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I'm not sure why (maybe because there was so much competition on the labor side or they don't expect employees to stay around as long), but companies stopped tr

by pfranz 9y ago

I'm not sure why (maybe because there was so much competition on the labor side or they don't expect employees to stay around as long), but companies stopped training people. My industry has one major conference every year. They all talked about how 20 years ago the company would close down for a week and pay for everyone to go. In the past 10 years for me, about half the time I got paid my salary, the other half I took a vacation day. Never have they paid for my tickets. I do think this conference isn't as useful to the average worker as it was 20 years ago, but I think it's also an example of companies no longer investing in workers. Disney helped form CalArts, as another example. There was another thread last week where someone brought up why certain domains in programming are considered "dark magic." A few examples would be databases or computer graphics. Many programmers only learn them superficially and consider them intimidating and scary. I feel like there's a stigma and just means there's domain knowledge you don't have. Honestly, computer programming is like that for the average person. I've seen a lot of examples, like insane Excel spreadsheets, where it is technically programming by someone who would be scared of "programming."

i_feel_great 9y ago
>I'm not sure why (maybe because there was so much competition on the labor side or they don't expect employees to stay around as long), but companies stopped training people. I hear the Germans have an intensive apprenticeship training scheme. If there is a German here who can explain how and whether it works, that would be great.
- Someone 9y ago
  Some info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany I don't know how well it works, but their industry isn't shabby.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I think a lot of this changed in the Thatcher/Reagan era, certainly in the UK, there were a lot of state owned monopolies without any real competition. Once they were privatised and opened up to competition they had to shed a lot of weight. Quite quickly a lot of people found their employer didn't really have much loyalty towards them and what they thought was a job for life wasn't. Not surprisingly if employees don't see their employer showing loyalty then they don't stick around long either and we ended up in this downward spiral.
wyclif 9y ago
I always got the impression (not backed by any verifiable numbers, mind you) that many tech companies cooled to training employees because of poaching and the relative frequency of changing jobs. If you devote company resources to training an employee, only to have that employee end up working for your competition, you just helped erode your business. Now, I think that's a short-sighted viewpoint, but it's one I've heard expressed before by CTOs.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  They could work around that. Commitment contracts or the tuition help is forfeit. They have smart people to figure this out. They just don't want to. My theory is because Capitalism has gotten way more cutthroat in current times.
- pfranz 9y ago
  I really don't think it's just a tech company thing, though. But, talking about tech companies, or at least my experience which is tech, but not SV, is that I see certain people turnover frequently, but a bulk of the people stick around. There's an aversion to firing people (I think my word use is a bit cold) and the company is also not investing in the employees. Those people who I usually see stick around are dependable, but not always ambitious or following new things. I feel like this can lead to over-investment is old tech and continue struggling with solved problems. That over-investment in old tech can make recruiting hard, too. (I'm talking about continuing to use SVN, Cent5, or Python 2.6 when a DCVS, like git, would be incredibly helpful to your workflow--not using last year's javascript hotness instead of this year's javascript hotness). On the flip side, there was an article the other day where it showed people who moved around generally got paid way more than people who stuck around. I've been seeing this for years.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Yeah, that's pretty much it, and it's not just tech companies. Prior to about 1990 or so, if you spent less than about five years at a company before moving on it was considered a black mark on your resume. If it was a regular pattern you were only going to get hired if your prospective employer couldn't find someone else. So companies had some confidence they would get a return on their training investment. They couldn't force you to stay, but they knew you realized it was in your best interest to stick around for awhile. That all changed. These days, particularly in tech, it's pretty normal for people to move on after 18 months or so. While it might make sense for the industry to train people, for an individual company it's stupid to put effort into an employee's career development only to have him move on to a competitor.

by pfranz 9y ago

i_feel_great 9y ago

>I'm not sure why (maybe because there was so much competition on the labor side or they don't expect employees to stay around as long), but companies stopped training people. I hear the Germans have an intensive apprenticeship training scheme. If there is a German here who can explain how and whether it works, that would be great.

Someone 9y ago
Some info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship#Germany I don't know how well it works, but their industry isn't shabby.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

I think a lot of this changed in the Thatcher/Reagan era, certainly in the UK, there were a lot of state owned monopolies without any real competition. Once they were privatised and opened up to competition they had to shed a lot of weight. Quite quickly a lot of people found their employer didn't really have much loyalty towards them and what they thought was a job for life wasn't. Not surprisingly if employees don't see their employer showing loyalty then they don't stick around long either and we ended up in this downward spiral.

wyclif 9y ago

I always got the impression (not backed by any verifiable numbers, mind you) that many tech companies cooled to training employees because of poaching and the relative frequency of changing jobs. If you devote company resources to training an employee, only to have that employee end up working for your competition, you just helped erode your business. Now, I think that's a short-sighted viewpoint, but it's one I've heard expressed before by CTOs.

nickthemagicman 9y ago
They could work around that. Commitment contracts or the tuition help is forfeit. They have smart people to figure this out. They just don't want to. My theory is because Capitalism has gotten way more cutthroat in current times.
pfranz 9y ago
I really don't think it's just a tech company thing, though. But, talking about tech companies, or at least my experience which is tech, but not SV, is that I see certain people turnover frequently, but a bulk of the people stick around. There's an aversion to firing people (I think my word use is a bit cold) and the company is also not investing in the employees. Those people who I usually see stick around are dependable, but not always ambitious or following new things. I feel like this can lead to over-investment is old tech and continue struggling with solved problems. That over-investment in old tech can make recruiting hard, too. (I'm talking about continuing to use SVN, Cent5, or Python 2.6 when a DCVS, like git, would be incredibly helpful to your workflow--not using last year's javascript hotness instead of this year's javascript hotness). On the flip side, there was an article the other day where it showed people who moved around generally got paid way more than people who stuck around. I've been seeing this for years.
gozur88 9y ago
Yeah, that's pretty much it, and it's not just tech companies. Prior to about 1990 or so, if you spent less than about five years at a company before moving on it was considered a black mark on your resume. If it was a regular pattern you were only going to get hired if your prospective employer couldn't find someone else. So companies had some confidence they would get a return on their training investment. They couldn't force you to stay, but they knew you realized it was in your best interest to stick around for awhile. That all changed. These days, particularly in tech, it's pretty normal for people to move on after 18 months or so. While it might make sense for the industry to train people, for an individual company it's stupid to put effort into an employee's career development only to have him move on to a competitor.