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Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

coloradoexcluded.com

121–130 of 207 posts

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#121
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wondered whether I was in the minority in caring a lot about these, as companies tend to talk about the "challenges" and "mission", and while I enjoy those, I also chose this field in part because I want a comfortable life. I enjoy CS, don't get me wrong, but I also enjoy history.

I think working for an employer because you identify with their “mission” is deeply unhealthy for both individual employees and for society at large. In almost all cases, employment should be a purely financial transaction, and if you’re looking for something “deeper” you should probably work for yourself or start a new company.

Is wearing a sports team jersey deeply unhealthy? What about wearing a political hat?

People like being in tribes, and they like standing for something. They love signaling those affiliations.

If someone can get paid to join a tribe on a mission they identify with, if they get to say things like “We are accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable transport!” without the extraordinary stress of being an entrepreneur, why quash that?

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#122

The Colorado law to me strikes me as a pretty huge government overreach. I fully believe in minimum wage laws, and that feels like an appropriate regulation to me, but this just feels like it's almost attacking these companies, interfering with their hiring processes, and I fully see why companies would rather not bother hiring in what boils down to 1 mid-sized metro area than deal with the consequences.

This is analogous to disclosure laws which forces companies to disclose company information that may influence investors decisions. If it makes sense to force companies to disclose financial information to potential investors then it makes sense to force companies to similarly disclose salary ranges to prospective employees.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#123

I’d love to see a law that goes a step further and also mandates that everyone’s salary be public knowledge to everyone else within the same company. If this generates resentment, it means the company is poorly managed. The company would therefore either be compelled to fix their pay discrepancies (thereby allaying the resentment) or risk losing resentful employees to other companies. It would also be great if this c…

I'd like to see a law forcing companies to pay everyone $1,000,000/year. Then we'd all be rich. It's so easy, I can't believe no one has thought of it before. Just force people to do stuff.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come 180 on minimum wage. How can anyone come between me and another adult trying to exchange services and money like this? It’s kind of insane if you think about it through that lens.

It doesn't. If you wanna pay your neighbor's kid $15 for 3 hours of lawn mowing, you still can. Unmediated transactions of a certain scale don't require any government oversight, it's only when you start breaking out taxable income that it become a problem.

>> Unmediated transactions of a certain scale don't require any government oversight

What is this scale? As far as I know you only get away with this because no one knows or cares to enforce the law in that case. But police have been known to shut down kids lemonade stands for not having all the right permits, so I don't believe this is actually true in the law.

I would be happy if this was the case: I used to hire people all the time to do odd jobs for me, but I feel like it's too costly and too legally risky to actually be worth it for me, so I just don't do it anymore. And the people I used to hire aren't exactly relieved.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#125

It's very simple. It's to a company's benefit to miss twenty qualified applicants than to hire a single unqualified one. It's to a company's benefit to miss twenty qualified applicants than to reveal their salary range during negotiation to a single one. It's to a company's benefit to lose twenty qualified employees than to promote anyone from within. You can justify just about any industry practice by saying a drama…

This pre-supposes that doing anything pro-applicant is somehow a benefit to a company. Many of the things you've said are a benefit for the company, but many are not and are instead cultural.

"It's to a company's benefit to miss twenty qualified applicants than to hire a single unqualified one." This one is true, but not universally. The assumption baked in is: Interviewing more candidates is less expensive than hiring an unfit candidate and then letting them go. That's usually true, which is why this piece of advice is brought up so frequently.

"It's to a company's benefit to miss twenty qualified applicants than to reveal their salary range during negotiation to a single one." The assumption baked in is: You "the company" will save money by never revealing salary info; by revealing salary range you're giving up dollars you could have negotiated for with the candidate. The money spent interviewing candidates who you can never hire is less than the money you'll save through the lower salaries you can negotiate for because you don't reveal pay info. This is also mostly true, since you can save so much over time through negotiating a lower salary.

"It's to a company's benefit to lose twenty qualified employees than to promote anyone from within." The baked in assumption is: Promoting from within is more expensive or yields worse results than hiring externally. In general, this is usually not true to a point. I'm not saying hiring a factory line worker to be the new CEO is a good "hire from within" practice. Hiring from within when there are jobs based around similar skill sets but variations in focus area/responsibility level is probably a good idea. After all, why spend a lot of money looking outside for someone who is good at X when you already know a load of people who are good at W or Y, which are very close to X. It's the same reason that referral programs are such good ways of finding candidates: it acts as a fantastic filter. The reason it's often not done is largely because skill gaps (or perceived skill gaps) are too big for a role change.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#126

Honest question, as this is related to something my company's HR department is grappling with (I am not involved, I'm just a lowly engineering manager): How does this law interact with companies whose pay range is location based? I.e., the starting salary band for a Silicon Valley-based candidate would take into account SF cost of living, and therefore be significantly higher on paper than the starting salary band fo…

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Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why minimum wage laws aren't overreach but this is?

I’ve come 180 on minimum wage. How can anyone come between me and another adult trying to exchange services and money like this? It’s kind of insane if you think about it through that lens.

Look at it from another angle. We know, as a fact, that if companies pay below a certain level, then their workers end up using public funds for help - food vouchers, subsidies, housing benefits.....all because they aren't being paid enough.

So basically, you as a tax payer, as subsidizing someone's business so they can have cheap labour.

It's kind of insane if you think about it through that lens. Social benefits exist to help those who fall on hard times, not to give shitty companies cheap workers.

Re: Companies that are avoiding hiring in Colorado

#130
post #55

Context: Colorado’s Equal Pay Act requires jobs ads to list a salary range [1], which companies generally don't want to do. Excluding CO residents is one way companies are avoiding the law. [1] https://www.colorado.edu/hr/colorados-equal-pay-equal-work-a...

Doesn't this basically show the stupidity of local regulations? Make these kind of laws federal if you want them to stick or at least coordinate with the big states. Looking at Wikipedia Colorado doesn't have the economic power to dictate anything.

Enjoy your race to the bottom.
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