4 ms·

> train people more. You hire them at lower qualifications, and educate them in house... ... they learn and then leave, because if you were able to pay them th

> train people more. You hire them at lower qualifications, and educate them in house... ... they learn and then leave, because if you were able to pay them the market rate you would've not been training them in the first place (considering the context of your comment).

richardknop 8y ago
Increase their salary to market rate once they complete their training. Easy.
- huhtenberg 8y ago
  The OP lists options for when you do NOT have funds to do exactly that.
  - admax88q 8y ago
    If you don't have the money to pay market rate for the skills you need to run your business then unfortunately your business model is untenable. Just like you can't sell jewellery for less than the cost of the gold you had to purchase to make it.
    - huhtenberg 8y ago
      Certainly. That's exactly why "hire people at lower qualifications, and educate them in house" is not a viable option in this case either.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Maybe, but if you treated them as more than a disposable cog, as is the trend, they might not. Show them opportunities for promotion, be respectful of their time, show them they won't be fired for petty reasons, and generally treat them like a human being and let them know they have a future with you. Searching for jobs sucks, being the new guy sucks, discovering that a new company's culture isn't a good fit and having to start the process all over again sucks. Give them enough reasons not to go through that and the money won't even matter that much if they have any wisdom in them at all. Another advantage of training them yourself is that you shape them into precisely what you need. They know your systems, your work culture, your priorities, and are continuously adding to their institutional knowledge.
- nathan_long 8y ago
  This. If https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#work-how-do-developers-assess-potential-jobs https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#work-how-do-... is to be believed, compensation and benefits are the most important thing to most programmers. But it's not the only thing, and my guess is that beyond some "good enough" level, other factors become more important. Imagine you were hired at a company, trained and mentored in a whole new skill set, given work you enjoy and find meaningful, working with people who encourage your further development, and were shown appreciation for your efforts and abilities. Would you leave at the first opportunity to get a raise? Unless I really needed the money or was severely underpaid, I probably wouldn't.
  - jlg23 8y ago
    I would argue that programmers are still a very special group with a bias towards/a culture of short term gigs. Within my circles, those around 40 are either not programming anymore or work at "unsexy" companies with perks and benefits like "9 to 5" and paid 6 week vacation time. The cool ones still maintain a geek-comptible culture under the hood but that is not expressed in free beers and scheduled crunchtimes.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  I'm curious if it's actually possible to treat all employees as more than a disposable cog. I worked at Google and have several friends that work at Google. There's a ton of work to do that is not fun and doing it feels like disposable cog work. It's not fulfilling but it needs to be done. This is one reason lots of people leave. There's a few glamorous jobs and lots of not fun jobs. I'm sure others can come up with better examples but basically with such large code bases things take forever to implement, pass all the tests, and need maintenance forever. There's so much to do and the team so large that you personally get to concentrate on one tiny tiny part of years. Maybe another example is working on drivers for the various new ChromeOS devices. Another might be all the solutions engineers for companies using Google Cloud related stuff. I know people doing it. Their job is to take a call from the customer and then try to write code to show them how to fix their issue. Maybe there are people who want to do those things but I don't.
flatfilefan 8y ago
Not necessarily. I’d argue original employer has an inertia/experience advantage, if they don’t underpay too much.
nathan_long 8y ago
The old joke about this is: > Two managers are talking about training their employees. The first asks, "Yeah, but what if we train them, and they just leave?" The second responds, "What if we don't train them, and they stay?"
- scarejunba 8y ago
  The obvious thing to do is to get some other sucker to do the training and then you hire them away. You can always beat the other guy's wages because you don't spend on training.
  - nathan_long 8y ago
    Unless the other company manages to get more value out of trainees than they pay them, in which case the additional revenue lets them beat your offer.
acjacobson 8y ago
Something that doesn’t really exist anymore but easily could is offering fixed contracts (so not at-will employment). This way you can pay to train and keep the employee longer while the employee gets the added security of having a job that they can’t lose. I’ve never heard of contracts like this outside sports and movies and I wonder if any more traditional companies have considered exploring it.
- beojan 8y ago
  > I’ve never heard of contracts like this outside sports and movies And the military
- TallGuyShort 8y ago
  It's not that different from relocation contracts. In both cases the company is paying a large upfront cost in order to hire you and doesn't want you to turn around and work for someone else. If you leave early, you're on the hook for a portion of the bill.
eiaoa 8y ago
>> train people more. You hire them at lower qualifications, and educate them in house.. > ... they learn and then leave, because if you were able to pay them the market rate you would've not been training them in the first place (considering the context of your comment). As an employer, you're going to have to pay market rate for the skills you need, one way or another. If you do that and your employees still want to quit after their training, then your organization has more dysfunctions that you need to fix.

richardknop 8y ago

Increase their salary to market rate once they complete their training. Easy.

huhtenberg 8y ago
The OP lists options for when you do NOT have funds to do exactly that.
- admax88q 8y ago
  If you don't have the money to pay market rate for the skills you need to run your business then unfortunately your business model is untenable. Just like you can't sell jewellery for less than the cost of the gold you had to purchase to make it.
  - huhtenberg 8y ago
    Certainly. That's exactly why "hire people at lower qualifications, and educate them in house" is not a viable option in this case either.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

Maybe, but if you treated them as more than a disposable cog, as is the trend, they might not. Show them opportunities for promotion, be respectful of their time, show them they won't be fired for petty reasons, and generally treat them like a human being and let them know they have a future with you. Searching for jobs sucks, being the new guy sucks, discovering that a new company's culture isn't a good fit and having to start the process all over again sucks. Give them enough reasons not to go through that and the money won't even matter that much if they have any wisdom in them at all. Another advantage of training them yourself is that you shape them into precisely what you need. They know your systems, your work culture, your priorities, and are continuously adding to their institutional knowledge.

nathan_long 8y ago
This. If https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#work-how-do-developers-assess-potential-jobs https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#work-how-do-... is to be believed, compensation and benefits are the most important thing to most programmers. But it's not the only thing, and my guess is that beyond some "good enough" level, other factors become more important. Imagine you were hired at a company, trained and mentored in a whole new skill set, given work you enjoy and find meaningful, working with people who encourage your further development, and were shown appreciation for your efforts and abilities. Would you leave at the first opportunity to get a raise? Unless I really needed the money or was severely underpaid, I probably wouldn't.
- jlg23 8y ago
  I would argue that programmers are still a very special group with a bias towards/a culture of short term gigs. Within my circles, those around 40 are either not programming anymore or work at "unsexy" companies with perks and benefits like "9 to 5" and paid 6 week vacation time. The cool ones still maintain a geek-comptible culture under the hood but that is not expressed in free beers and scheduled crunchtimes.
tokyodude 8y ago
I'm curious if it's actually possible to treat all employees as more than a disposable cog. I worked at Google and have several friends that work at Google. There's a ton of work to do that is not fun and doing it feels like disposable cog work. It's not fulfilling but it needs to be done. This is one reason lots of people leave. There's a few glamorous jobs and lots of not fun jobs. I'm sure others can come up with better examples but basically with such large code bases things take forever to implement, pass all the tests, and need maintenance forever. There's so much to do and the team so large that you personally get to concentrate on one tiny tiny part of years. Maybe another example is working on drivers for the various new ChromeOS devices. Another might be all the solutions engineers for companies using Google Cloud related stuff. I know people doing it. Their job is to take a call from the customer and then try to write code to show them how to fix their issue. Maybe there are people who want to do those things but I don't.

flatfilefan 8y ago

Not necessarily. I’d argue original employer has an inertia/experience advantage, if they don’t underpay too much.

nathan_long 8y ago

The old joke about this is: > Two managers are talking about training their employees. The first asks, "Yeah, but what if we train them, and they just leave?" The second responds, "What if we don't train them, and they stay?"

scarejunba 8y ago
The obvious thing to do is to get some other sucker to do the training and then you hire them away. You can always beat the other guy's wages because you don't spend on training.
- nathan_long 8y ago
  Unless the other company manages to get more value out of trainees than they pay them, in which case the additional revenue lets them beat your offer.

acjacobson 8y ago

Something that doesn’t really exist anymore but easily could is offering fixed contracts (so not at-will employment). This way you can pay to train and keep the employee longer while the employee gets the added security of having a job that they can’t lose. I’ve never heard of contracts like this outside sports and movies and I wonder if any more traditional companies have considered exploring it.

beojan 8y ago
> I’ve never heard of contracts like this outside sports and movies And the military
TallGuyShort 8y ago
It's not that different from relocation contracts. In both cases the company is paying a large upfront cost in order to hire you and doesn't want you to turn around and work for someone else. If you leave early, you're on the hook for a portion of the bill.

eiaoa 8y ago

>> train people more. You hire them at lower qualifications, and educate them in house.. > ... they learn and then leave, because if you were able to pay them the market rate you would've not been training them in the first place (considering the context of your comment). As an employer, you're going to have to pay market rate for the skills you need, one way or another. If you do that and your employees still want to quit after their training, then your organization has more dysfunctions that you need to fix.