Time was that every IT shop (back in the "computer center" days) had some staff who simply could not work in contact with the public. Most of computing took place behind locked doors, in highly air-conditioned rooms with raised floors, roaring equipment, and clattering printers. A user was someone who called on the telephone or came by to pick up a print-out. We all remember computer center staff who wore long-johns to ward off hypothermia and army fatigue jackets because they were cheap, and who would see or care? Yes, this is a shop-worn stereotype, but we all knew (or maybe were) such people, and now the Dilbert cartoon strip chronicles the mis-adventures of today’s descendants of the type. People who describe themselves as "primarily technical" are still the core workers in IT despite the vastly more "public" nature of the field today.

"Techies" still tend not to have chosen that line of work until they found themselves in that first job and liking it. They do not come to the profession of IT support from a standard preparation. Two and four-year degrees in applied computer science and certifications from commercial training programs do not add up to anything like the Master of Library Science degree that is standard credential for librarians. Those holding advanced degrees are more likely to have studied chemistry or political science than computer science or any of its offshoots. In some ways, the core of technical staff supporting IT bears more resemblance to the old movie stereotype of the French Foreign Legion: folks who have left behind them histories and hopes that they perhaps do not talk about very much.

Within the corps of staff working in campus IT organizations, there is a persistent division of social types: managers, techies, and user-services – the last of these being helpdesk and training staff. To these we should also add a rival tribe: the computer scientists. The normal mode of relations between computer services personnel and computer science faculty is, in a word, jealousy. Cooperation and trust are exceptions when they do happen. Both camps claim to have the true understanding of the machines that everyone covets.

Why does this quasi-ethnography matter? Because the IT workforce is still poorly understood by senior administrators, human resources departments, and the faculty.

Motivation
Recruitment and retention of technical staff have been hot issues for a number of years and show no signs of easing. But how well do we actually understand what motivates tech workers and how they react to the methods we use in trying to attract and keep them? They are ambivalent about money. When the work is interesting (breaking new ground for them technically) and the workplace comfortable the money seems good enough. But if those considerations turn sour, money re-emerges as an issue – and no amount of it seems enough. Techies usually believe, with some justification, that they could make more money elsewhere. And so they feel somewhat conflicted about remaining where they are earning less, a feeling that comes up with bitterness if their feelings of job satisfaction slip.

Tech workers are often indifferent to the sociability and academic and cultural perks of campus life. At the same time, they value and appreciate the relatively tolerant ethos, and they generally welcome the rather weak standards of management for which academic institutions are notorious. Accountability for efficient work and good service are not exactly hallmarks of campus worklife. These workers are not necessarily less inclined than others to work hard, but the nature of their work is such that close supervision is not always possible.

Workplace attitudes
Techies respect mostly other tech workers and their supervisors only if they, too, are technical. It is not at all unusual for them to look down on helpdesk and training staff as being insufficiently technical. On the other hand, they resent not being respected as peers by faculty. The social outlook of tech workers is democratic, at the same time that they can be harshly elitist in their assessment of others – at least with regard to tech skills.

Organizational preferences
Techies tend to like flat organizations, which fits well with their view that effort spent on anything other than technical tasks is superfluous. The most damning dismissal is to call a managerial concern "political." In the flat organization everyone is closer to the hands-on work and a one-dimensional measure of value. Workers are defined by their relationship with the work and much less with other people.

Technical workers are strongly able to resist the force of hierarchical management. Because so few peers or supervisors can challenge them knowledgeably on their work, techies feel impervious to the impatience or disapproval of those higher in the organizational pyramid. To be "higher" is to be distant, ill-informed, and just an impediment to "real" work. These attitudes come to a difficult head in work-place reorganizations or other new and concerted management initiatives. Top-down does not go down well. Resistance and resentment can be the result.

Poor workplace relations are also common with other groups whose support and sympathy would seem natural and welcome. IT tech staff often do not get along well with librarians, physical plant workers, and – as noted earlier – faculty. These are all, of course, relationships that IT managers need to cultivate but often find set back by their own staff.

Difficult consequences
Adjustments in workplace organization, usually a source of some anxiety, take on a special difficulty in IT organizations because of the tendencies of tech workers. Promotions up to managerial duties are probably the toughest kind of change to make in this setting. A colleague now doing less hands-on work is not appreciated in the new role. By the same token, these attitudes do not prepare staff well for promotion, a problem that in turn does not endear the newly promoted to their colleagues.

Inter-departmental mergers, like IT and the library, are greatly complicated by the special resistance of the tech workers. But then part of the reason for library-IT mergers has been to try to suppress the tech ethic, which has been targeted for its association with poor customer service attitudes. In response, it is not unusual for techies to quit the newly merged organization. Those reorganizations tend to have a difficult path, at least until departed tech staff are replaced.

Incentives and stability
The heart of the difficulty with techies in academe is the near-total absence of useful incentives to encourage and reward good performance and a cooperative attitude. Money is ruled out for two reasons. Academic institutions are too cost-constrained to pay the kinds of premium rates found in commercial enterprises. And the (laudable) push to rationalize job classifications and pay rates across the institution removes much of the remaining potential to use salary increases as effective incentives.

If the stereotype of the less-than-sociable tech worker has any validity, we can also see why social approval in the workplace (employee recognition awards, for example) do not appeal strongly either. The social association that matters is that with peers, not the wider workforce, a possible starting point from which to figure some effective measures for better and happier management of techies.

Improvements
The chance to do better depends on knowing the techies–their values, concerns, abilities, and reluctances. Not every personnel difficulty is improved by the reflex to tighten the managerial grip.

Their preference for a flat organization and affinity with like workers suggests gathering tech workers into a larger group. The benefit of association probably outweighs finer distinctions that would otherwise lead us to divide workers by specialization and group them in multiple departments that, in theory, should be well-focused on a set of tasks. We know that in reality desktop computing specialists need to interact easily and freely with the server and network folks. Much as we would like them to also cooperate with purchasing clerks and physical plant electricians, the basic need is for access to other IT techs. Perhaps a deal is in order: a bigger, less-specialized department – and fewer managers – in return for a greater degree of self-management.

We tend to call all kinds of work groups "teams," but the proposal here is to take that idea very seriously: a team is essentially self-regulating. It is the antithesis of hierarchical management and chart-driven organization. The real challenge in making that approach work is more likely to be the degree of trust and cultural comfort needed in the institution for really participatory management.

Accountability
At bottom, the institution needs accountability for the labor it expends. Someone needs to assure that the work is done, and done well. We are in a position to barter with those who are willing to give that assurance. In the end, how important is the difference between a manager determining task details for staff and the way they would handle it if given that latitude in return for their acceptance of the need to be accountable? The question takes on special meaning in the technical workplace, where the manager-directed process has to stop to ask the technicians what actually needs to be done; those tasks are then turned around and handed back to those who knew them first.

One of the open secrets of the information age is that knowledge is invariably a barter good. The workplace is being remade in light of the need to exchange knowledge and expertise across the job classifications we carry forward from the industrial era – when the nature of work, knowledge, management, authority, and power were different from now. Specifically, for managing our techies, we need to know better what they bring to the barter and what they need in exchange. All management is now a form of negotiation. The challenge and highest priority for managers is to understand where the knowledge and needs are, and how to bring them together. We need to have a better sense of what everyone brings to the job.

Smarter about incentives
The techies know a lot of the questions that we need to be asking; what do they need in return?

One item of great value is independence, the authorization to do the tasks that need to be done and to be able to speak up about the needs of the work. Of course, this is another way of saying "respect." But it also means recognizing that granting respect is not optional; it is the starting condition for getting anything done in our workplace.

More concretely, technical staff value machines, software, and training. These we can and should recognize as incentive and reward items – things of special value to those whose work and personal interests concentrate on them. For example, with flat-screen monitors coming down to nearly reasonable prices, wouldn’t one of those be a welcome bonus item?

Some protected time for experimentation and discovery is another scarce commodity of value to technical staff – one with an obvious potential for value returned, as well. Here is a chance for someone to install Linux for the first time.

And what of the social dimension in incentives? We’ve recognized the need to get tech workers better included in the mainstream of campus life, and also the reluctances encountered on their part. Maybe a new tack to try is bringing everyone else more in their direction. People who can put additional memory chips into their own computers are moving in the direction of common ground with their technical colleagues. Nobody should be invested in staying dependent for basics they might well handle themselves. Demystifying technical work is a good way to build community and mutual respect.

Knowing your techies
Sometimes asking and listening are the most necessary skills. That way we let knowledge find us. We tend to associate effective management with decisions and actions – and this is true. But there is also a phase of discovery that has to have its chance as well.

It is surprising to recognize how little progress we have made in so many years on the task of adapting our institutions to the changes we need to make to be successful in the IT era. But at the same time we should take some encouragement from what we can learn from our colleagues who also work on that problem every day. TW