Salary Survey 1999

Special Feature

Cents and sensibility

Results for 1999 highlight growth, convergence, and change.

"Data and voice are becoming one network as each day goes by," says a Californian IS manager who responded to Communications News' 1999 salary survey.

And whether data/voice integration is helping to create havoc and headaches or profits and promotions, it means there's plenty for you to do, and the rewards are pretty good.

THE NUMBERS GAME

Close to 300 readers responded to this year's survey. The majority (72%) of participants have worked in the communications industry for more than 10 years, with 18% reporting over 30 years of industry experience.

This year's respondents are sticking with their employers for longer periods of time. While there is much talk of employee turnover in the industry, two-thirds (69%) of you have been with your current employer for more than five years, and 20% have over 20 years' experience with the same employer. Expectations for long-term employment with the same company are high. A majority (57%) of respondents expect to stay with their current employer for a total of six or more years, while 43% expect to work five years or less before moving on.

Growth is one of the main trends we see this time around: profitable companies, profiting employees, and an ever-increasing assortment of products and services.

Salary ranges, overall, can be considered high, with a two-thirds majority (66%) of our respondents reporting annual salaries of $50,000 or more. One-quarter (25%) of all respondents take home $80,000 or more annually.

Breaking salaries down by job function reveals the following results: executive management report a median overall income of $99,000. Financial/administrative management earn $79,000, and senior IS/IT managers garner a median income of $73,000. LAN managers, by contrast, report the lowest median income ($43,000).

Looking at salary by region offers the following insights: Respondents from New England have the highest median income ($77,500), followed by those from the Pacific ($69,000), Mid-Atlantic ($67,500), South Central ($60,000), and the Southeast ($56,000). Communications professionals in the North Central ($55,000) and Mountain ($52,500) regions report the lowest median incomes.

Many respondents report being pleased with their compensation, especially riding the tide of a surging economy that is expanding possibilities, opportunities, and responsibilities for some. "My job has grown from being a technician to working with phone systems, fiber optics, and network cabinets," says the supervisor for technology services for a school in Indiana. "It gets more exciting with each school year."

Gaps and disparities in compensation and responsibilities are apparent and widening according to others. Time, money, and qualified personnel are all part of a shallow and shrinking pool of resources. "We are paid too little for having to have a breadth of knowledge and few financial resources," says a respondent from the education public sector in Washington.

Overtime is almost routine, as we have seen in past surveys, with 79% of respondents working extra hours to complete their tasks. A plurality (43%) of respondents work an average amount of six to 10 hours per week. Twenty-nine percent of respondents report working one to five extra hours per week, while 20% put in 11 to 20 extra hours. More than 20 hours of overtime per week are worked by 8% of respondents.

Perhaps bonuses and raises justify all of those long hours for some of those surveyed. Of those who received a bonus last year, 32% say that the extra compensation was in the amount of $10,000 or more. Twenty-one percent received $1,000 to $4,999, and 13% took home $5,000 to $9,999 extra. Raises are expected this year by the vast majority (82%) of those surveyed.

Education may be one way to improve your financial prospects. A network system administrator who has been in the communications industry for less than 10 years says that he "will get a MCP, then MCSE," to keep increasing his opportunities. Other respondents find themselves overqualified for the current positions they hold. "My current position does not reflect my time in the telecommunications industry," says a branch manager for a services organization who has been in the telecommunications industry for more than 20 years. An IS manager with over 30 years' experience has a different lament, "Sadly, after being downsized at Digital, I entered the real world. Being around 50 years [old], I must say that age bias is alive and well in Massachusetts."

As a group, respondents are highly educated. A majority (70%) have received a bachelor's degree or higher, while 25% have some college.

"Trying to train tomorrow's industry professionals in the public sector is both rewarding and aggravating," says a high school teacher from California. But her biggest thrill, she says, is "when my students make more than I do."

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

When asked about overall job and career satisfaction levels, a majority of survey participants expressed high levels of contentment with both. Nearly four-fifths (78%) of respondents give their job a "7 or higher" on a satisfaction scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is "most satisfied." Eighty-five percent rate their career as satisfying using the same scale.

It seems the days of wearing many hats have progressed to wearing many technological heads. Rapid change and a shallow pool of qualified IT professionals are cause for alarm and confusion among some industry professionals. "It is difficult to identify a 'communications position,'" says a technical services administrator/manager of office services. "Many things get thrown in: help desks, office services, MIS activities, and, in my case, a mainframe letter-writing system."

"So much emphasis is placed on systems and technology," says an information services supervisor musing about the big picture, "that it seems the reason for it gets lost."

Add rapid technological change and convergence to the mix, and many networking professionals seem to be left asking, "Are we expanding or contracting? Are things coming together or splitting apart? Where is the simplicity we were promised?"

"The industry is a real challenge," says the president of a Maryland consulting firm. "Collaborative technologies are the most sensible." And that's sound advice when you're talking bottom lines and top technologies these days. It's cents and sensibility.

Let's not forget that, at its very core, networking means sharing-not just connecting nodes together and providing pathways for data transport. Now that we've built the smartest networks ever, will we, and the companies we work for, be smart enough to share?

Editor's note: For this survey, Communications News sent out 2,000 forms and 273 usable ones were returned, for a response rate of 13.7%.

READER PERSPECTIVES

"How do you move the data at the lowest cost?"

As international communications systems manager for ABB Power T&D Company, Inc., Jay Park develops software and installs networks for distributed control systems. His reward is successful completion of projects, all on time and within budget. "I find managing engineers and developing their creativity very challenging and rewarding." Generating innovative ideas from engineers is perhaps Park's best job perk.

In the early 60s, Park worked with mainframe computers. He first encountered networks while working in the Apollo launch program in the late 70s. The 80s saw marked performance increases across networking platforms such as those he developed in flight simulator programs. After a brief retirement in the mid-to late 80s, Park owned a computer business. Then he began writing control system software, developing a program for U.S. Sprint for two class-A earth stations.

He started with ABB seven years ago as a control systems development manager, designing software systems for utilities, industrial, and commercial environments.

A recurring customer service issue for Park is that users' power needs change or their requirements are unknown. For example, the control software is "out of range" when there is a change from kilowatts to megawatts. Also, because noise causes problems for wireless, site surveys are necessary for data on interference.

Park stays current by reading 15 technical magazines a week and finding proven problem-solving methods. He attends IEEE and similar professional-society meetings. Park deals with the shortage of IT professionals by hiring people who are in school and training them while they are working part-time.

He says the future is "wireless networking on a chip."

What is certain is continued change.

One anonymous survey contributor sells outsourcing services to RBOCs, telecom firms, and long-haul equipment providers. Following the wave of mergers and acquisitions, sales are up due to the resultant corporate downsizing. The trend toward more consolidations among enterprise monoliths offering unified voice, video, and data packages-now available but unrefined-will continue.

While dissatisfied with his current salary level, his position is not boring. Although his enterprise has 30 offices, his employer is "small" enough to offer him some control of his salary and benefits package.

Constant employee turnover in telecom is at once the boon and the bane of the outsourcing business. Twenty-eight years in the business has familiarized this professional with the intricacies of acquiring labor through bids, time-and-expense models, and project invoicing. The shortage of IT professionals is poignant; our source is constantly looking in the same pool at the same talent.

"We don't have enough time . . ."

In 1982 Ed Elfstrom began his career with Monmouth County (New Jersey) police radio. Now-17 years later-Ed is senior supervisor communications technician for mobile police radio and jail systems, satisfied with the job and the compensation it brings. Elfstrom encounters problems getting accurate schematics and service reports from vendors because they are loath to provide expensive training. Another challenge is obtaining needed frequencies from the FCC, which is not always "user-friendly" for frequency license applicants despite its Internet presence.

In 1982 one-channel, 20-watt radio tube sets were suitcase-sized and bulky in police vehicles; today 24-channel, 45-watt, book-sized radios fit under cruiser dashboards with no problem. Now, according to Elfstrom, the public safety officer must use a wired system to call a dispatcher for routine information. Wireless mobile data terminals (MDTs) are the wave of the future, requiring frequency allotments and funding, so the county's system may remain wired for awhile.

The shortage of qualified IT professionals has indirectly affected Elfstrom's department. When laid-off Motorola employees started their own consulting businesses, Monmouth County utilized the best of these independent contractors for various projects. Its police radios have been Y2K-tested, for example. Microwave maintenance and UPS requirements are farmed out. The IBM computer system is outsourced as well. "We don't have enough time in the day to repair everything."

The way we do business is a revolution.

"I tell my husband [an attorney] we're 'knowledge slaves!'" Ann Suter laughs, recalling their experiences conducting overseas business via long distance from their Seattle, Wash., home at all hours of the night. Suter works for the state's community college system. As director of education technology and telecommunications, she spent two years persuading legislators to fund network solutions for 450,000 full-and part-time students with her greatest challenge being to "help people shift to a new view of the world, to adjust, accept, and innovate."

Although she believes she often has "too many jobs," Suter's education (two master's and an Ed.D. short of a dissertation) and her background (CATV programming) gave her an entree into computers, networking becoming her focus. The biggest impact in the field? "Infrastructure . . . putting computers on the desktop," she answers. "The idea that we are connected to the world . . ."

She puts learners with teachers via broadcast, interactive video, VoIP, video stored on the Web. Distance-learning programs gave a young woman living 30-40 miles outside of town the opportunity to continue her education. This, Suter says, is her personal reward. "Technology's impact on education will be enormous," she predicts.

Nearby high-tech "giants" beckon IT professionals with private-sector salaries the state cannot match, but Suter finds she is reasonably well compensated. Her concerns as a networker are those of privacy, primarily, and protection of intellectual property. Suter reads trade journals, uses on-line resources, attends trade conferences, and visits area high-tech demonstrations. She shows no signs of escaping her "knowledge bondage" any time soon.

In an industry of change, he plans to stick with a winner.

Bob Vilsoet is energized. He likes the direction Ameritech is taking with its Chicago-based call center solutions group, where he serves as director of systems integration. A 1980 Illinois State University alumnus (B.S. Applied Computer Science and Mathematics) and 1994 MBA graduate of Northern Illinois University, Vilsoet had no notion he would one day work for this "good company" where he intends "to stay as long as possible!"

His key challenge is to find and keep qualified CTI/IT professionals while his employer continues to make the cultural shift from a hardware/network-based sales approach to a consultative sales model.

Vilsoet keeps abreast by networking regularly with leading vendors/suppliers, and finds his MBA to be of great value: "Technology for technology's sake is worthless; you need to understand the business application side, too." Aside from industry contacts, he also keeps himself apprised by following certain stocks in an "Internet portfolio," where he receives press releases on the latest information from those companies. CTI, he believes, has made the biggest impact in the call center industry in the past 10 years.

Vilsoet is comfortable financially in terms of his salary and employer bonuses, and stock options offered. He recommends that job seekers post resumes on the Internet and include current "buzz" words to appeal to recruiters. His advice for college students? Take English because "no matter what your profession, the ability to communicate effectively is a prerequisite for success in business."

He wishes he could celebrate New Year's Day 2100 to see the advances of the next 100 years. He sees convergence of voice, video, and data, as well as satellites rather than land lines, as coming attractions at the close of this century. Adapting to change is part-and-parcel of the new technologies, and Vilsoet likes being part of that cutting edge.

A sales career in telephony creates the consummate pundit.

When Steve S. Voultepsis graduated the engineering school of Manhattan College in '71, he foresaw his future with New York Telephone as an engineer. But those jobs were scarce, so he started in sales-and never left, although his career meandered from New York Telephone through AT&T and on to Sprint where he is now a national account manager.

Voultepsis tries to ease folk out of the "dinosaurism" he encounters. "Convergence," he proclaims, "is collapsing networks . . . and unwillingness to change is part of the human fabric." He is confronted with managers determined to protect their "empires" in an industry he likens to a "big bang" explosion with new bondings begetting new galaxies.

Despite his own rock-solid employment history, Voultepsis understands the fear of downsizing, the threat of job loss, and tries to "orchestrate a change in thinking." His reward? "When I have given a major presentation, and someone sees how to match product with application and says, 'I see how we can apply this!'"

Fulfilled financially and emotionally at his work, Voultepsis reads trade magazines, attends seminars, and has in-house training at Sprint. The shortage of IT personnel is evident in "a lot of outsourcing" he sees. The most significant impact on telecommunications was the AT&T break-up in '83, triggering a competitive and innovative period in America, with deregulation and the public Internet close behind.

A prediction for the next century from this self-described consummate pundit: "If you can think it, in five years you will have it. Faster, smaller, cheaper."

"