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Average duration at a job has significantly decreased over the years. That people simply don't want to stay at the same company is factual, not BS. It's easier to move today than ever before, easier to work remotely, and easier to change jobs.
It's simply not cost effective to spend years training instead of waiting to find the correct person who was already trained, and filling that gap temporarily with contract employees. Yes, you need to train employees, but for positions that would require years of training, it's far more cost effective to backfill with contractors for a year while you spend that time finding that more perfect long term candidate, instead of paying an employee for a year while not getting much in return. We are in a more and more information based economy. Training is becoming more and more complex as jobs become more complex. It has also become a lot more efficient to bring contract employees in from other parts of the globe on a temporary basis, which means from a cost perspective there are ways to keep businesses running for longer periods of time while you hold out for that more ideal long term candidate.
Also, there's a lot more to employee retention than just pay and benefits. Pay and benefits have to be at a certain level to stay competitive, but those aren't what keep your best employees at your company. The right company culture, being part of the right projects, and the feeling of doing something exciting keeps your best employees. The highest pay alone is not a significant motivator as long as you are in the ballpark of paying something fair. All that said, the idea of changing jobs simply because a person has been at their job for five years and just wants to get a new experience is very, very common today, no matter what they are being paid.
I addressed that already. Employees break those contracts regarding sign-on bonuses, given how difficult and expensive they are to enforce.
Enacting plans that vest over a period of years simply means people won't apply to your company. Even retirement contributions that take years to vest drive people away from companies. Those type of incentives don't keep people from leaving, they prevent them from applying in the first place. What you're describing doesn't work in today's market.
The problem is today is that your next company is willing to treat you better than your current company. At my first company out of school, I got exceeding expectations every year. It was a tooth and nail fight to try to switch to better work. I would be made promises...But the old assignments wouldn’t drop off. I was just being loaded with more and more work and being burned out.
Meanwhile, every day recruiters would be beating down my door.
I jumped to a new company and got even more money. I got the promotion I deserved. I got better assignments. I no longer was treated like the kid student. It would be a mistake to be loyal to a company. You need to be loyal to your career. At the end of the day, companies dry up and your position can dry up. But I need to soldier on. You have an obligation to get the best out of yourself. If your current company stops rewarding your hard work with opportunity, it’s time to leave.
Staying with the same company would have crushed my career development and thus my earnings and marketability.
2: Hire someone that is not qualified for the job and train them, knowing training costs a lot of money and lost production from both the new hire, and the trainer. Knowing it will take 2 to 3 years to get this new hire up to being able to do the job satisfactory. At the same time, knowing as soon as they are trained they are going to leave and you have trained someone to fill a job at your competitor.
The question is, why would employees leave as soon as they're trained? People tend to stick around at jobs where they're paid a competitive wage and treated fairly.
Hire someone that is not qualified for the job and train them, knowing training costs a lot of money and lost production from both the new hire, and the trainer. Knowing it will take 2 to 3 years to get this new hire up to being able to do the job satisfactory.
If it is going to take 2 to 3 years to get a new hire to do the job "satisfactory," then your company's methods need to be objectively re-evaluated and critiqued.
I haven't heard of that. People tend to leave jobs because of a better deal elsewhere in terms of opportunity, pay or hours, or because they don't like where they are.
I left a career after five years, where it was common in that industry (but not others at the time) to hire people on contract and search endlessly for the perfect candidate instead of training. Cuz people up and leave as soon as they're trained, doncha know. It was a recipe for people at the bottom to spend years spinning their wheels. I left not to get some kicky new experience, but because it sucked.
Where I work now, some of my coworkers have been there for decades.
To my point in my career (7 years) I’ve worked in 4 different jobs for 3 different employers. After 2-3 years of doing the same work I tend to get bored and want a new challenge.
The problem is today is that your next company is willing to treat you better than your current company. At my first company out of school, I got exceeding expectations every year. It was a tooth and nail fight to try to switch to better work. I would be made promises...But the old assignments wouldn’t drop off. I was just being loaded with more and more work and being burned out.
Meanwhile, every day recruiters would be beating down my door.
I jumped to a new company and got even more money. I got the promotion I deserved. I got better assignments. I no longer was treated like the kid student. It would be a mistake to be loyal to a company. You need to be loyal to your career. At the end of the day, companies dry up and your position can dry up. But I need to soldier on. You have an obligation to get the best out of yourself. If your current company stops rewarding your hard work with opportunity, it’s time to leave.
Staying with the same company would have crushed my career development and thus my earnings and marketability.
Amen.
Employment At Will is a 2 way street. Decades ago, corps eagerly provided paths for lifetime progression. Today they view perm and contractual as the same. That means employees would be idiots not to remind them "Every action has a reaction". Employees need to be every bit as callous to their business needs as employers. View yourself as "Thatsright, Inc", and as long as each side is making independently uncaring decisions focused solely on what is in THEIR OWN best interest, we maintain equilibrium.
Other corps will value your staff far more than yours, and thankfully doing so, lets them poach at will.
Relax, corps, they will leave your underachievers behind. You will still have them.
And how do you get that on the job experience if everyone wants you to have it first?
Employers have gutted their labor pools and are paying the price now.
It is as if the major leagues got rid of the minor leagues and then complained when after some years the only people left to hire didn't have any pro experience.
You have to keep people in the pipe line, because if you don't, the pool dries up.
Sorry, I meant "Training" You obviously don't have experience coming out of college unless you took some initiative and got some work study job....
What industry are you in that it takes 2-3 years, full time, to train an employee?
The operations side of investment management (how trades flow correctly, how corporate actions process, how security identifiers are managed across domestic/foreign markets, how securities are accurately priced in the technology systems investment management companies use, etc.) People need to be trained on how to gather requirements for the developers, how to analyze a business (general 'business analysis' skills, which will take at least a year to get to a somewhat proficient level) to see their needs as well as trained in how investments work (which can be a year to several, depending on what the person is working on).
2-3 years is not that long for jobs based on intellectual capital.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheerbliss
How did these contractors obtain their knowledge?
You're not at all curious about how my employer retains employees for so long?
Those contractors typically started out in a low level role in a company to get some experience, then joined the contracting firm and were given easier projects for a few years to slowly build experience. They then jump from company to company as a contractor to build experience slowly, over time. That's the kind of thing not every company has the bandwidth for. As I said before, the current senior level people don't have the time to train new employees at the moment, and it would be very unfair to ask them to do that.
How, then are you retaining people?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thatsright19
The problem is today is that your next company is willing to treat you better than your current company. At my first company out of school, I got exceeding expectations every year. It was a tooth and nail fight to try to switch to better work. I would be made promises...But the old assignments wouldn’t drop off. I was just being loaded with more and more work and being burned out.
Meanwhile, every day recruiters would be beating down my door.
I jumped to a new company and got even more money. I got the promotion I deserved. I got better assignments. I no longer was treated like the kid student. It would be a mistake to be loyal to a company. You need to be loyal to your career. At the end of the day, companies dry up and your position can dry up. But I need to soldier on. You have an obligation to get the best out of yourself. If your current company stops rewarding your hard work with opportunity, it’s time to leave.
Staying with the same company would have crushed my career development and thus my earnings and marketability.
Employees want to work somewhere else simply for a new experience. Regardless of how they are treated, how they are paid, a lot of people will want to move on and try something new simply to try something new. We pay $100-$150k/year for a 40 hour work week, 4 weeks vacation, and you can work from home 1-2 days/week as you want, and people still leave just to get other experiences.
What you said is true, but employees leave for a lot more reasons than simply their earnings drying up or their potential not being utilized. The best employees out there are always looking for something new, and honestly I will try to find other jobs for them in my company so that when they inevitably feel like it's time for a change, at least they stay in the company. It's simply not always realistic (or a smart business decision) to change the work being done or the projects being worked on for one employee. If each of 20 employees are all asking for 'better work', the ACTUAL work that needs to be done doesn't change. Not everyone can get their dream assignment.
Employees want to work somewhere else simply for a new experience. Regardless of how they are treated, how they are paid, a lot of people will want to move on and try something new simply to try something new. .
Seldom true.
People mostly leave when a corp messes up in how they are treated, financially and ,in regard to benefits and work/life balance.
What is your corp's and your departments average voluntary attrition rate-both the last 12 months and last decade?
If you do not know it btw, and this covers any manager at any corp, you are clueless.
I hear all the time how great the economy is with a 3.9% unemployment rate. Yet, I don't notice much of a difference in the hiring practices at companies where I've interviewed since the last downturn:
-You must meet the exact requirements (years of experience, ALL the skills, functional experience, industry experience, etc.)
-When I've had all these skills and done all the right things (reached out to contacts to get interviews, studied/prepared for interviews, interviewed exceptionally well, followed up with thank you notes) I've still gotten rejection after rejection. Thought this was me, but found out a lot of my peers have been in the same boat
-Seen that companies want all of this, yet don't want to pay market rate (e.g., find some sucker who they can get on the cheap)
-Companies unwilling to interview/hire talent from outside the local area and unwilling to pay for relocation
-Rude, dismissive recruiters who don't respond in a timely manner and keep you in the dark. They act like they walk on water and you should bow down to them.
I could go on and on. I just see a tremendous disconnect by the supposedly "hot" economy and what is happening on the ground. What is going on?
Side note - I am in mid-level management, not a tech worker (in corporate finance), masters degree, 15 years experience, white male (e.g., diversity hires do not work in my favor).
There are still a bunch of idiots being hired. The qualified labor pool is still not there. Companies don’t want to waste time hiring unqualified people. Or sometimes they don’t want to hire people who want more than the job pays.
I can tell you I turned down jobs where they aimed to give me some cut rate pay. Screw that. I’m professional at work, know my business and I can run multiple jobs and crews AND make jobs profitable.
Go hire someone who is going to throw your job under the i just blew your budget train. Plenty of those out there. I’ve seen guys finish jobs 250,000 in the hole. And the job was projected to make 250,000 profit. Tha5 guy just lost you 500,000 dollars. Go hire him.
I have friends in different industries. They ALL complain that a lot of people they hire are not cutting it. It’s a constant turn over and the only people they keep are the ones who are worth it. I call it time to go fishing. Keepers and throw backs.
When I take jobs I will do my best performance for you. But as far as job quality I’m looking fir what’s best for me too. I’ve has jobs where I wasn’t appreciated. I moved on. No hard feelings but I’m watching out for my family.
People mostly leave when a corp messes up in how they are treated, financially and ,in regard to benefits and work/life balance.
What is your corp's and your departments average voluntary attrition rate-both the last 12 months and last decade?
If you do not know it btw, and this covers any manager at any corp, you are clueless.
For the department? none in the last 12 months, three in the last decade, one due to medical reasons, a second because he wanted to change careers. We helped him find a new job in our company that's on the new career path.
Why is every response you give accusatory? If this is how you respond to people in conversations in real life, you must find yourself in a lot of arguments.
And no, you are simply wrong. In some cases you are correct, but be careful with the term 'mostly'. Many people do leave simply to get new experiences. It's commonly said today that a person needs to move on and get new experiences every five years, while they are younger at least. Hell, that's advice given to most young people when they are starting their careers.
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