Voice of the DBA

Tag: Database Weekly

  • The Cost of Employee Turnover

    Sometime during the first 3-4 months of the pandemic, after offices all over the world closed, I thought that a lot of businesses would try to hold on to existing employees and minimize turnover. I also thought many employees would be nervous about changing jobs amid all the uncertainty.

    That wasn’t the case everywhere, and I was surprised at how much employee turnover occurred in many companies during 2020 and 2021. We had the Great Resignation, where talented employees (and some not-so-talented) found new employment with lots of remove flexibility. We typically have low turnover at Redgate, but more surprising to me was the number of people we’ve hired in the last two years.

    Our gains come from losses elsewhere. It seems a lot of companies have had a bit of turnover, more than they liked.  The costs of replacing a staffer has climbed to an average of USD$57k, according to a recent poll of hiring managers. I’m sure this is a combination of the time and money spent on recruiters and interviews as well the lost productivity of having less people around.

    For many of us working in technology, we realize that losing good people is a problem. Often we lose undocumented knowledge about our systems,  those shortcuts, checks, small tasks, not-so-obvious fixes, and more that make life easier. We can feel more stressed about additional work, or even the anticipated unknown challenges we might face. Moral, productivity, and motivation decrease, which creates a snowball effect. Everyone gets less done, which costs the organization more. Either lower revenue, more costs, or perhaps fewer services for those government or non-profit concerns.

    With large tech companies letting lots of talented people go, I wonder if we’ll see more competition in the employment market. For quite a few years there have been fewer workers than there are jobs. Perhaps that changes a bit in the future, though I still think there are not nearly enough talented workers for the positions open. Good for talented workers as they may have more choices, but also good for less talented workers when companies feel pressure to hire anyone.

    Except, what I’ve seen in a lot of companies is that they don’t want to hire anyone. Having a degree or cert isn’t enough. Companies aren’t going to hire you because you are Azure/AWS/etc. certified. They want tech skills and at least a few soft ones. That creates an even higher cost to fill positions, so maybe that USD$57k isn’t a bad number.

    To me, what this really means is that organizations ought to look at poor management, both middle and upper, and replace those people. That’s the problem in many places, one that isn’t easily fixed. Poor culture, micromanagement, lack of support, little-to-no psychological safety, and more contribute to poor retention.

    Culture is important and building it is hard. While not everyone will have a great culture, many organizations can avoid a poor one by treating people fairly and ensuring management understands how to do that. If for no other reason than to avoid the high costs of replacing staff.

    Steve Jones

  • Killing IE

    Sort of. Apparently, Microsoft will kill off IE in Feb 2023 in Windows 10. The lifecycle page notes that IE will be permanently disabled with an Edge update. For earlier OSes, it isn’t quite clear what will happen. However, extended support ends this month, Jan 2023, for Windows 7 and 8.

    Does anyone use Windows 8?

    I have used IE many times in my career, but the last decade of so I’ve shuddered every time I need to run it on a server or remote machine. It’s ancient technology that feels cumbersome, much like trying to get something done on a Palm Pilot instead of a modern smartphone.

    I know there are lots of websites and apps that use technology that works in IE, and Microsoft is adding an IE Mode to Edge for those cases.  Microsoft has a “what you need to know” article you can read, but it seems more like an advertisement for Edge than an informative article.

    I could care less about IE, and I mostly don’t think I’ve needed it in years, but I do encounter that technology in a few places. Outlook is the main one where some sort of IE-based control is still being loaded for some authentication mechanisms. I think removing IE is one thing, but getting rid of embedded controls based on IE is going to be a much harder and longer-term issue.

    I know so many developers that used various versions of the browser control in their apps, and I suspect there is no shortage of places that IE tech will continue to be a problem. I’m sure it works most of the time, but probably not always.

    Hopefully, most of you out there use a modern browser for your work, and if you need one inside an application, you use something besides an embedded IE-era control. If you need an alternative, there’s an older Stack answer that might help. Please, use anything by an IE control. It’s time we let that technology retire gracefully in a museum somewhere.

    Steve Jones

  • Improving Skills at Work

    A large part of the success I’ve had in my career has come from growing my skills, both technical and soft, throughout the years. I’ve always been driven to learn more and improve my ability to accomplish the tasks I’ve been assigned. Or those that I’ve sought out and tackled. A little initiative has been valuable in many successful reviews in the past.

    There is a shortage of skilled IT workers. There are numerous job openings that I see in many companies, at least outside of some of the large tech firms. Many of those have been laying off workers, especially in some of their divisions that haven’t been as successful as expected during the last few years.

    At the same time, a lot of companies are becoming more discriminating about who they hire. They don’t just need bodies, they need skilled bodies that can do the work they are struggling with, often in the DevOps, cloud, and data analysis areas.

    While a lot of you reading this newsletter will have data skills, are they the ones companies need? Do you understand Git, DevOps, builds, and pipelines? Are you familiar with cloud technologies and gluing systems together remotely? Can you handle python, Spark, Power BI, or business requests to do something with AI/ML?

    I’m often not surprised that many senior data people don’t have exposure to these technologies and aren’t sure how to gain skills. I am surprised that more employers aren’t upskilling existing people or reskilling them in new areas. It seems far too many companies don’t invest in their people, even in today’s world where hiring is both very expensive and time-consuming. It’s also frustrating when you can’t find qualified candidates.

    There’s a good article on upskilling and reskilling and the importance of having a plan inside your organization. This goes hand in hand with a number of presentations from companies at the various DOES conferences over the years. The successful companies that embrace a digital transformation (whatever that means), DevOps, and the Cloud have ways to bring their current employees along. They invest in their people, requiring them to grow, but assisting them on the journey.

    Not everyone wants to move to the cloud or DevOps or AI/ML. That’s fine, but my view is you have to embrace some change in your career if you want to create new opportunities for yourself and have choices in your future roles.

    If your company doesn’t do enough to help you grow into new roles with new skills, maybe send them this article. Make a business case that you can do more with some help, and you’re willing to invest some effort yourself to grow. Managers know hiring is hard, and if you’ve been a good employee, I think they often are willing to invest in you.

    If they’re not, then many you ought to think about that a bit and find out what you can do better so that they will invest in you. Not everyone makes it through corporate transformations, but many do if they are flexible and put in some effort.

    Steve Jones

  • How Important is Software?

    I have a mechanical gaming keyboard, not because I’m a gamer, but I did want to tactile, mechanical feel and I like the idea of lights on the keys. I’ve enjoyed the experience, but the software leaves something to be desired.

    I thought about my experience as I read this review of a more complex keyboard, with the title that notes it’s so pretty you can almost forgive the software. The poor UI and the complexity of operations, not to mention the splitting of the remap functions being unnecessarily complex. That was my experience as the only thing I cared about was remapping the home and end keys to the places I was used to them being on Logitech devices. I have spent a few hours across the last year learning how to map keys, and then relearning when my profile is lost in an upgrade or hardware glitch.

    How much does software matter to customers? I’d argue it is becoming more and more critical all the time. The experience of using hardware, or really any device or service, is impacted by the software that drives it. Software is eating the world, and I think we need to understand that better software design and quality is needed.

    I find that the most talented hardware companies sometimes have the worst software. It’s almost as if they assume their customers will be as talented as their hardware engineers and don’t spent enough time understanding how to better design a user experience for their products. Keyboards, routers, motherboards, and more often use archaic, confusing methods to have customers configure or update the systems.

    I know UX is hard. This isn’t even about graphics or visual appeal. In many cases, it’s about just better understanding of how others view the process and what information they take from what appears on the screen. Over the years I’ve learned that this is not only hard, but also that it takes time and debate, just like features do. I enjoy these moments, and I like to think that I help my employer produce better software for our customers with my feedback.

    I urge developers to have others look at what they present on the screen, and spend time learning from users, both experienced and novice. We often forget how something appears to others when we look at it every day and rush through workflows as we test our latest code. It’s easy to gloss over daily changes as minor when the sum of all changes can be a jarring experience for our users after an install or upgrade. UX is important, and it’s worth putting effort into our software designs, our data models, even the metadata we expose to others.

    Steve Jones