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OTOH it also reduces employers' incentives to provide training. Notably US employers provide far _less_ training than employers in Europe do. Likely that's dri

OTOH it also reduces employers' incentives to provide training. Notably US employers provide far _less_ training than employers in Europe do. Likely that's driven by employees moving jobs more frequently in the US; something this would worsen. Even if you think the proposal is a good one, there are second-order downsides...

someotherperson 4y ago
> Likely that's driven by employees moving jobs more frequently in the US; something this would worsen Perhaps a third-order incentive is that US employers will now start offering better working conditions, including higher pay and better PTO, to stop people from moving so frequently.
- NateEag 4y ago
  As a US citizen, this strikes me as hilarious. I think businesses around here that want to retain employees already make an effort in the form of generous PTO and healthcare policies. Most don't.
JohnFen 4y ago
> something this would worsen. I'm not so sure this would have a large effect. Employer-provided training tends to be focused on the specific skills that employer requires. People who want to expand their skillset would usually have to change jobs to do it anyway.
- shagie 4y ago
  The difference would be the expectation of the person going into the role with a skillset in the publicly available domain expressing competence rather than having the company train them up. Rather than "we're going to invest time and training into this person to get them" it will likely move to "we expect these skills from the applicant." If the front end developer wants to learn back end, they will need to do it on their own rather than applying as a junior position and learning as they go. If the sysadmin is moving to an environment with kuberentes, they better have explored it on their own home lab. I expect companies to be much less willing hire someone, and have them do some training no longer being able to make sure they stay after they've skilled up with the associated threat of training reimbursement.
shagie 4y ago
I fully expect to see the second order downsides play out. My crystal ball says they're going to show up in two spots. First, entry level will find it harder to break in. The jump of value for the employee when investing in an entry level employee with no skill to some skill is often quite a bit. This means that entry level will be given a wage that matches their skills rather than their potential skills over the period of time when they're assured to be working. The "we're hiring someone with low skills and hoping to train them up" will be harder to come by. Secondly, the expectation for mid and senior devs to be able to acquire skills and knowledge on their own will be more of a thing. The front end person getting trained on the company account to learn Java for back end and then getting a new job six months later as a Java developer later is going to be in the mind of every manager. The solution to this is removing the "on the company account" part. You want to learn Java? Go ahead and do it on your own. The perk of education accounts is going to be a harder thing to find. And with that, my crystal ball has gone cloudy again.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Well, if you don't treat your workers with respect you won't get loyalty. This isn't regulation's fault, nor is it the worker's fault. Back when corporations would keep people for their whole career (with suitable pay increases and promotions) and allow them to retire with a pension, then they would get people who would use their training and not take off afterwards. Second order effects, indeed. More like third or fourth order effects.
  - shagie 4y ago
    In the days of pre-dot com boom, there was less disparity between the "what a person took home as wages" between the big tech of the time and the regular "keeping the computers running at some other company." With the dot com boom and the (effectively) gambling on stocks that came with the highs, the ability to jump jobs and make way beyond what your former employer could afford to pay you started what we see now. No matter how well you treat your employees, if there's a company out there that has a ceiling of 2x or 3x (or the gamble of what it could be with stocks at a startup) of what your revenue per employee is - there's no way to really keep someone and no reason to really invest in them either. The "training and tie them down with clawbacks if they try to leave" was a way that companies would try to retain the lower skilled employees that they trained. That may be harder for them to do and thus harder to justify any investment now. It's awful, it's exploitive - but it was one of the few tools that they had remaining. Treat them well and they won't leave only works if you're fairly near the top of the pay scale and they're not looking to settle down.
downrightmike 4y ago
I see it as a part of your payment package, especially since it is listed on the job description as such.

someotherperson 4y ago

> Likely that's driven by employees moving jobs more frequently in the US; something this would worsen Perhaps a third-order incentive is that US employers will now start offering better working conditions, including higher pay and better PTO, to stop people from moving so frequently.

NateEag 4y ago
As a US citizen, this strikes me as hilarious. I think businesses around here that want to retain employees already make an effort in the form of generous PTO and healthcare policies. Most don't.

JohnFen 4y ago

> something this would worsen. I'm not so sure this would have a large effect. Employer-provided training tends to be focused on the specific skills that employer requires. People who want to expand their skillset would usually have to change jobs to do it anyway.

shagie 4y ago
The difference would be the expectation of the person going into the role with a skillset in the publicly available domain expressing competence rather than having the company train them up. Rather than "we're going to invest time and training into this person to get them" it will likely move to "we expect these skills from the applicant." If the front end developer wants to learn back end, they will need to do it on their own rather than applying as a junior position and learning as they go. If the sysadmin is moving to an environment with kuberentes, they better have explored it on their own home lab. I expect companies to be much less willing hire someone, and have them do some training no longer being able to make sure they stay after they've skilled up with the associated threat of training reimbursement.

shagie 4y ago

I fully expect to see the second order downsides play out. My crystal ball says they're going to show up in two spots. First, entry level will find it harder to break in. The jump of value for the employee when investing in an entry level employee with no skill to some skill is often quite a bit. This means that entry level will be given a wage that matches their skills rather than their potential skills over the period of time when they're assured to be working. The "we're hiring someone with low skills and hoping to train them up" will be harder to come by. Secondly, the expectation for mid and senior devs to be able to acquire skills and knowledge on their own will be more of a thing. The front end person getting trained on the company account to learn Java for back end and then getting a new job six months later as a Java developer later is going to be in the mind of every manager. The solution to this is removing the "on the company account" part. You want to learn Java? Go ahead and do it on your own. The perk of education accounts is going to be a harder thing to find. And with that, my crystal ball has gone cloudy again.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Well, if you don't treat your workers with respect you won't get loyalty. This isn't regulation's fault, nor is it the worker's fault. Back when corporations would keep people for their whole career (with suitable pay increases and promotions) and allow them to retire with a pension, then they would get people who would use their training and not take off afterwards. Second order effects, indeed. More like third or fourth order effects.
- shagie 4y ago
  In the days of pre-dot com boom, there was less disparity between the "what a person took home as wages" between the big tech of the time and the regular "keeping the computers running at some other company." With the dot com boom and the (effectively) gambling on stocks that came with the highs, the ability to jump jobs and make way beyond what your former employer could afford to pay you started what we see now. No matter how well you treat your employees, if there's a company out there that has a ceiling of 2x or 3x (or the gamble of what it could be with stocks at a startup) of what your revenue per employee is - there's no way to really keep someone and no reason to really invest in them either. The "training and tie them down with clawbacks if they try to leave" was a way that companies would try to retain the lower skilled employees that they trained. That may be harder for them to do and thus harder to justify any investment now. It's awful, it's exploitive - but it was one of the few tools that they had remaining. Treat them well and they won't leave only works if you're fairly near the top of the pay scale and they're not looking to settle down.

downrightmike 4y ago

I see it as a part of your payment package, especially since it is listed on the job description as such.