4 ms·

Companies should understand when their business hangs on people, you need to keep the people happy. Hiring people off the street for more money than people wit

Companies should understand when their business hangs on people, you need to keep the people happy. Hiring people off the street for more money than people with 20+ years of experience isn't a good way to keep experienced workers employed.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
The problem is - historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. On aggregate, you can get away with massively underpaying your top talent and overpaying new hires - most of which aren't good and will go to other companies before they're even moderately productive. I question why they're so obsessed with hiring so many new people to do basically nothing. That's the reason they have to over pay for them: The sheer amount that they're trying to hire. Perhaps it's inevitable that you have to hire 100 people to find 5 or so people that'll be good and stick around for a while that you can underpay in the future. I suspect there's got to be a better way.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > The problem is - historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. The reason for that is the culture around keeping compensation secret. Most people (in the US at least) believe it's impolite to talk about salary directly. I do wonder how much of this taboo has been cultivated by corporations that benefit from workers feeling like they shouldn't talk about salary. On top of that, some companies tell their employees they are not allowed to talk about salary. That practice is illegal, but some companies still do it.
  - Buttons840 3y ago
    To be clear, Federal law is very explicit that you have the right to discuss and disclose your salary.
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      You have the right to do it, but your coworkers might become bitter and envious if you make more than them. You have to judge how mature your coworkers are and whether it would cause trouble for you if they made a complaint to your manager. For example, if you are on a team of like 5 people, it could be impossible for them to maintain your anonymity as they say "Why am I making less than others?" You might also imagine that if your coworkers don't get the raise, they will not be as motivated to work, and may cause problems for you that way. I've been on both ends of this, usually the lower end, and I can say first hand it is hard to not take getting paid less as a personal affront to your dignity. And every time I was underpaid I not only didn't get a big raise, but I took much longer than expected to find another job. If you are underpaid, your best option is to leave in most cases. Don't underestimate how long you have to tolerate the low pay while you try to leave.
      - Buttons840 3y ago
        That's all true. I've usually asked co-workers I'm friends with, and believe we can both be mature enough, if they want to exchange pay info. I've also told a few people what my salary was when I'm leaving a company, and tell them to share it freely. Everything you say is true though, it can cause a lot of drama if people start having hard feeling over pay. This is why companies sometimes tell people not to share their salary, or even put it in the company handbook, etc, and I'll say again: it is illegal for a company to tell or even suggest that you not to share you salary. > And every time I was underpaid I not only didn't get a big raise, but I took much longer than expected to find another job. How are the two related? Why does being paid less cause you to take longer to find a new job?
        wakawaka28 3y ago
        >How are the two related? Why does being paid less cause you to take longer to find a new job? Being paid less didn't actually make me take longer to find another job. But I looked for other jobs to get more money. My point is, simply knowing you are paid less/unfairly is not a silver bullet. Most companies will refuse to give raises on demand, on principle. You most likely can't just get a new job right off either or you would have just done it. So you'll be stuck for months or even years knowing how much less you make than your coworkers. Nobody thinks they'll mind knowing the truth, because they underestimate their own ego and how difficult it is to get more money. Most businesses would rather pay someone new and unproven significantly more than you're asking rather than give you, say, a random 10% raise. It kinda makes sense, because there's no limit to what you can ask for. Most non-tech people seem to resent how much more we make as well. So for various reasons, they don't want to pay you more and/or don't believe you are worth more, and you have to prove it to them by leaving.
  - bberenberg 3y ago
    This thread and study seem to disagree with your assessment: https://x.com/captgouda24/status/1773031323604488342?s=20 https://x.com/captgouda24/status/1773031323604488342?s=20
  - musicale 3y ago
    > I do wonder how much of this taboo has been cultivated by corporations that benefit from workers feeling like they shouldn't talk about salary. I don't know if corporations originated the taboo, but they absolutely cultivate it so that they can retain the upper hand in salary negotiation, enabling them to pay below-market wages to everyone except for new hires with multiple offers. There is an unfortunate cultural problem where people are morally valued by how much money they make. Pay is often very disconnected from economic benefit (consider the enormous economic value produced by underpaid teachers, or grad student researchers) and nothing to do with moral value.
    - musicale 3y ago
      Thinking about this a bit, wealth (in the US at least) confers social status, which is taken as a proxy for personal honor, character, dignity, etc.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  > there's got to be a better way Be better managers. Do more human work during the hiring selection process. Take HR away from the lawyers. Take Responsibility and Accountability for the management layers of the company (including the C-suite). But we all know these are just pipe dreams.
- diob 3y ago
  I would argue it does bite them, but by the time it does it's someone else's problem.
  - sonicanatidae 3y ago
    >I would argue it does bite them, but by the time it does it's someone else's problem. In almost all cases, it's the consumer that gets bitten.
- ranger207 3y ago
  > historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. Because VC money based around vague promises of selling data to advertisers have traditionally propped up even fundamentally unprofitable businesses so software quality hasn't significantly contributes to success or not. Now that we're out of ZIRP then companies might start learning that in 10 years or so after they've replaced a few generations of programmers, nobody knows how anything works, and suddenly software quality starts to actually matter to investors and consumers
  - indigochill 3y ago
    > companies might start learning that in 10 years or so after they've replaced a few generations of programmers, nobody knows how anything works, and suddenly software quality starts to actually matter to investors and consumers I suspect in software specifically, there will never be such a reckoning because compared to maintenance, replacement is too easy.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      > I suspect in software specifically, there will never be such a reckoning because compared to maintenance, replacement is too easy. Maybe when it's not important to be bug for bug compatible. For most important software, it kind of is.
- sjy67 3y ago
  Actually quite a lot. You can check the glassdoor and then search the companies market cap over the years. One company I research recently, Philips seem to have this problem 15 years ago. Compounding effected today, it is just a very small insignificant company. Meanwhile it gave birth to titans like ASML.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
But they don't. The people calling themselves managers will justify not paying existing people more once they have to pay new people more by saying that that is what they signed up for when they started. And then when people leave, they convince themselves that we are all interchangeable. No matter what happens, they have some sort of excuse or justification.
space_oddity 3y ago
High staff turnover some companies consider as a good thing

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

The problem is - historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. On aggregate, you can get away with massively underpaying your top talent and overpaying new hires - most of which aren't good and will go to other companies before they're even moderately productive. I question why they're so obsessed with hiring so many new people to do basically nothing. That's the reason they have to over pay for them: The sheer amount that they're trying to hire. Perhaps it's inevitable that you have to hire 100 people to find 5 or so people that'll be good and stick around for a while that you can underpay in the future. I suspect there's got to be a better way.

kelnos 3y ago
> The problem is - historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. The reason for that is the culture around keeping compensation secret. Most people (in the US at least) believe it's impolite to talk about salary directly. I do wonder how much of this taboo has been cultivated by corporations that benefit from workers feeling like they shouldn't talk about salary. On top of that, some companies tell their employees they are not allowed to talk about salary. That practice is illegal, but some companies still do it.
- Buttons840 3y ago
  To be clear, Federal law is very explicit that you have the right to discuss and disclose your salary.
  - wakawaka28 3y ago
    You have the right to do it, but your coworkers might become bitter and envious if you make more than them. You have to judge how mature your coworkers are and whether it would cause trouble for you if they made a complaint to your manager. For example, if you are on a team of like 5 people, it could be impossible for them to maintain your anonymity as they say "Why am I making less than others?" You might also imagine that if your coworkers don't get the raise, they will not be as motivated to work, and may cause problems for you that way. I've been on both ends of this, usually the lower end, and I can say first hand it is hard to not take getting paid less as a personal affront to your dignity. And every time I was underpaid I not only didn't get a big raise, but I took much longer than expected to find another job. If you are underpaid, your best option is to leave in most cases. Don't underestimate how long you have to tolerate the low pay while you try to leave.
    - Buttons840 3y ago
      That's all true. I've usually asked co-workers I'm friends with, and believe we can both be mature enough, if they want to exchange pay info. I've also told a few people what my salary was when I'm leaving a company, and tell them to share it freely. Everything you say is true though, it can cause a lot of drama if people start having hard feeling over pay. This is why companies sometimes tell people not to share their salary, or even put it in the company handbook, etc, and I'll say again: it is illegal for a company to tell or even suggest that you not to share you salary. > And every time I was underpaid I not only didn't get a big raise, but I took much longer than expected to find another job. How are the two related? Why does being paid less cause you to take longer to find a new job?
      - wakawaka28 3y ago
        >How are the two related? Why does being paid less cause you to take longer to find a new job? Being paid less didn't actually make me take longer to find another job. But I looked for other jobs to get more money. My point is, simply knowing you are paid less/unfairly is not a silver bullet. Most companies will refuse to give raises on demand, on principle. You most likely can't just get a new job right off either or you would have just done it. So you'll be stuck for months or even years knowing how much less you make than your coworkers. Nobody thinks they'll mind knowing the truth, because they underestimate their own ego and how difficult it is to get more money. Most businesses would rather pay someone new and unproven significantly more than you're asking rather than give you, say, a random 10% raise. It kinda makes sense, because there's no limit to what you can ask for. Most non-tech people seem to resent how much more we make as well. So for various reasons, they don't want to pay you more and/or don't believe you are worth more, and you have to prove it to them by leaving.
- bberenberg 3y ago
  This thread and study seem to disagree with your assessment: https://x.com/captgouda24/status/1773031323604488342?s=20 https://x.com/captgouda24/status/1773031323604488342?s=20
- musicale 3y ago
  > I do wonder how much of this taboo has been cultivated by corporations that benefit from workers feeling like they shouldn't talk about salary. I don't know if corporations originated the taboo, but they absolutely cultivate it so that they can retain the upper hand in salary negotiation, enabling them to pay below-market wages to everyone except for new hires with multiple offers. There is an unfortunate cultural problem where people are morally valued by how much money they make. Pay is often very disconnected from economic benefit (consider the enormous economic value produced by underpaid teachers, or grad student researchers) and nothing to do with moral value.
  - musicale 3y ago
    Thinking about this a bit, wealth (in the US at least) confers social status, which is taken as a proxy for personal honor, character, dignity, etc.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
> there's got to be a better way Be better managers. Do more human work during the hiring selection process. Take HR away from the lawyers. Take Responsibility and Accountability for the management layers of the company (including the C-suite). But we all know these are just pipe dreams.
diob 3y ago
I would argue it does bite them, but by the time it does it's someone else's problem.
- sonicanatidae 3y ago
  >I would argue it does bite them, but by the time it does it's someone else's problem. In almost all cases, it's the consumer that gets bitten.
ranger207 3y ago
> historically it hasn't bitten companies badly enough that they stop doing it. Because VC money based around vague promises of selling data to advertisers have traditionally propped up even fundamentally unprofitable businesses so software quality hasn't significantly contributes to success or not. Now that we're out of ZIRP then companies might start learning that in 10 years or so after they've replaced a few generations of programmers, nobody knows how anything works, and suddenly software quality starts to actually matter to investors and consumers
- indigochill 3y ago
  > companies might start learning that in 10 years or so after they've replaced a few generations of programmers, nobody knows how anything works, and suddenly software quality starts to actually matter to investors and consumers I suspect in software specifically, there will never be such a reckoning because compared to maintenance, replacement is too easy.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    > I suspect in software specifically, there will never be such a reckoning because compared to maintenance, replacement is too easy. Maybe when it's not important to be bug for bug compatible. For most important software, it kind of is.
sjy67 3y ago
Actually quite a lot. You can check the glassdoor and then search the companies market cap over the years. One company I research recently, Philips seem to have this problem 15 years ago. Compounding effected today, it is just a very small insignificant company. Meanwhile it gave birth to titans like ASML.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

But they don't. The people calling themselves managers will justify not paying existing people more once they have to pay new people more by saying that that is what they signed up for when they started. And then when people leave, they convince themselves that we are all interchangeable. No matter what happens, they have some sort of excuse or justification.

space_oddity 3y ago

High staff turnover some companies consider as a good thing