3 ms·

That Ford CEO is stupid. There's no "shortage" of workers. Corporations are expecting other people to train their employees past entry level and pay these peo

That Ford CEO is stupid. There's no "shortage" of workers. Corporations are expecting other people to train their employees past entry level and pay these people with midlevel experience like badly paid unskilled laborers. Nobody is investing years of their time and large sums of money to get trained up for a shitty job? SURPRISE SURPRISE If you won't take an average person with no knowledge of your industry and train them to be an expert while on the job, the problem is you, not everybody else.

freedomben 1y ago
I don't disagree, but I do think the modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this. As a leader entrusted to make good decisions for the company, you must consider this reality. At a previous company we hired a lot of junior engineers with the idea that our relatively high pay and reasonably good work would help us build a strong generation of seniors a few years down the road. What we mostly found was that we spent a ton of money and our sr eng time training and sharpening them, only for the vast majority of them to leave after 1 to 3 years. As I've gotten more into hiring, it's not at all surprising to me now as this is just clearly in the culture. To be clear I'm not blaming the employees, in fact I blame ridiculously stupid HR practices for the last 20 years because they built a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too.
- asimovfan 1y ago
  "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs?
  - freedomben 1y ago
    > "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? Yes that's what I mean, though I was making the argument from the perspective of the employer. Didn't mean mean any shade with "company hopping" (I've done that in the past because it was the best thing for me and my career, and I stand by those decisions, so I don't mean them with any negative connotations from the employee perspective at least, and from the employer perspective it's their own damn fault though they rarely ever recognize it). > when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? Yes, not paying them as much as another company would offer, plus being stingy with promotion opportunities (like from jr to mid, mid to sr, etc). > do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs? Yes absolutely, a culture born out of changing realities/incentives. That's not to say it wouldn't switch back if companies started rewarding loyalty again, but it won't spin on a dime.
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  What's the structural solution to this? Offer golden handcuffs to stay for x years? - "We'll train you, and if you stay the full 8 years you get a $500,000 bonus"? - "Here's a $200,000 signing bonus, which you have to pay back if you leave before 8 years" I'd be hesitant to rely on these as a candidate, because I'd have to assume I'd get fired at year 6-7 or something so that the company could save money.
  - floatrock 1y ago
    from the op: > ridiculously stupid HR practices... a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too Until that culture changes, of course you're gonna assume you get fired or issued a surprise RTO order at year 7.5. When the social contract becomes penny-pinching every opportunity, of course the employees are gonna start playing that game too.
    - nerdsniper 1y ago
      Yes, but where does the culture change begin? My conundrum in trying to solve it is: - Companies that pay in the top 1% of compensation already don't have a retention problem. - Only 1% of companies can pay the top 1% of compensation. - The other 99% have issues with retention. - Companies only have $X to allocate for 10 years of employment compensation. - Any 99% company that structures $X of compensation to provide bonus $Y for staying a long time will necessarily offer salary $(X-Y) until the reward is granted. - Any 99% company that does not provide a reward for staying a long time can offer salary $X, which is higher than $(X-Y). - A rational employee cannot depend on bonus $Y, and rationally should take competing offers of Salary $X over offers of Salary $X-Y.
      - freedomben 1y ago
        A meta-comment, but I wanted to let you know that I've really enjoyed our comments today. I appreciate your ability to analyze and articulate, and most importantly making me think :-)
  - 1y ago
- rockercoaster 1y ago
  > modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this Zero people are doing this for the fun of it. This is entirely driven by incentives, not "culture". Or, rather, not by "culture" of the people doing the hopping—C-suite and MBA culture, yes, very much so, this is one of many bad outcomes from having companies run entirely by "professional managers" and finance dudes rather than people who were, at the start of their career, close to the actual productive work of the company, with the latter scenario once being far more common than it is now.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    I don't disagree, but I think it's the incentives that led to the culture. Changing the incentives will have a downstream affect on the culture, but it's not immediate. It takes a bit of time for the shit to roll down hill.
    - rockercoaster 1y ago
      I think it could be pretty damn immediate. What's missing are unions and pensions for long-term job stability, tolerability, security, and clear career progression. What's missing are wages that kept up with the inflation rates of housing and healthcare, not the price of wheat or flatscreen TVs. What's missing is C-suite norms that favor retaining workers through the usual economic-cycle downturns, rather than swiftly choosing to enact mass firings any time the CEO has a little indigestion (the science is extremely mixed on this anyway, there's not even a good reason to believe the latter approach is better for the company in general, and the C-suite zeitgeist used to favor avoiding mass firings unless absolutely necessary) I don't think there'd be any waiting for worker "culture" to catch up to fill roles with comp packages and working conditions that addressed those core issues.
      - freedomben 1y ago
        If there was high trust, then I would agree with you. However, the lack of trust means that a lot of people would not believe The pension would even be around, and especially I don't think people would believe that The mass layoffs would be a thing of the past.
- pengaru 1y ago
  Company hopping is a response to a lack of commitment to employees' security and future from employers and disappearance of anything resembling a pension. People don't walk away from handcuffs made of any remotely precious metal, employers have every ability to disincentivize that behavior.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  Did anyone bother to ask why they were leaving after 1-3 years, or was it just dismissed as "that's just the culture."
tamimio 1y ago
> If you won't take an average person with no knowledge of your industry and train them to be an expert while on the job, the problem is you, not everybody else. Exactly this, I have seen the issue too in mid or senior levels, not just fresh, because even if you're senior, most likely your expertise is on a very specific topic, not necessarily the job specific one, could be something very close to it. It's like learning on the job either through training or self-taught is an alien topic to them. I remember one time I had an interview for a job that needed some knowledge on navigating a Linux environment, and I have personally been using Linux at work or personally since ~2004 or so, only to find out during the interview the expectations were Linus Torvalds rock star level in developing kernels, for a pay of ~90k, and the job itself isn't even about Linux, it was some automation/robotics so the OS is just your environment, haha!
throw__away7391 1y ago
Every junior I've brought in over the past 7 years or so with the expectation of training them has immediately left after I've invested not only money but also significant amounts of more experienced developers time to bring them up to speed before I managed to recoup anything useful for that investment. I can already hear people say pay more, but that isn't up to me and besides that if we're going that route why not just hire the experienced person in the first place? Of course increasingly it's hard even to train at all, I'm getting absolute garbage AI slop from our most junior developers and they don't seem to be learning any more. I sit and try to explain why their solution to some task won't work and they are not engaged with the actual solution they are implementing at all. I've tried to get them to engage more with the AI as a learning and exploration tool, but I'm not having much luck, they're completely focused on inputing the task, really at the mercy of the direction of the tools. I really hope AI comes through for us in the end because it seems we're at the end-game for human learning.
- DrPimienta 1y ago
  A big part of them leaving is the fact that the wages aren't actually that great. I'm a programmer and have far less buying power than a Kmart cashier from the 70s had. I don't get a pension. They did. There's no loyalty because we're all poor compared to every previous generation besides those literally living in log cabins.
  - runlaszlorun 1y ago
    Ngl, totally envious of a log cabin lifestyle. I dated a girl who was a project manager for high end homes in SF. What hit me as sad was that a long list of things that are now ultra luxury were basically attainable by any hunter gatherer - a view, a fireplace, living near a lake or river, a large yard, indoor outdoor space, etc.

freedomben 1y ago

I don't disagree, but I do think the modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this. As a leader entrusted to make good decisions for the company, you must consider this reality. At a previous company we hired a lot of junior engineers with the idea that our relatively high pay and reasonably good work would help us build a strong generation of seniors a few years down the road. What we mostly found was that we spent a ton of money and our sr eng time training and sharpening them, only for the vast majority of them to leave after 1 to 3 years. As I've gotten more into hiring, it's not at all surprising to me now as this is just clearly in the culture. To be clear I'm not blaming the employees, in fact I blame ridiculously stupid HR practices for the last 20 years because they built a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too.

asimovfan 1y ago
"modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs?
- freedomben 1y ago
  > "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? Yes that's what I mean, though I was making the argument from the perspective of the employer. Didn't mean mean any shade with "company hopping" (I've done that in the past because it was the best thing for me and my career, and I stand by those decisions, so I don't mean them with any negative connotations from the employee perspective at least, and from the employer perspective it's their own damn fault though they rarely ever recognize it). > when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? Yes, not paying them as much as another company would offer, plus being stingy with promotion opportunities (like from jr to mid, mid to sr, etc). > do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs? Yes absolutely, a culture born out of changing realities/incentives. That's not to say it wouldn't switch back if companies started rewarding loyalty again, but it won't spin on a dime.
nerdsniper 1y ago
What's the structural solution to this? Offer golden handcuffs to stay for x years? - "We'll train you, and if you stay the full 8 years you get a $500,000 bonus"? - "Here's a $200,000 signing bonus, which you have to pay back if you leave before 8 years" I'd be hesitant to rely on these as a candidate, because I'd have to assume I'd get fired at year 6-7 or something so that the company could save money.
- floatrock 1y ago
  from the op: > ridiculously stupid HR practices... a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too Until that culture changes, of course you're gonna assume you get fired or issued a surprise RTO order at year 7.5. When the social contract becomes penny-pinching every opportunity, of course the employees are gonna start playing that game too.
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    Yes, but where does the culture change begin? My conundrum in trying to solve it is: - Companies that pay in the top 1% of compensation already don't have a retention problem. - Only 1% of companies can pay the top 1% of compensation. - The other 99% have issues with retention. - Companies only have $X to allocate for 10 years of employment compensation. - Any 99% company that structures $X of compensation to provide bonus $Y for staying a long time will necessarily offer salary $(X-Y) until the reward is granted. - Any 99% company that does not provide a reward for staying a long time can offer salary $X, which is higher than $(X-Y). - A rational employee cannot depend on bonus $Y, and rationally should take competing offers of Salary $X over offers of Salary $X-Y.
    - freedomben 1y ago
      A meta-comment, but I wanted to let you know that I've really enjoyed our comments today. I appreciate your ability to analyze and articulate, and most importantly making me think :-)
- 1y ago
rockercoaster 1y ago
> modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this Zero people are doing this for the fun of it. This is entirely driven by incentives, not "culture". Or, rather, not by "culture" of the people doing the hopping—C-suite and MBA culture, yes, very much so, this is one of many bad outcomes from having companies run entirely by "professional managers" and finance dudes rather than people who were, at the start of their career, close to the actual productive work of the company, with the latter scenario once being far more common than it is now.
- freedomben 1y ago
  I don't disagree, but I think it's the incentives that led to the culture. Changing the incentives will have a downstream affect on the culture, but it's not immediate. It takes a bit of time for the shit to roll down hill.
  - rockercoaster 1y ago
    I think it could be pretty damn immediate. What's missing are unions and pensions for long-term job stability, tolerability, security, and clear career progression. What's missing are wages that kept up with the inflation rates of housing and healthcare, not the price of wheat or flatscreen TVs. What's missing is C-suite norms that favor retaining workers through the usual economic-cycle downturns, rather than swiftly choosing to enact mass firings any time the CEO has a little indigestion (the science is extremely mixed on this anyway, there's not even a good reason to believe the latter approach is better for the company in general, and the C-suite zeitgeist used to favor avoiding mass firings unless absolutely necessary) I don't think there'd be any waiting for worker "culture" to catch up to fill roles with comp packages and working conditions that addressed those core issues.
    - freedomben 1y ago
      If there was high trust, then I would agree with you. However, the lack of trust means that a lot of people would not believe The pension would even be around, and especially I don't think people would believe that The mass layoffs would be a thing of the past.
pengaru 1y ago
Company hopping is a response to a lack of commitment to employees' security and future from employers and disappearance of anything resembling a pension. People don't walk away from handcuffs made of any remotely precious metal, employers have every ability to disincentivize that behavior.
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
Did anyone bother to ask why they were leaving after 1-3 years, or was it just dismissed as "that's just the culture."

tamimio 1y ago

> If you won't take an average person with no knowledge of your industry and train them to be an expert while on the job, the problem is you, not everybody else. Exactly this, I have seen the issue too in mid or senior levels, not just fresh, because even if you're senior, most likely your expertise is on a very specific topic, not necessarily the job specific one, could be something very close to it. It's like learning on the job either through training or self-taught is an alien topic to them. I remember one time I had an interview for a job that needed some knowledge on navigating a Linux environment, and I have personally been using Linux at work or personally since ~2004 or so, only to find out during the interview the expectations were Linus Torvalds rock star level in developing kernels, for a pay of ~90k, and the job itself isn't even about Linux, it was some automation/robotics so the OS is just your environment, haha!

throw__away7391 1y ago

Every junior I've brought in over the past 7 years or so with the expectation of training them has immediately left after I've invested not only money but also significant amounts of more experienced developers time to bring them up to speed before I managed to recoup anything useful for that investment. I can already hear people say pay more, but that isn't up to me and besides that if we're going that route why not just hire the experienced person in the first place? Of course increasingly it's hard even to train at all, I'm getting absolute garbage AI slop from our most junior developers and they don't seem to be learning any more. I sit and try to explain why their solution to some task won't work and they are not engaged with the actual solution they are implementing at all. I've tried to get them to engage more with the AI as a learning and exploration tool, but I'm not having much luck, they're completely focused on inputing the task, really at the mercy of the direction of the tools. I really hope AI comes through for us in the end because it seems we're at the end-game for human learning.

DrPimienta 1y ago
A big part of them leaving is the fact that the wages aren't actually that great. I'm a programmer and have far less buying power than a Kmart cashier from the 70s had. I don't get a pension. They did. There's no loyalty because we're all poor compared to every previous generation besides those literally living in log cabins.
- runlaszlorun 1y ago
  Ngl, totally envious of a log cabin lifestyle. I dated a girl who was a project manager for high end homes in SF. What hit me as sad was that a long list of things that are now ultra luxury were basically attainable by any hunter gatherer - a view, a fireplace, living near a lake or river, a large yard, indoor outdoor space, etc.