Posted on 10/05/2023 7:25:22 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Why I despise HR thinking....
The author of this article is definitely replaceable.
Having spent 38 years in the IT World, I say be careful about irreplaceable employees, one day they might not be there, and you IT Operations could be severely impacted.
If you have 1 or 2 people who are the only ones that know how to run a particular procedure, that is not good IT Management, especially if it’s not well documented so that everyone is aware of what needs to be done.
My experience is that many Managers are very afraid of excellent workers. They don’t understand them. They don’t know how to talk with them. They don’t know how to manage them. A lot of Managers try to get rid of excellent workers.
If a “great employee” is subjected to bad processes, lousy managers, and/or mediocre teams.
They won’t be employees much longer. They’ll go elsewhere. The money won’t matter.
There are no IT workers who look like the woman (am I allowed to assume that?!) in the picture.
None.
Oh come on. There has to be one, right?
This article was probably written by a chatbot seeking to buy AI more time to take over IT.
Doesn’t take into account Envy—wanting another not to have a good they possess.
I came into a job with a technical competence that was on the Job Description but that the leaders 1) didn’t themselves have and 2) they needed because they were undergoing a Migration that needed workarounds that only I could do.
The Top Dog commended me for taking a daily procedure that took 1:10 hours down to 0:22 minutes.
My lead man came over to my desk and immediately started screaming at me:
“Now, can you take it down to 15 minutes? 10 minutes?”
Recognizing the power of Envy, I always take every possible opportunity of assigning him every credit for every thing.
How does that improve productivity?
He doesn’t say irreplaceable people are needed. He says great people are needed to overcome cruft and bad situations in your company.
All the mediocre and terrible and even “good” employees suck at this, which is why your poor processes and poor company performance is there, in the first place.
BINGO!!!!
I left the best job of my career for EXACTLY those reasons.
But I believe the sentiment of the author regarding irreplaceability was less about specialized knowledge and more about social skills and the impact one or two people can have on a team. Until now I thought little about his point, mainly regarding IT people as mostly introverts little affected by the social activity of the people around them. But having read the article I look back and can see that he may be onto something.
Article:
“those who hoard information and techniques so that getting rid of them is impractical”
That is what every employee should strive to be....but....
The managers may be so stupid that they don’t even know how important you are.
The best way around that problem is to make sure the competitors know how valuable you are even if your own managers have no clue.
Your post reminds me of another recommendation I would make to every talented employee...
Never show all your cards—make only minor improvements so there is lots of room for you to make more improvements later on...
The market is mature now. Everybody pretty much have cellphones. And in general they should last at least 4-5 years.
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