Respondent profiles See the profile of the average respondent to our survey and a regional salary breakdown. Includes survey methodology. How much for each job Breakdown of current salaries, increases over last year and average years in job for different networking jobs. Stay in school The higher the degreee, the larger the salary. Duffy is a freelance writer based in Somerville, Mass. He can be reached via the Internet at tduffy62@ compuserve.com.

By Tom Duffy
Network World, 9/1/97

Three months ago, Ken Weaver left his job as a network engineer for the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. In three years at UNC, he built and upgraded the school's computer network to the point that it needed little maintenance. Like the Maytag repairman, Weaver had little to occupy his time.

In search of new challenges, as well as benefits that a state-owned operation such as UNC couldn't offer, Weaver took a similar position at SAS Institute, Inc., an 11-year-old software development firm in nearby Cary.

At SAS, a firm with more than 4,700 employees worldwide, Weaver is working on a much larger network. He's dealing with LAN and WAN connectivity issues, and he's getting to know the intricacies of ATM and FDDI.

SAS, which is routinely listed as a top-notch company to work for by Working Woman magazine, also offers on-site day care. That was a critical perk for Weaver, the father of then 9-month-old Elizabeth.

Oh, and he got an 8% raise.

Weaver's raise is slightly higher than the average, judging from the returns of the 1997 Network World/Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group Salary Survey. The 400 network professionals surveyed saw their salaries jump an average of 7.4% this year, up a notch from the average raise of 7% reported in last year's survey. Weaver can expect his paycheck to grow more next year, too. Respondents said they expect raises of between 4.9% and 6% during the next 12 months.

Clearly, network professionals are doing better than the average worker, whose paycheck expanded by a more modest 3.2% in the year ended June 30, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The respondents we surveyed work for large companies that report revenues of more than $1 billion annually. Why? Because, as Weaver's experience illustrates, no matter the size of your company, you've got to compete against the big guys for the top talent. "Most companies are working very hard to make their company a good place to work,'' says Frank Schoff, president of Management Re-cruiters, of Cedar Mountain, N.C. "So the competition is stiff all the way around - that includes benefits and perks and everything else.''

But the survey refutes the notion that technology workers are jumping ship every few months in search of fatter paychecks and leading-edge jobs. Respondents reported being in their current position for an average of three years and with the same employer for an average of a decade. Still, many of those employees are hearing about plenty of opportunities, so it's critical to make sure they're happy.

"I don't think a day goes by that one of my consultants doesn't get a job offer from a client,'' says David Jackson, vice president of the network systems consulting practice for The Registry, a Newton, Mass.-based integration firm.

Jackson and others report getting off-the-chart salary demands from some prospective employees. While he counsels that companies have to keep up with the competition, they don't have to be held hostage.

"We get people who've recently received first-level certifications and who have limited consulting experience expecting $90,000 to $100,000 right out of the box,'' he says. "But we pass on those people. We're very firm about the ranges we pay and the levels of experience [we require].''

The chart on page 45 shows the salary breakdown by position. As expected, those with strategic planning and project management skills come out on top, whereas those with operations and liaison skills fall lower on the pay scale. While skilled employees are in demand, employers reported that those with top-shelf technology skills and management experience are even harder to find.

An MIS manager for a leading national transportation firm, who asked not to be named, said it has become almost impossible to find employees with good project management skills.

"It's a killer,'' he says. "We've contracted outside for some certified project managers either because we couldn't find them or we couldn't find them quickly enough.'' Broader management skills and the ability to deal with other branches of the business are becoming increasingly important, especially with the implementation of large-scale financial and business systems such as SAP, according to Glenn James, partner in the telecommunications and media practice of Deloitte & Touche.

"The challenge is not talking just routers, ATM, IP and all that stuff,'' James says. "You've got to be able to talk the application and the business process as well.'' Finding people with those skills, many of which don't show up on a resume, takes innovation. "You have to look in places where you haven't traditionally looked, maybe people coming out of MBA schools who used to work at HP or IBM or Digital, as opposed to just getting someone from Bell Labs,'' he says.

Skill-wise, the survey reveals that the biggest gulf between supply and demand exists in client/server and Internet/intranet network infrastructure development and deployment, as well as network management. More than half of all respondents said they would be willing to pay premiums of 16% to 17% to employees with those skills.

At CompuServe, Inc., the network services division has had significant difficulty finding workers with substantial expertise in Cisco router technology and Windows NT, according to Ramin Hashemi, director of CompuServe's network technical center. With more than 120 network-related positions open, the firm has begun hiring college graduates or people with limited experience and training them for positions it can't otherwise fill. "We'd rather get the skilled technical talent, but there's such a shortage that we don't always have that luxury,'' he says.

CompuServe's problem is exacerbated by its location in Columbus, Ohio. Not exactly a technology mecca, Columbus also is experiencing a boom period in which the unemployment rate is currently below 3%, according to Hashemi. Still, if em-ployees come to their bosses to report another job offer, CompuServe will not make counteroffers. "We try not to get into that kind of bartering,'' Hashemi says. "It tends to lead to internal salary inequities.''

That's the reason that signing bonuses and other innovative compensation programs continue to be popular, says Jill Herrin, president of J&D Resources, Inc., a Memphis, Tenn., recruitment firm. Companies can get individual employees more money without skewing the pay scale for the entire firm.

"The sign-on bonuses are almost becoming run-of-the-mill,'' she says. "We're seeing $8,000 to $10,000 fairly regularly. And $2,000 or $3,000 is routine.''

Salary innovation doesn't stop once employees come in the door, either. Last month, Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc. moved to a competency-based model that rewards employees with raises of up to 10% for gaining certifications and advanced degrees, as well as bonuses for making a significant impact in their field, such as publishing a white paper or making a presentation at a major seminar.

"What we've found is that information technology people are motivated by increasing their skill sets,'' says Elizabeth Segal, a Bell Atlantic recruiting manager. "This model is a way to promote that. You can get this without getting a traditional promotion, which in the past was the only way to increase your pay.''

The belief that incentives make technology workers more productive is at the core of an enhanced program for employees at Digital Equipment Corp.'s systems integration services division. In the program, bonuses of up to 30%, based on a combination of company performance and individual achievement, are awarded to technology workers as individual project goals are achieved.

The intent of the program is to tie compensation more directly to employee accomplishments, says Alan Zimmerle, a vice president for human resources at Digital. "Our employees are incented to make sure customer problems are solved,'' Zimmerle says. "It widens their ability to earn money inside of Digital.''

But even while Digital uses pay to retain workers, the company is conscious that money is not the only factor. Relationships among employees and between employees and customers are critical issues as well.

"We're learning that we have to ensure that the environment in which people work is a good one,'' Zimmerle says. "That means investing in team building with our folks and between our folks and our customers' folks in order to establish a good working environment.''

Another part of job satisfaction is giving employees the ability to acquire new skills, either on the job or through outside training. In some cases, that can make up for pay that lags behind industry averages.

At Latitude Communications, a Santa Clara, Calif., maker of conferencing software, employees who had opportunities to move to other firms and gain experience on new technologies received what amounted to counteroffers. The counteroffers didn't include higher pay, but did include the ability to work on similar technology, according to Joy Strull, Latitude's information systems manager. Strull says because the company is a start-up, pay scales are lower than at many Bay-area companies.

"If it makes business sense for us, then it's something that we will try to accomplish,'' Strull says.

Latitude's approach makes sense in light of the survey results. The top two reasons for changing jobs, cited by 47% and 35% of respondents, respectively, were to gain added responsibility and learn new skills. Increased compensation lagged just behind, cited by 34%of respondents.

Part of retaining skilled people is making sure they are a good fit when they are hired. Increasingly, managers are filling positions temporarily with contract workers until they find someone who not only has the necessary skills, but also is a good fit with the company's culture and key coworkers.

"It's definitely a way for companies to source and try out full-time talent,'' says Mark Young, manager of consulting services at Howard Systems International, an Englewood, Colo., recruiting firm.

Typically, firms are precluded from offering contract workers full-time positions for eight to 12 months, Young says. Lately, though, some firms asked to re-duce the period to four months. "Call it a four-month interview if you will,'' he says.

That approach just makes sense, says Terry Stader, MIS manager for Concord Communications, Inc., a 100-person maker of network diagnostic software in Marlborough, Mass. Stader says he used a dozen contract workers in a systems administrator position before hiring a full-timer several months ago. As it turned out, the person was not among the contractors who had done the job temporarily.

"From the various contractors we got a better feeling for what kind of person we would bring on full-time,'' Stader says. "We used them to help us figure out more about what the job was and what the right mix was.''

Employers increasingly say that if technology workers want to make themselves valuable, they need to be able to approach their work from micro and macro levels.

"We want people with the ability to get down to the nitty-gritty and fix the problem,'' Stader says. "But they also need to be able to step back and see where the technology is headed, where the future lies for our network and the Internet and intranet connections for our activity throughout the world.''

Looking ahead as technology workers mature, the challenge of keeping the best employees in place is providing a logical career path, says Deloitte & Touche's James. That might mean providing opportunities far afield from their initial technical expertise.

"The challenge of having those people with broader skills is that they are looking for more out of life than rearchitecting the network,'' he says. "You have to provide a way that they can move up by increasing their responsibilities and moving into areas where they might not have any expertise, such as marketing and sales.''

For those ready to meet the responsibilities, it seems there's still no limit to what they can achieve, especially if they are willing to move on to new companies.

"If you've got skills and a heartbeat, you generally can find a place to land where you'll make more money,'' James says.