Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less • Hacker News Board

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#181

Post by dustinmoris » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 11:40 AM UTC

joyofdata wrote: post #163

mojomark wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as her sub-employee are risking the most severe of all offenses - asking for more than what your supervisor makes. This is a flawed philosophy. As a manager I have had a few critical pulling in higher salaries than my own. If you are a superviser who is artificially holding an employee back from reaching their full potential (seeking compensation that matches the demand person's talent in the open market) than you…

you are argumenting from an optimal-employee-perspective or what you might choose to call it. Fact is - even supervisors are humans and 90% of them will be hesitant to have somebody "under" them while making more or as much money. I fear that's just a fact.

I disagree based on personal experience. I am currently a line manager who is a developer himself and manages 5 other developers and my salary is not the highest and I have absolutely no issue with that. One of the devs has been with the company for 8+ years, has knowledge of literally every corner of the software and has a great work attitude which adds a lot of value by helping other devs to become as productive as possible. This person earns a lot more than me and I have no issue with that, because as a line manager I am more afraid to lose this person than anything else.

EDIT: My main responsibility is to keep the team happy and productive. If this developer would leave the team our productivity would drop and we wouldn't achieve our goals we set for ourselves this year. It would have a direct impact on my bonus as well and it is in my highest interest to keep great people at every possible cost. If I think I don't earn enough then I will have that chat with my line manager, but I will never try to destroy my team based on some personal ego crap.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#182

Post by lr4444lr » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 11:40 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #147

scaryclam wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

if your company has to make cutbacks [...] you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. If the company's going down the pan, what does it matter if I'm made redundant in the first tranche or the last? I'm going to need a new job anyway, just in the latter case I've put in a few extra months where there was no money to give me a raise no matter how well I performed.

I hear you, but the lost wages when the change comes too suddenly can be worse for a lot of people. Being among the later to be let go gives you some time to prepare.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#183

Post by cage433 » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 11:41 AM UTC

EdSharkey wrote: post #167

thehardsphere wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it is how the world works. If there was really a gender pay gap for women who are doing the exact same work as men with the exact same experience as men, then it would be trivial for employers to reduce their costs by only hiring women. Yet, nobody ever does this.

This thread suddenly became gold. Don't you dare die on me, thread!

the gender pay gap was just another myth created by the Chinese....

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#184

Post by wastedhours » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

johan_larson wrote: post #4

It's a bit strange that this sort of job-hopping isn't a red flag to employers. You'd think managers would be reluctant to hire an employee who has jumped ship many times before, just as they were becoming useful.

Depends if there's a legitimate reason - 2 roles ago I was there for 3 1/2 years and my manager basically said to me I'd do best in my career to leave by then (loved working for her), previous job was 18 months and was doing well, but my current position came up and was something completely different that would be a fantastic development experience.

However, I don't think it's a good fit, both from mine and the company's perspective - do I stick it out to ensure my resume doesn't have a half life, or would a next employer understand it was something I had to jump to, but was in everyone's best interests not to drag it out? (we're talking <5 months)

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#185

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 11:59 AM UTC

dustinmoris wrote: post #128

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well). Also don't believe any line manager or anyone else here posting that this is not a good strategy, because remember, every line manager is only an employee as well and has a…

> Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well).

This works both ways.

The value of internal knowledge helps both parties, because as an employee you dont know if x other company is good to work at, or that you would like the responsibilities there, etc. The fact that lots of people stay with a lower salary in a job is a testament that it is often the employees that choose to pay that fee.

The company is frequently interviewing. So if the company finds a candidate that would work for less (minus the internal knowledge comission) it should fire you and replace you!

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#186

Post by jondubois » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 12:00 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #114

jondubois wrote: post #109

Yes that never made sense to me. Employees who have been around for a couple of years are much more efficient and know their way around - They are worth more, and yet they always get paid much less than 3-month or 6-month contractors or even new full-time employees in many cases. Also if they say that they want to leave a company, usually employers let them go relatively easily without making any significant counter-…

> yet they always get paid much less than 3-month or 6-month contractors I'd be careful comparing the salaries of fixed employees to contractors. The math works significantly different for contractors: They need to spend time on job acquisition, billing, ... etc. They don't get any of the benefits that an employee gets - PTO, potentially health insurance, retirement plan, whatever, ... They're also the first to let g…

Not really, there are plenty of 12-months and indefinite rolling contracts.

I've met a few engineers who made $800 USD per day for several years and many (including myself) who earned at least $650 per day doing rolling contracts... You can stay as long as you want - The main problem is boredom that kicks in after 3 to 6 months.

I don't usually have any gap between jobs. On two occasions, companies offered me to work for them for two weeks because I had a 2-week gap before starting at a different company. If you plan correctly, have a broad enough skillset and you know your value, there should be no gap; on the contrary, there should be a queue.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#187

Post by dustinmoris » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 12:08 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #185

dustinmoris wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well). Also don't believe any line manager or anyone else here posting that this is not a good strategy, because remember, every line manager is only an employee as well and has a…

> Couldn't agree more. Basically your current employer should really pay you what the salary you would get somewhere else plus an additional markup for the internal knowledge which you have already acquired (you should put a value on that as well). This works both ways. The value of internal knowledge helps both parties, because as an employee you dont know if x other company is good to work at, or that you would lik…

This doesn't go bothways, because there's either more demand for developers than supply or more supply than demand. Currently we live in a time where there is more demand than supply, hence why developers get treated relatively well in comparison to other professions. There's a reason why developers get ping pong tables but not accountants.

So the fact that "company is frequently interviewing" only shows how much demand there is and how hard it is to fill a position with the right person. Once you have the right people on board, they can ask a lot more than what they get, because replacing them can be significantly more time and resource/money consuming and then it's not even guaranteed that they will be as good as the ones you have right now.

This is basic free market, the side of it which has the upper hand right now needs to play its cards to max out wealth and every employee should be encouraged to do so, because it will overall only increase economic growth. It doesn't always has to come from business growth, if workers can gain significant wealth based on the same principle then they should, because it will only increase more spending and investment of those people into new areas again.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#188

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 12:08 PM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #142

scaryclam wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Playing the devil's advocate, here's employee response which makes sense from his/her perspective: But I have job offer paying 30% more. I could actually get multiple offers like that from several companies. So I am not afraid of your threat of "getting further up the redundancy list".

Then it's in both parties interest for the employee to leave.. everyone is happy at the end, provided the employer can replace the worker, and the former can get a better option.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#189

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 12:10 PM UTC

The single most important change that should happen to change things like this is having salaries being public.

The day that happens, salaries statistics will very likely take a huge jump.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#190

Post by syntaxing » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 12:12 PM UTC

I wish these studies would incorporate the value of benefits. Benefits are a huge reason (especially for people with families) why people stay at jobs. Imagine having a job for $60K with four weeks of vacation and good 401K matching compared with $80k with one week vacation and horrible health insurance.