It might be valued that way presently, but that doesn't mean that's the worth. The companies that rightly assess the situation and determine that the cost of m

It might be valued that way presently, but that doesn't mean that's the worth. The companies that rightly assess the situation and determine that the cost of mistakes made because institutional knowledge is gone or the cost to productivity of retaining replacement personnel is high enough to justify an additional 2% - 6% annual salary increase across the board will outperform the companies that are constantly paying the training toll. How many times have you had a deployment go wrong shortly after the one guy who knew how everything worked left? What did it cost the company in terms of developer hours, productivity, opportunity cost? How many times have you witnessed a new hire take 30 - 90 days to get even halfway up to the speed and productivity levels of someone who's been with the company for a year or two? If you're swapping one employee for a small handful of failures plus a new, at-market employee who has half the productivity level for a full quarter then you're easily paying a 25% premium to let that employee go, when you could've retained them and made them feel appreciated for a 6% annual raise. It's frustratingly straightforward to determine which result is better for the company's bottom line.