been fearing, it hasn't happened yet. And I'm of the opinion that it won't amount to much, aside from the well-deserved demise of some dumb businesses who can't handle succession planning, are too cheap to hire young people and train them, or are in such marginal businesses to start with that they can't do anything other than react to whatever the market dumps on them.

As to the "cloud", my only question is how the hell anybody is supposed to find you in the cloud- especially if you're a kid fresh out of school! The "cloud" is just fine if you're an established consultant who can build some profile for himself, i.e. someone who has either retired by choice or has been "greyed" out of employment. It's insane to expect businesses, or professions, to exist without a mentorship and training aspect. And it only works for service "industries"- what we call "stationery engineers" - people whose product is paper, or the electronic facsimile thereof. Yeah, I can work from home a day a week, but I need to be on the shop floor the other four.

As to this delayed retirement business, it's understandable given how much longer, and healthier, people are living now. But it will have consequences for opportunities for young people - it already has. Raising the mandatory retirement age? Yeah, sure- I guess I'm OK with that. Hiring retirees as consultants? Sure - great - then you get to choose who is still productive and useful. But I'd keep mandatory retirement in place. Nobody, except perhaps some of the HR sadists who make a living of it, wants to be the one who has to set the old guys adrift on an ice floe when they can't chew the leather any more. An arbitrary age limit lets people depart with at least a modicum of dignity- and gives the young people who have to put up with the unproductive old duds (of which there are DEFINITELY some) something to look forward to.

 

[rb1957]

"As I have heard, it is better to hire the number of people a company needs for there normal work, and hire consultants for the extra work you have once in a while." .. in my experience it goes in cycles, usually dictated by a change in HR director.

one state is "staff good, contractors bad". this state (i won't use the word paradigm) says staff are good becasue they have the interest of the company at heart (at least as far as pensions, etc are concerned; certainly there is a proportion that want to be associated with a famous brand name, "i work at Boeing/Airbus/..."). contractors are bad 'cause they have their self-interet at heart ... they'll sit on a job as long as we let them. so this state hires staff, and despices contractors.

the other state is "staff bad, contractors good". now staff are a long term cost, hard to adjust (down or up) and a little too comfortable in the "permanent" jobs ... something like public service. contractors are good because it a workforce you can tailor in size to your demands, and their self-interest means they want to doa good job in order to build a good reputation. Of course, you may not be able to get the contractors you want when you want them.


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