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

forbes.com

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

#241

Post by TACIXAT »

scaryclam wrote: post #112
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…

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…

I'd much rather have an offer in hand in case I bring salary up and they shake my hand and wish me good luck.

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

#242

Post by spacelizard »

remline wrote: post #218
jacquesm wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. As your potential employee I'd be more than happy to shake your hand and leave. Very rarely does a company deserve employee loyalty, and you as a linemanager should at least try to earn your employee's loyalty by paying them what they are worth, rather than what you can get away with. Remember, y…

Employees have an inherent need for loyalty to work and face considerable risk just for following their true worth to new companies and situations. This makes it impossible to adequately take employers up to your real market worth as a long term employee. Too many of your coworkers will accept 50% of their worth rather than risk stress and a crises if a change falls apart. So as long as the employer only needs a kern…

They also face considerable risk for sticking around when an employer has expressed interest in underpaying and overworking them or just outright firing them. If you're hiring people at 50% of their desired pay, then you're generally only going to get 50% of their skill. This is a double-edged sword. Employees also have an inherent need to accomplish things, and if you're not using them to their full capacity, that's also a risk of them leaving, or being completely checked out at work.

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

#243

Post by ruleabidinguser »

coolaliasbro wrote: post #226
abalashov wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers are paid to look after the bottom line. The good ones do their best to balance that with treating their people well and fostering loyalty, but no balancing act ever goes entirely smoothly -- yet that's the one they're paid to perform. Businesses aren't charities or good-will missions.

You're right that businesses presently are not charities or good-will missions, but perhaps they should be. The way most businesses are currently run (ie, as profit mills chasing growth at any cost) is detrimental to the environment, society, and the economy itself. Business for its own sake is stupid AF.

Why not go and start your ideal business then?

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

#244

Post by justadeveloper2 »

thomaskcr wrote: post #232
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…

It's possible to be more valuable to another company. I had a developer ask me for more money and I was just honest, if he likes working here he can stay because he was a good developer but he would undoubtedly earn more elsewhere. He just wasn't valuable to me because I had to be more involved in is projects, going to meetings with him for example. He was a great developer, but the climate of my company was a smalle…

I love how you whitewashed the "strong personalities" bit--yeah, those people are assholes who mistreated the developers. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

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

#245

Post by justadeveloper2 »

dustinmoris wrote: post #187
conanbatt wrote: post #185

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). 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 dem…

Devs get ping-pong tables because they can be bought off in other ways besides money because they are naive.

I loved your comment about "max out wealth" because that is the underlying truth to all of this--you get maybe 30 years to make as much money as possible and that's it!

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

#246

Post by mamon »

pc86 wrote: post #239
mamon wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ego, it's just "do not negotiate with terrorists" approach adapted to the workplace. If you make such concession for one employee, the next day you'll have 5 others with similar demands. EDIT: One more thing: the reason why it is often easier to get a raise by changing jobs instead of negotiating it in your current workplace is information asymmetry. Your current employer knows you all too well, so it is har…

Well if you're paying half a dozen people below market, that's sort of to be expected, isn't it? Management knows the market rate for a given role. Let's say a good-not-great senior developer (as in give them a code base and a quiet room and you've got substantive code on day 1 or 2) commands $100k cash comp to make the math easy. You take the job for 10% below market for whatever those reasons happen to be. Maybe yo…

Who said anything about paying below market?

Illusory superiority[1] is a real issue - about 70% of people think they are above average, so they keep demanding above-market salaries.

Plus, as I mentioned in my previous post, other employers have harder time evaluating person's skills through interviews than a company that currently employs them. So they offer above-average salary to your average employees and by the time they realize that they overpaid for their skills it usually is too late, so they keep them on payroll anyway - that's basically how IT salary bubble works, most of the time :) (at least that's how it works in Poland, I don't know a thing about US job market)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

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

#247

Post by dnh44 »

cgio wrote: post #47
maxxxxx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I talk to my director he seems to actually dislike people who have worked under him for more than 5 years. He likes "fresh blood". If you stay around you are a loser.

For how long has he stayed around? Or does he not report to anyone? Director sounds like an employee role too...

Director is a position often used in the UK in lieu of C level positions, and in SME's there is a strong correlation that the company director is also a major shareholder/founder.

based on my unpublished anecdata

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

#248

Post by sidlls »

watwut wrote: post #135
sidlls wrote: post #34

There is a plateau as one reaches senior positions. As I went from "no" experience to my current position my job switches (every ~2 years) always were for 10%-25% (in one case, 100%, but that was Midwest to Bay Area so other factors are at play). I never got more than 5% merit increases otherwise. Most of my friends who have been at the same place for >10 years in engineering (not software) are just now reaching pari…

Coding the same thing over and over may mean stagnation, but projects that change tech leads that often are usually mess. It takes time to get up to speed to that position, it takes time to people around to adjust (handle related turf wars and what not), create relationships and all that political stuff. Nor does it allows you to see long term consequences of your decisions.

> Coding the same thing over and over may mean stagnation, but projects that change tech leads that often are usually mess.

Absolutely.

> It takes time to get up to speed to that position, it takes time to people around to adjust (handle related turf wars and what not), create relationships and all that political stuff.

What you describe has value within an organization. These skills don't actually mean one is better at designing or implementing any software. They also don't necessarily transfer to another company. The people, political systems and bureaucracy at a given company aren't the same as at any other.

> Nor does it allows you to see long term consequences of your decisions.

True, but the way this industry works in most cases there is very little one can do about that after the fact. And, even if there were, it doesn't necessarily translate into having learned something.

There's a reason it's common that it is hard to get time and resources to work on technical debt: it's because companies (generalizing here--exceptions exist) don't value what you describe.

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

#249

Post by skj »

thehardsphere wrote: post #199
skj wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that in a purely rational system, there would be no pay gap (controlling for ability and impact). But guess what...

There's no pay gap?

Your conclusion is, then, that all people are rational?

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

#250

Post by UK-AL »

mamon wrote: post #246
pc86 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you're paying half a dozen people below market, that's sort of to be expected, isn't it? Management knows the market rate for a given role. Let's say a good-not-great senior developer (as in give them a code base and a quiet room and you've got substantive code on day 1 or 2) commands $100k cash comp to make the math easy. You take the job for 10% below market for whatever those reasons happen to be. Maybe yo…

Who said anything about paying below market? Illusory superiority[1] is a real issue - about 70% of people think they are above average, so they keep demanding above-market salaries. Plus, as I mentioned in my previous post, other employers have harder time evaluating person's skills through interviews than a company that currently employs them. So they offer above-average salary to your average employees and by the…

It's not a illusion if they can get it.
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