Narrator: You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas, and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Jeff Weber: To me, things like Scrum and DevOps are really

critical and touch everybody. And they're just, we just need

to continue to find how we develop that talent and give

people with the right technical skills, some of that process

framework knowledge.

Eveline Oehrlich: Hello, I'm Eveline Pehrlich, Chief Research

Officer at DevOps Institute, and welcome to our Humans of DevOps

Podcast. Today, I'm excited to tell you that I am with a

friend, actually, I consider Jeff a friend. Jeff is Executive

Director at Robert Half Technology. And he is here today

to help us understand what's happening in this wild market of

hiring and recruiting and skills. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Weber: Hello, everyone. How are you doing today?

Eveline Oehrlich: I'm doing great and I hope you don't mind

that I call you a friend, because I think we are friends.

We are colleagues. in IT right where we've met many, many years

ago. So I'm excited that you're here. Thank you again,

Jeff Weber: It's great. I was just telling someone how we have

careers that mirror each other in many ways from our original

beginnings in the 80s to now so always look forward to talking

with you.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yes, likewise. And our title today is

Navigating the Hot Labor Market from Both Sides, the Employers

and Employees. And as I just mentioned, Jeff and I actually

met a while ago when we at the DevOps Institute did our second

year of research on upskilling 2020 and Java was 2020. We're

two years older, we're two years wiser I think and since then a

lot of things have changed. But before we go into that, let us

know, share with us, because I'm not sure how familiar folks are

with Robert, Half Technology and I'm not sure what people think

of what an Executive Director does. So tell us.

Jeff Weber: So thank you. So Robert, Half Technology, Robert

Half is an organization that helps provide talent solutions

and consulting solutions on a global basis. So we, on our

talent side, we help people get permanent placement jobs, as

well as provide contract resources. We do that in many

different ways. But we also have employees that we provide,

right, so we've built our own and our own consulting team as

well, in talent, and then we own an organization called

Protiviti, which is a business and technology consulting

company. Together, we then serve our clients on a global basis.

So in my role at Robert Half, as an executive director, I'm

responsible for helping to set the vision and strategy for the

technology work we do globally. There's an operational side of

that, how do we do the work we need to do better, but then

also, what things do we really want to do, what types of roles

we place, etc. And I'll just finish with saying we provide a

full spectrum of technology roles. We do an awful lot of

infrastructure and operation, everything from user support,

and desktop work all the way up to cloud and infrastructure

engineers and then on the application side, we do a full

suite there as well from data and the development web, from

intro developers through senior software engineers.

Eveline Oehrlich: Excellent. So you serve both those who are

looking for work and those who are having openings to fill

within the technology sector across all the different

personas and roles fantastic.

Jeff Weber: And we work globally, we work across most

industries, we work across all company sizes, we serve and

provide resources to very small organizations that normally need

someone for a short period, as well as very large organizations

have quite sophisticated programs on how they acquire

talent. So it's an interesting challenge really accelerated by

all the changes that have happened over the last two years

and just where we are in labor markets today.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, absolutely. In that labor

market. I was just looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, that's the US data. In Europe, that's a little bit

difficult to to get the data. But if we look at the

unemployment rate right now, as of whatever, I think this was

August 4%, less than 4%. And I also saw that they're announcing

October 7, I think is the next data point coming out. So that's

an interesting data point. That's very, very low. Right.

Then when we think of our research we just released Our

2022 upskilling research and during that work, we found that

the number one challenge was to find the right skills within it.

That was what over 2000 survey respondents had set. And second

to that, when we asked as you, you might remember, we talked

about the skill categories, right? Must have skill

categories. This year, the number one skill category was

price and framework skills, then followed by human skills. And

then by technical skills were last year, it was a little bit

different last year in 21, we had human skills first, and then

the process and frameworks, and then technical skills. So that's

another important detail. And I got a couple more until before I

pose a question to you. I also checked the nation of national

Sorry, I've been in France for the last week and my seems that

my English is getting worse. 10 National Federation of

Independent Business shows the business owners plans to staff

oak positions to remain elevated, of course, right

folks, are they looking for people and 94% of owners hiring

are trying to hire report few or no qualified applicants for the

positions to trying to staff? Wow, I am glad I am not needing

to find somebody, but I'm sure it would be in good hands with

Robert Half now. You guys, just I think you and another

gentleman did a blog. It was called the hard labor market

continues. Don't let a good hire slip away. I love the title, by

the way. And there you say in biannual job optimism survey,

that four in 10 US workers. So 41% are currently looking or

planning to look for new role in the second half of this year, I

think there was 22. So that's now. And it also says that

research shows that finance and technology professionals are

among the most likely to make a move. So we've got low

employment, we've got a whole bunch of people, at least here

in the US who are looking to change the jobs, what is

happening, what can you shed some light on what's going on?

Jeff Weber: I think we have a lot of factors that drive some

of the data that you're you're citing there, you know, clearly,

the market remains strong, we would often talk with our

clients that unemployment in technology, and even some of

those specific areas of technology is much lower than

that macro, right, that you're talking about. 4%. You know,

it's, it's really there's more available jobs, than there's

people looking for work. And that's both at a macro and

within technology. And I think that's, that really does

exasperate then the question when you're really thinking

about it from the context of, you know, the amount of

technology change driven, coming out of the pandemic driven by

ongoing digitalization of kind of the entire enterprise, and

all businesses, right, that's not a new phenomenon. I think

what the newness is, is the scale of it. And that just

creates, then pressure. So clearly, companies are hiring.

We'll probably talk through this discussion of a little bit of

the noise right now in the US, at least on on hiring, but most

of these positions are looking to acquire talent that they

think is important for them to achieve their strategic

objectives.

Eveline Oehrlich: Are there any specific roles you'd say are

extremely hot? I mean, I'm hoping you would say DevOps, but

obviously, there's other things, but there's some specific ones,

you're saying, yeah, those, those are really top top top.

Jeff Weber: So I agree completely, we don't necessarily

bifurcate between frameworks and, and process, human and

skill set the way you are in our language. However, I agree with

what those are. I think the, in our world today data continues

to be the thing and what that means, right, this idea of

information and everybody trying to both consume vast amounts of

data, but yet gain analytical capability. So there's sort of

across the spectrum from just straight data, data analytics,

to the whole are AI and machine learning. I think companies are

just now figuring out how to be strategic in those areas. And so

that senior data talent, you know, the true data scientists,

the true you know, AI architects, they're, they're

probably be the most difficult to find. To me things like Scrum

and DevOps are really critical. And they're kind of they touch

everybody. And they're just, you know, we just need to continue

to refine how we develop that talent and give people with the

right technical skills, some of that process framework

knowledge, four or five years ago, when I started in my role,

we weren't talking DevOps every day. Today we do, right. There's

not a developer that we place that doesn't at least have a

discussion with what's your knowledge and experience with

DevOps.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, we've we're seeing the same thing.

It's, I wouldn't say yet. It's over the hype cycle, right, if

we think if we use Gartner language, but it's certainly on

its way up on the mountain on the left hand side, sometimes

called the hype cycle, a mountain.

Jeff Weber: You know, in all those curves, and all that kind

of discussion, you clearly end up with, when is it hype and

when is it just part of the enterprise? I think we're

migrating to where it's just part of how technology or the

business achieves its objectives. You know, we had to

be missionaries of DevOps five years ago. Today, we just need

the capability that DevOps is an example that gives us right,

this ability to truly operate and change our environment on an

ongoing and continuous manner. So that's, that's just a

continued challenge and that does affect how we then develop

the skills and the experiences that companies look for and

talent whether to hire or to contract with.

Eveline Oehrlich: Right, so this phenomena of people are shifting

out of their roles, and looking for other. I heard the great

reshuffle, of course, as a great resignation, right? There's all

of that. Is that in you're looking at it from a global

aesthetic, global phenomena or is it just more so in one region

versus the other? Because sometimes I hear my colleagues

here in Europe saying, "Well, this great resignation, I think

that's just in the US" I'm like, Well, I'm not really sure. So

what are your thoughts on that?

Jeff Weber: I think we would say it is global. Like you mentioned

a moment ago, we don't have great data that gives us that,

but anecdotally, our teams around the world say the same

things and see that I think the, you know, to me, there's two

phenomenon going on in that whole question of reshuffling

and resignation, right? There's the what type of work people on

how they value work, and how they look at work in their

roles. You know, younger generations are looking for

various opportunities, and they're not beholden to their

career of choice in their 20s, and their 30s and 40s. Right.

And so I think they built into the cultural fabric change,

which is new for many of us, that have been around for a

longer time. And the other phenomenon, it's really then

driven by the pandemic, I think that is really true and real is,

especially in technology, our ability to work from anywhere.

That isn't new, right. But it wasn't really applicable to most

technology professionals for many, many years, right remote

or at home, as an exception, was viable, became viable over the

last 10 to 15 years, but very few roles truly were remote. And

today, such a large end of the development space, maybe 65 to

70% of roles would allow for especially senior level

development roles would allow for remote if not all time, full

time, a majority of the time. And as that permeates through,

people have now become accustomed to their work cycle,

which is very, very different from Monday to Friday. Yeah,

full days. And that's really creating a challenge. It's, you

know, once we talk through how we retain talent, that cultural

shift is dramatic, and they value things differently than

how we've always really addressed with the people we

work with and hire.

Eveline Oehrlich: Right? And I was just reading an article, I

think, I'm not sure if it's HBR, or one of the other journals I

typically read, had worked from home and opened up a lot of

opportunities for a home, you know, typical like mothers of

children who actually are also in professional roles. And

that's fantastic. Or I another data point there was for people

who have some kind of physical handicap where they are not able

to actually go into in the US this is much better. There seems

to be a lot more awareness of that. But in Europe, having a

workplace where you find an elevator to get up is still very

difficult. I noticed that when I had my kids and in the little

stroller I could never go anywhere in your home with a

stroller because it was really really hard. So that's that's a

good Rate opportunity for those folks.

Jeff Weber: And in many ways that that dynamic is great for

many, many people because it allows them to be in the

workforce. And I'll just add to it, then this, this acceptance

of variable labor, you know, we might call it gig labor, those

kinds of things. In our careers, people have done contracting

professionally, right, where they wanted to work for

themselves or work interative internally, but that was the

exception. And I think it's becoming more more accepted both

by the individuals that want to do that work and have

flexibility and control as well as then the company's hiring it

right. And that then is still, you know, an ongoing change

that's happening that we haven't gotten through, probably we're

going to be dealing with over the next several years.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Right, yeah, I mean, when I joined Forrester in

2006, I had a home office, and I left in 2018, I still had a home

office. So that role is as the Vice President and Research

Director, they're allowed me because it was I used to say, I

work at United Airlines or my location is United Airlines.

Seed to a because my, at that time, we were doing a lot of

travel. All right I have one more question on a term, which I

shake my head because it's just so flabbergasting, quiet

quitting. What are your thoughts on that? What's what's

happening? I mean, I remember back when I was Hewlett Packard,

we had quiet quitters. This was this is just 20 years ago. So

it's nothing new. Right? There's always people who kind of

checked out because they were not engaged. They didn't care.

Why is this right now coming up? Is it just press who is pushing

that? What are your thoughts on that? I'm curious thing.

Jeff Weber: It's like a term like the great resignation, that

term can become globally known within days. Right. So quiet

quitting is now that that trend, I agree with you completely, I

think there's always been the phenomenon. But you had to be

really good at it to do it when you were in an office

environment on a consistent basis. Right. And I think today,

the idea of variable and there's distrust, right, we don't

necessarily have employers that trust their, their workers and

workers don't always trust their employers. So they're trying to

take on that control. And it's a function of what are they

looking for, they're looking for compensation, they're looking

for opportunity. But that opportunity is not necessarily

long term and short term. And they're looking for flexibility.

So we have to label everything. I think it's real. And probably

it's always been there, I don't know that it will, in and of

itself, you know, be a trend that we see that we have to kind

of address systemically on an ongoing piece, but it's

obviously an issue that we're dealing with today.

Eveline Oehrlich: If I have a job, and I am unhappy, let's say

I'm somewhere and I have actually met some of those

folks, right? They're working somewhere in an IT organization,

they're on call, they're, they're stuck, they can't really

develop their training budget is low. They work really, really

hard. What would you advise those folks to do? I mean, of

course, trading, right. But what can an individual like that?

What options does this person have? In this hot market?

Jeff Weber: Yeah, well, they clearly have potential

opportunities to get another role and I think because of the

openings, most everybody if they have the skills that we'll talk

about, right, they are able to go find a different role that

oftentimes that frustration now is something that they think the

better answer is a new place. And sometimes it is right. But I

think it's a real challenge, because, you know, no different

today than what we would have seen over the last many years.

The next place, you know, has its own culture and has its own

requirements. And I think that's really what we've seen in the

last couple of years of not the breakdown of the culture and

accompany but the changing of that culture to where it's You

know, you don't really build the relationships by sitting with

and being with, in the same way face to face like we've had. So

that's making it you feel like you're doing it on your own. You

really, and I think that's a real challenge in there.

Clearly, they're going to ask for more training, they're going

to ask for more money. But at the end of the day, there's only

so much that that will do for their satisfaction. And maybe

the last piece there is burnout. You know, that's not a new

concept, either, right? Yeah, he's burned out, but our

awareness of it, because of how we live our life, right, we just

think of all the time, we all have gotten back from commute,

and all the different things. But now we're working it at

home, a large majority of people a large majority of the time.

And so you're working at whatever those hours, and we

don't really understand how that's going to impact burnout.

Right? You're online at 6am, or online at 8pm. It may only be an

eight hour day, but it feels very, very different. Right. So

the opportunity of remote and the opportunity of the

technology to enable all that is great. The impact of that I

think we're still starting to understand on younger people.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, absolutely. So if I am in a

position where I either have desires to move, what are some

of the hot skills? What should I stress as an individual? What

are some of the things you guys are looking for or what are

your companies who are coming to you say, hey, we need some we

need some hot shots, what do these hot shots need to have?

Jeff Weber: So there's, you know, there really isn't any one

technology that I would say today is the hotspot, but you

need software engineers, you need data engineers, you need

those cloud engineers, so all three of those things, you know,

the ability to adapt the skill sets, right? Clearly, every

business processes training, transforming every external

client facing process continues to transform. And we just don't

have enough talent with the skill sets that enable all of

those process changes, right. So whether it's cloud, whether it's

data, whether it's applications, and the integration of all of

those, that's clearly a challenge. That's typically how

we get requested for talent. I think it's really, we our

clients then would assume that we're screening for human

skills. And they probably add the requirements of the process

and the frameworks. But they don't start with that they start

with, do you have the right cloud infrastructure? Do you

have the right experience in React or Angular? Or what are

all the various technologies that are the application

frameworks, which I view those application frameworks different

than process frameworks? Right? Yeah, right, are very, very

different. So it's a challenge for how organizations go look

for talent is embedded in, especially in big organizations

is how they've always looked for talent. Right? And I think

companies have to continue to figure out, is it? Are they

buying the skill? Or are they hiring the person with the

skill, because those are two different approaches. But when

you end up with a high trend, you know, high volume of people

you're looking for, you get you get really problematic. The

other thing is, maybe as we do that, it's what are the skills

that you have to have from the beginning capability, right,

that then enable you to grow into, you know, you don't train

to be a software engineer, or a software architect, you learn

how to be an architect, you learn how to you get trained on

how to develop, and then you have lots of experience in

developing and you can apply that from cloud and data and all

the different capabilities. And so we continue to see a

challenge with organizations on whether they train their own

people, or whether they need to enable entry level talent that

will eventually have those skills. That's just an ongoing

challenge for many companies, not just what we might view as

the higher end engineers and architects.

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, we've seen that great point. Of

course, we've seen that in our research as well, that there is

a significant uptick in how these organizations are

developing their individuals. Like you said, you don't have a

degree as a software architect, right? There's not a in any

university, you come out of computer science or you come out

of computer information systems, but to become an architect, an

enterprise architect or a software developer or any of

those you actually started at a particular level that makes me

think of one very interesting, funny situation, when I got my

degree from Colorado State University go CSU. In in the US,

I was a 4.0, master student computer science computer

information systems. And I've worked down towards my customer

and the customer looked at me and he said, Are you my new

programmer? And this was in this was in 1994? Of course, I

didn't, I thought programmer was very derogative. At the time,

nobody wanted to be a programmer right. Now, if he probably would

now say, are you my new software developer, I would have probably

smiled and said yes. So that that how it changed right from

then to now is quite, quite different

Jeff Weber: than we see. That's an interesting story we see for

us, whether you call it some people call it programmer, some

call it software engineers, some would call it you know,

application architect, there's so many different software

developer, web developer, they're all really different

ways to express the same thing. Right. And so there's some of

that's very cultural, some of that's just how that company has

evolved. You know, I think, when we often talk with people that

have concerns, we use the word advancement, in my mind in a

very historical way, and assume people want to advance. I think

advancement for many today is a new skill, or a changing skill,

or not necessarily from programmer to senior programmer

to, you know, that was my generation of growth. They want

to try a new framework, a new application, a new industry, and

so they're changing. And that's their frustration. What we have

here is advancement, and what they're looking for his change

in diversity of opportunity, diversity of challenge. And

that's, that's, that puts stress on all of us, the individual got

that not sure how to articulate it, and the person those of us

that are hiring, that are trying to understand that that message?

Eveline Oehrlich: Yeah, yeah. Great point, I have two more

questions for you and then I'll let you go to the rest of your

day. So one is around retention. So if I have a great team,

right, I have wonderful individuals, I have implemented

the foosball table, I have the the beer, things wide, where we

have after work, fun and all of that. But I still have a

challenge with retaining some of my really good people, what are

some ideas for our listeners here? Who might have that

challenge? What retention strategies have you seen? Or

would you suggest,

Jeff Weber: I think those are consistent, whether it's

compensation, recognition, you know, professional development

opportunities, some of those kinds of things. Flexible work,

I would say many companies struggle with really earning the

trust of their employees that they're committed to all all of

those. Right. So they give, they might, they might have attacked

compensation, but they really are trying to limit flexibility.

They might have done some, some things for training, but it's

only temporary and that the employees don't trust it. Right.

So I think that's really one challenge is that we have to be

as hires of talent or retainers of talent, we have to be

committed to all of those and understand that flexibility and

recognition are really critical and important to a vast number

of the people that work for you. In today's environment. We at

Robert Half are continually challenging ourselves, how to

build a recognition program that resonates with the people being

recognized, not the way necessarily people want it to be

recognized in prior in prior eras, and compensations a

challenge everybody, many most organizations have increased

their compensation. Right. In today's world, very few

employees, employers, employees, excuse me think it's enough.

Right. But as that changes, right companies are going to be

faced with I have my cost of labor has gone up significantly.

And what am I doing? So compensation is always a part of

that. It's just not by itself enough. I don't think there's

any one great idea that people aren't trying I think the

important thing for employers is to to be creative and listen to

their employees, but also then be committed. Right? So the

ability to not necessarily just get new experience, but then

have the opportunity work in those roles. Right. Those are

challenges companies struggle with the learning factor for

their own employees. Yeah. And so that's that's just a real

challenge. But I think it's a really important one for

companies to deal with.

Eveline Oehrlich: Great, great advice, Jeffrey. All right. I

have one more question has nothing to do with what we

talked about, what is your favorite weekend activity?

Jeff Weber: So one of the things before the pandemic, I traveled

continuously, since the pandemic, I've traveled very

little, and my wife and I have decided we're going to be

country lovers, right? We've always been in suburban suburban

US cities. But we have a cabin, we build a log cabin, for the

last 18 months out in the mountains of the state of

Pennsylvania, where I live. So our our whole goal is to figure

out I'd love to be doing a call like this. Three miles from the

cabin, you know, internet has made everything great. So I can,

you know, watch the bald eagles soar over the mountain and or,

you know, go trout fishing in the morning, and yet still, so

it's something I never would have dreamed I would have

enjoyed is just sitting in the mountain by the stream and, you

know, enjoying nature. So it's been a big shift for us. But

it's the one thing we like to do now more than anything.

Eveline Oehrlich: That sounds wonderful. Well, let's make that

our goal. Our next call will be from the mountains, you'll be

somewhere in Pennsylvania mountains, and I'll try to be

either here in the south France Alps or somewhere in Colorado

mountains, something like that. Well, thank you, Jeff, this has

been great and thank you for doing the hard work, helping

people finding the right spots and helping companies hire the

right people to fulfill themselves and their business

goals. This was great. Thank you to all the listeners. If you

want to know more about Robert Half, it's easy to find them

just Google them. Stay safe, stay human and hope that you

tune in next time.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of

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