It's Just a Job - How will working in the new economy be different in 2001? - Industry Trend or Event

Out: Foosball. In: Shorter hours. Reality comes to the workplace.

Lavish holiday parties scrapped, contracts for massage therapists canceled, foosball tables packed up and shipped out. Welcome to the new workplace of the Internet Economy, where the 24/7 boomtime excesses are being replaced by a cost-conscious 9-to-5 reality.

The era of extravagance is over, and it's not just the signing bonuses and free BMWs for management. With the IPO window shut for most startups, with VCs tightening purse strings and with most employees' stock options worthless anyway, the dream of instant wealth for worker bees has been put on hold. So how will working in the new economy be different in 2001?

Start with compensation. Employees want old-fashioned cash, according to Randy Ramirez, a pay expert with Buck Consulting in New York. They still want stock options just in case, but they think of them as lottery tickets. "You can't win big money if you aren't playing," Ramirez says.

In addition, stressed-out workers want their lives back. "One of the major things I hear from candidates is, 'I don't want to work 12 hours a day; I want to spend time with my family,'" says New York-based recruiter Susan Bishop. This year, they may be in luck: New companies have slowed their frenetic pace to go public.

Then there's that decidedly old-economy movement, unionization. So far, it has garnered only a few -- though vocal -- followers at Amazon.com, Microsoft (among temps) and San Francisco-based consumer electronics Web site Etown.com. But union organizers see an opening among workers who crave more job security, better pay and shorter hours. "I get a dozen e-mails a week from Internet Economy workers' says Sharon Cornu, a San Francisco-based spokeswoman for the California Labor Federation, the state's AFL-CIO arm. "They write: 'They told me 1 was going to get health benefits and a pension, but that's changed.'"

The new-economy companies that will thrive this year will be ones with frugal, down-to-earth workplaces. For example, the biggest splurge for UltraLink, an online benefits-services firm in Costa Mesa, Calif., was a team-building trip to nearby Disneyland. Don't expect anything fancier this year. UltraLink's CEO, Jeff Graves, is a former Marine who explains he is downright suspicious of perks such as fancy parties. "That breeds a get-rich-quick attitude," he says.

But Graves is careful to keep his 300 employees in the loop, recently spending a day explaining to his staff why the company is not going public right now. (The markets are in the tank.) Insisting employees keep a balance between work and the rest of their lives, he once rebuked his CTO for bringing a sleeping bag into the office. "This is a marathon, not a sprint," Graves notes. Memo to CEOs: Stock up on running shoes.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Standard Media International
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group