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.
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”
and they wonder why loyalty isnt a thing anymore
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…
Penny wise and pound foolish. They can’t resist the opportunity to exploit, even if it costs the company in the long run.
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.
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.
Which doesnt seem to be common, seeing how you have shit like the report that OP posted that job hopping massively increases income.
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.
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.
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).
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 $.
You can’t just hand out 20% raises every time someone threatens to leave.
if you have multiple employees getting job offers that are 20% higher then you’re not paying your employees enough 🤷♂️
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.