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There are still too many managers who don't understand one of their primary responsibilities in a market that favors employees: making sure that their best engi

by xenihn 5y ago

There are still too many managers who don't understand one of their primary responsibilities in a market that favors employees: making sure that their best engineers don't leave. The job market won't always be like this, but you'd think that they would have figured it out by now during the current run. It's been nearly a decade at this point, and the pandemic has tipped things even further in the favor of the people who make the sausage.

hinkley 5y ago
This is not quite right and I think this is where we let our egos get away with us. Their responsibility is to maintain a good team, not the best person. In the cost benefit analysis, keeping a couple of pretty good people at the expense of your 'best' person might work out better. And a high maintenance person costs more than money.
spockz 5y ago
To be fair to the managers, from my experience managers themselves have little to say and it is mostly HR that determines rules like compensation. In our case, insanely, salaries are frozen. Nothing that your direct manager can do about it. Except, leave, and get hired the next day.
- everfrustrated 5y ago
  There's an exception for every rule. As a manager I've fought HR to get pay rises during pay freezes. And won. Bad managers roll over when presented with obstacles, great ones fight for their team.
  - zo1 5y ago
    Pushy, bossy, extroverted, or "people person" managers do that. The whole thing is stacked against docile introverts, no matter how many reasoned and well thought out arguments they make.
  - alex_anglin 5y ago
    The great ones also realize that there are other things employees value and build upon those, along with compensation.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      The great ones also just leave themselves, rather than suffering the toxic culture on two fronts.
      - wonderwonder 5y ago
        I think this is an often missed point. The managers are often just as overworked as the employees but have to handle negativity from 2 directions, both their employees and their managers. They are just people and often their hands are tied due to company policy. They are often just cogs in the wheel as much as we are.
- xenihn 5y ago
  This is a fair point. It seems like standard policy at lots of places is to not budge significantly on comp unless a Valued Employee is prepared to leave. You then end up with one of the three scenarios: - the employee leaves anyways, since it's too late to change their mind - the employee stays, but there's a loss of trust and loyalty - the employee never planned to leave in the first place, and exploited your broken system Valued Employees should be rewarded preemptively.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Willing to be there is a study that shows that most of the time the employee will not leave or is bluffing and that financial analysis shows its better to just let it play out. This analysis is probably true in a lot of industries but tends to not work so well in tech. So many tech workers are just mercenary with our jobs that we just ask for what we want and by the time we ask we are already out the door. In tech the business should realize their job is to actively work to keep employees from seeking competing offers especially in the current job market.
ericmcer 5y ago
I have been surprised how emotionally unaware many of my managers are. They are engineers who moved to management and seem to think reading a bunch of books on management will make them adept at the social skills needed to read and adapt to individuals and a teams emotional state. Compensation is huge but good software devs are all making enough to where a 20-30% swing in either direction isn't going to make or break us. I would happily take a 20% cut if I loved what I was doing and felt endeared of my manager and our goals.
- citizenpaul 5y ago
  20-30% ?? What kind of money are you assuming most people make. at anything over 100k a year that is a lot of extra money anything less and it is probably needed. It could simply be used to retire a few years earlier if nothing else. It could pay for vacation. It could pay off a vehicle. It could pay down a mortgage or appraisal gap in this market. A 20% raise is huge at any income level.
  - _ah 5y ago
    Except that it isn't. Assume you are a superstar of some persuasion and you earn $100M/yr. Is a 20% raise a lot of money? It's not! Sure, it's an extra twenty million dollars, but what could you possibly want to buy with that money that you can't already purchase? At some point $100k --> $100M the math changes. That point will be different for different people.
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      A nice yacht, a sports team, your name on a building .. there's always something.
    - grangerg 5y ago
      Expenses always rise to meet income.
    - citizenpaul 5y ago
      You and other people are discussing amounts of money that you could simply walk away from the world buy a yacht and travel the world for your entire life. This adds nothing to the discussion.

by xenihn 5y ago

hinkley 5y ago

This is not quite right and I think this is where we let our egos get away with us. Their responsibility is to maintain a good team, not the best person. In the cost benefit analysis, keeping a couple of pretty good people at the expense of your 'best' person might work out better. And a high maintenance person costs more than money.

spockz 5y ago

To be fair to the managers, from my experience managers themselves have little to say and it is mostly HR that determines rules like compensation. In our case, insanely, salaries are frozen. Nothing that your direct manager can do about it. Except, leave, and get hired the next day.

everfrustrated 5y ago
There's an exception for every rule. As a manager I've fought HR to get pay rises during pay freezes. And won. Bad managers roll over when presented with obstacles, great ones fight for their team.
- zo1 5y ago
  Pushy, bossy, extroverted, or "people person" managers do that. The whole thing is stacked against docile introverts, no matter how many reasoned and well thought out arguments they make.
- alex_anglin 5y ago
  The great ones also realize that there are other things employees value and build upon those, along with compensation.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    The great ones also just leave themselves, rather than suffering the toxic culture on two fronts.
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      I think this is an often missed point. The managers are often just as overworked as the employees but have to handle negativity from 2 directions, both their employees and their managers. They are just people and often their hands are tied due to company policy. They are often just cogs in the wheel as much as we are.
xenihn 5y ago
This is a fair point. It seems like standard policy at lots of places is to not budge significantly on comp unless a Valued Employee is prepared to leave. You then end up with one of the three scenarios: - the employee leaves anyways, since it's too late to change their mind - the employee stays, but there's a loss of trust and loyalty - the employee never planned to leave in the first place, and exploited your broken system Valued Employees should be rewarded preemptively.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Willing to be there is a study that shows that most of the time the employee will not leave or is bluffing and that financial analysis shows its better to just let it play out. This analysis is probably true in a lot of industries but tends to not work so well in tech. So many tech workers are just mercenary with our jobs that we just ask for what we want and by the time we ask we are already out the door. In tech the business should realize their job is to actively work to keep employees from seeking competing offers especially in the current job market.

ericmcer 5y ago

I have been surprised how emotionally unaware many of my managers are. They are engineers who moved to management and seem to think reading a bunch of books on management will make them adept at the social skills needed to read and adapt to individuals and a teams emotional state. Compensation is huge but good software devs are all making enough to where a 20-30% swing in either direction isn't going to make or break us. I would happily take a 20% cut if I loved what I was doing and felt endeared of my manager and our goals.

citizenpaul 5y ago
20-30% ?? What kind of money are you assuming most people make. at anything over 100k a year that is a lot of extra money anything less and it is probably needed. It could simply be used to retire a few years earlier if nothing else. It could pay for vacation. It could pay off a vehicle. It could pay down a mortgage or appraisal gap in this market. A 20% raise is huge at any income level.
- _ah 5y ago
  Except that it isn't. Assume you are a superstar of some persuasion and you earn $100M/yr. Is a 20% raise a lot of money? It's not! Sure, it's an extra twenty million dollars, but what could you possibly want to buy with that money that you can't already purchase? At some point $100k --> $100M the math changes. That point will be different for different people.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    A nice yacht, a sports team, your name on a building .. there's always something.
  - grangerg 5y ago
    Expenses always rise to meet income.
  - citizenpaul 5y ago
    You and other people are discussing amounts of money that you could simply walk away from the world buy a yacht and travel the world for your entire life. This adds nothing to the discussion.