Comment by kulahan

Comment by kulahan 16 hours ago

One would assume the solution is to simply offer a good package and retain employees with that. I returned to an old company after a few years of floating around because I realized they had the perfect mix of culture and benefits for me, even if the pay isn't massive.

You're falling for the exact same fallacy experienced by failed salesmen. "Why would I bother investing time in this customer when they're just going to take my offer to another dealership for a better deal?"

Answer: you offer a good deal and work with people honestly, because if you don't, you'll never get a customer.

andrewmutz 15 hours ago

They could do that: hire juniors, lose money while you train them, and give them aggressive raises. Or they could just do what they are doing: skip the juniors and just hire the people who've got experience.

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johnnyanmac 12 hours ago

Everyone's kicking the can down the road and we're very soon going to hit points of "no one has experience (or are already working)". Someone needs to do the training. It doesn't seem like school and bootcamps is enough for what companies need these days.

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izacus 14 hours ago

The game theory here says that such a company will be outcompeted and killed by a company which doesn't spend money+time on retention and training but instead invests that money in poaching.

What you say only works if everyone is doing it. But if you're spending resources on juniors and raises, you can easily be outcompeted and outpoached by companies using that saved money to poach your best employees.

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samrus 4 hours ago

Its the tragedy of the commons. These companies will think they are very smart for doing this, but theyll just foster a culture where there are no competent employees once the current seniors retire

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johnnyanmac 12 hours ago

>but instead invests that money in poaching.
give a big enough raise and they won't want to be poached. You won't retain everyone, but your goal probably isn't to compete with Google to begin with. So why worry of the scenario of boosting a good junior from 100k to 150k but losing them to a 250k job?
In some ways you will also need to read the room. I don't like the mentality of "I won't hire this person, they are only here for money", but to some extent you need to gauge how much of them is mission-focused and how much would leave the minute they get a 10k counter-offer. adjust your investments accordingly and focus on making something that makes money off that.

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knollimar 13 hours ago

What's the solution? Locking juniors in with contracts? Vesting cliffs?

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