Another large enterprise with 2,500 IT employees, which prefers to remain anonymous, is also using standardization to great effect. "The goal is to try and leverage the various divisional efforts to identify opportunities for standards or at the very least publish a repository of patterns and best practices," says one the company’s lead enterprise architects. "We're trying to trim the fat out of our SDLC [Systems Development Life Cycle] processes and maintenance processes without necessarily looking for additional automation."

Application efficiencies
Even when you squeeze every drop of value out of current systems, sometimes you need to invest in new technology in order to work smarter, says Rick Faszold, manager of systems at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis. Using Microsoft’s SoftGrid application virtualization technology has reduced system crashes by 75 percent, says Faszold.

"Because the applications are containerized I can run anything I want to run together with far fewer system crashes," Faszold says.

Prior to SoftGrid, Faszold estimates St. Anthony's spent about 1,500 people-hours a year fixing systems due to software problems.

SoftGrid works by keeping the applications from touching the registry and the Windows system directories, while allowing the application to load everything it needs to run.

Despite Faszold's best efforts at reducing operational hours via technology, the competitive nature of the health care industry is taking its toll. His staff has gone from putting in an average of 50 hours per week two years ago to 58 hours per week now.

Doing the right thing
Overall, our interviews left us with the impression that today's companies are far hipper than even ten years ago in making concerted efforts to keep worker satisfaction high, long hours notwithstanding.

The InfoWorld 2007 Compensation Survey found that among IT staff, more than 80 percent of employees were “satisfied” to “very satisfied” with the balance between work fulfillment and salary. In fact, among IT staff, 71 percent said they were fairly compensated.

Part of the reason for that may be that many companies have learned to treat their workers with respect. "It is incumbent upon management to figure out ways to support people, because workloads are tough. We had to realize we are still people with families," Faszold says. For example, St. Anthony’s offers extra time off to take care of family needs.

Despite IT managers’ claims that doing more with less has not put a great strain on their departments, employers do demand more from new hires, favoring candidates with skill sets considerably broader than was the rule in past eras.

"Companies are looking for people who can ride multiple horses," says Kevin Haugh, senior director of products at talent management company Workstream. IT people need to have more than one competency, says Haugh, and not just in technology. With the increase in outsourcing, good management skills among permanent employees who work on-site are more highly valued.

Stacey Epstein, vice president of marketing at Success Factors, concurs. Epstein says that, while it’s important to make the most of the talent you have, it’s also critical that you avoid overworking people. "You won't get where you want to go by telling people they need to work another four hours," she says. Managing talent and rewarding people for hitting goals is the way to go.

And it’s more important than ever to keep people happy. Recent interviews with IT managers and talent management executives indicate that a major talent war is occurring in IT. The reasons? Baby boomers are retiring and the educational system is not replacing them fast enough. And the relentless pace of technology creates demand for those well versed in the latest and greatest (AJAX programmers are the current stars).

Yes, as our compensation survey indicates, stress in IT may be high. But when hasn’t it been that way? Working in IT is all about adapting to change, and if our random sample is any indication, InfoWorld’s readers are coping pretty well. They’re even getting paid for the extra effort.