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Well I mean there’s a valid argument to be made that giving an employee a raise instead of finding/training a new employee is not only cheaper in the short term

Well I mean there’s a valid argument to be made that giving an employee a raise instead of finding/training a new employee is not only cheaper in the short term, but can provide exceptional ROI in the long-term (depending on industry of course). As long as the employee is producing X amount of value for the company and the value is greater than the total cost of that employee the math is simple, reasonable, and healthy.

nostrademons 4y ago
There are pretty heavy countervailing forces in favor of standardized salary bands for everyone. Employees compare notes; it can be demoralizing to hear that the company thinks your teammate is worth 20% more than you, and it instantly leads to politicking as everybody else asks for raises. While in the eyes of the business owner there may be clearly some employees that generate more value than others, good luck convincing all the employees that some of their teammates' work is more valuable. This tendency is more pronounced in bigger companies (where performance is more illegible), but the problem with small companies is that there are wide variations in their profitability and hence their ability to offer high salaries (and this is usually less than what big companies offer, hence their ability to get big). Job-switching here is the economy doing its job and funneling resources to the activities that generate the most consumer value.
nixonpjoshua 4y ago
This works so long as the company giving raises is successful vs the broader economy - however in the process of "creative destruction" in the economy a lot of what drives growth is new firms or innovative firms displacing old firms, thus the ability to pay a raise will be diminished in firms that fall into the "old" category vs the firms eating their lunch. It is just a statistical reality that if you stay at the same firm for 40 years that it is likely to at some point become an "old" firm.

nostrademons 4y ago

There are pretty heavy countervailing forces in favor of standardized salary bands for everyone. Employees compare notes; it can be demoralizing to hear that the company thinks your teammate is worth 20% more than you, and it instantly leads to politicking as everybody else asks for raises. While in the eyes of the business owner there may be clearly some employees that generate more value than others, good luck convincing all the employees that some of their teammates' work is more valuable. This tendency is more pronounced in bigger companies (where performance is more illegible), but the problem with small companies is that there are wide variations in their profitability and hence their ability to offer high salaries (and this is usually less than what big companies offer, hence their ability to get big). Job-switching here is the economy doing its job and funneling resources to the activities that generate the most consumer value.

nixonpjoshua 4y ago

This works so long as the company giving raises is successful vs the broader economy - however in the process of "creative destruction" in the economy a lot of what drives growth is new firms or innovative firms displacing old firms, thus the ability to pay a raise will be diminished in firms that fall into the "old" category vs the firms eating their lunch. It is just a statistical reality that if you stay at the same firm for 40 years that it is likely to at some point become an "old" firm.