Tim Dennis

I was reading through some employment sites and found one that is forecasting IT work for 2007. Included was this quote from a Price Waterhouse Cooper report:

“The battle for talent is about to become even fiercer as companies search for the hybrid employee: workers who excel at collaboration, innovation and managing change.”

This was somewhat of an ‘aaaaha’ moment for me. At my current job, I am a jack of all trades — a Swiss army knife — who is not only involved in all aspects of web development in my unit (user research, usability, information architecture, code, maintenance, evaluation) but also a project manager and domain expert to boot. I also often act as an advocate for innovation and change within the department and larger library system.

So, the ‘aha’ moment was because I saw myself in this description of ‘hybrid employee’. But odd thing: whereas in IT industry the value of this is recognized and talent is increasingly highly valued and sought after, in my current job, being ‘hybrid’ isn’t rewarded. In fact, it can work against you, as the variety of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills do not easily fit within a rigid structure of an entrenched job classification system.