Comment on Employees Who Stay In Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less
dkc@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I made the mistake of becoming a manager about 4 years ago. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the job. If you have a good relationship with your team they’ll usually tell you something like “I’ve been getting contacted about other offers, here’s what they’re offering.”
It’s usually about a 20% bump. I’ve not once been able to convince the company I’m at to match it. Usually the best I’m allowed to do is something like a 5-6% raise in the next salary increase cycle.
I’ll usually know for 2-3 months a team member is leaving before it actually happens because of this. Of course, if I’m allowed to hire a replacement they’ll let me pay market value.
Job hopping is definitely the best way to get a pay increase.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I just dont understand that logic
“Oh god, this guy wants a raise? Fuck him, he wont get anything… but when he quits, hire his replacement at what he was asking for, or higher”
HeyJoe@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
And even if that guy they hire is really good, there is still a large period of time where that person has to learn the ropes and is most likely less useful than the person who already knew the ins and outs. Also, most of the time, they are never as good…
henfredemars@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
Penny wise and pound foolish. They can’t resist the opportunity to exploit, even if it costs the company in the long run.
njm1314@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Everyday the idea of an AI CEO sounds less like a joke and more like a great fucking idea.
Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Not just less useful. They have negative productivity starting out, because training them takes away productive time from there more experienced staff.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
We cope by saying they hire a replacement who asked for more. The reality is they generally don’t. They either offload the work to the rest of the dept and go “oh look at that we didn’t need them!” as the group drowns OR they find a wide eyed, younger professional who will take a crap - or at least lower - salary.
This varies from industry to industry but it’s very common.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Which doesnt seem to be common, seeing how you have shit like the report that OP posted that job hopping massively increases income.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Do you think OP is representative of the broader workforce?
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
Loyalty is a two-way street.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Remember that Star Trek where they go to the evil mirror universe and the baddies come to the Enterprise? The bad versions get caught because it’s hard for someone with no empathy to fake it.
undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Classic trek.
The saddest part is that I really thought we had the potential to become the federation. It turns out, we were always just the farengi.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 weeks ago
They’re probably hoping to not hire a replacement at all
frezik@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
I keep waiting for someone to lay it out and explain how the companies are actually benefiting in some subtle way from this arrangement. As far as I can tell, no, this is just what they decided to do.
howrar@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Maybe an advantage of this setup is that you ensure that your bus factor is high and you’re constantly testing it to make sure it stays high? Kind of like how Netflix uses ChaosMonkey.
shalafi@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s a bit messy for the employer. You can’t just hand out 20% raises every time someone threatens to leave. Then everyone would be threatening to leave. And that’s a hefty cost to add to what’s likely your largest operating expense. Also, that’s not just 20% in the employee’s pocket, there are additional costs like unemployment insurance and the like.
OTOH, unless your employee plain sucks or the job is simple, it’s almost always better to keep them than train a replacement. Tribal knowledge is valuable knowledge.
And no, only very small-time employers expect loyalty. They understand the game, and we should as well.
Funny that lemmy whines and moans about capitalism all day, without realizing they can play as well. Jumping jobs over the last 11 years got me $14 > $22 > $39. Been at this place 5-years, thinking about jumping ship again. Probably put me over $100K with a little luck. Oh, and I’ve never had such fat benefits or worked less. From home to boot.
Related: When we first moved here, a friend started at an oil change place, well below his skill set and previous pay. Kept job hopping and stacking his resume, now he’s the top service manager at the largest auto dealer group. He quit moving, guess he’s fat and happy. Sure drags in the $.
ramirezmike@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
if you have multiple employees getting job offers that are 20% higher then you’re not paying your employees enough 🤷♂️
shalafi@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Fine. They all claim to have offers. It’s not like employers don’t track turnover and market rates. Some of them just decide it’s cheaper to allow high turnover. Not like they can’t work an Excel sheet.
Having said that, I’ve found many employers wholly ignorant of metrics that aren’t easily tracked. For example, 2 jobs ago I was a key player at my shitty little shop. Kept the customers rolling in, despite their aggravations with the company. You can’t put a solid number on that. (And many told me they left for the competition when I quit.)
Last job, I quit for an offer doubling my pay and benefits. They loved me, wouldn’t go for it. The next year they paid far more in IT costs than it would have cost to keep me.
Back to my point, work hard, achieve something to be proud of on your resume, jump ship. The game is only rigged for the employer is you’re in a shit job that requires almost no skills. As to that, see the example I talked about with my oil change buddy.
KidnappedByKitties@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
How is it messy for the employer to keep wages at market prices?
You don’t have to match anything or contend with mass quitting if you just pay the going rate to start with.
shalafi@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Do you think employers are stone ignorant of market rates? Who said anything about mass quitting? The people not moving on are the people who can’t. Hell, that’s where I’m at. Pretty sure I’ve attained the Peter Principle for now.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It all makes “business” sense for those who see employees as “commodities”, i.e. all kinda equivalent and hence easilly replaceable with nothing lost when they’re switched.
It’s basically the MBA thinking of employees as just another “raw material” or “supplier”.
The reality, more so in complex domains, is that employees have an adaptation and learning period when they arrive (unlike engineered devices, companies aren’t standardized machines using standardized parts, so you a new “part” won’t just seamlessly fit and start delivering full performance) and often never written institutional knowledge that goes with them when they leave.
However as those things are not easilly quantified and measurable, MBA types - being unable to add it to their spreadsheets - will simply ignore them rather than trying to balance such costs against salary costs: giving a decent salary increase (a guaranteed cost) will always look like a worse option in an accounting spreadsheet if its only counter is a sub-100% possibility that they might lose that employee (and, remember, since they don’t count adaption and loss of institutional knowledge costs, that’s listed there as costing nothing) and replace it with somebody else who might even be possible to get with a less “decent” salary (so, more than the current employees but less that a fair salary for the current employee).
Such approach works well if all companies are doing it and the probability that people will leave if they don’t get a decent salary is low enough (which it probably is, since the majority of human beings favour stability over change).