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Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#121

Post by throwaway9952 »

My company recently had a series of townhalls related to a re-org that included a few different open Q&A sessions. I'd estimate that 70-80% of the questions related to what the company was going to do to address current salaries, particularly vis-a-vis inflation. The questions were largely deflected (which is probably okay given the context) but there is very little urgency to do anything outside of the normal review cycle.

Attrition is starting to get bad and I don't really see what harm there is in doing something off-cycle. There is effectively a black-swan event going on where you have record-high inflation coupled with low unemployment and a substantially more demand for workers than there is supply. The move to remote has also shifted the opportunities for tons of folks who lived outside of major urban hubs, allowing them opportunities that were never previously available to them. Why wouldn't such a rare event result in rare proactivity?

I've changed jobs twice since the pandemic hit, resulting in about a 50% increase in compensation. I'm almost certain to change jobs again soon and will then be closer to doubling my salary from where I was in March 2020. In none of these job changes have I seen any serious plans by the companies to address salaries with a broad brush.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#122

Post by mcv »

Fiahil wrote: post #79
yunohn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really important point that is always missing in these threads - execs at most companies (even at FAANG, but esp outside) make massive multiples of their average engineer.

5.000.000 for a single exec means 50.000 for each of the 100 "average engineers" working in their department. You can overcompensate execs because there fewer of them than engineers.

But also because the exec has more power. More power over budgets, over the company, a closer relationship with the people who decide their salary, etc. We just have power over the tech, which may be vital, but it's not power we leverage very hard.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#123

Post by jacksonkmarley »

tomohawk wrote: post #81

This is based on comments people are willing to put in Glass Door, so there will be obvious biases there. Publicly, people will make up a reason for leaving, and not state the real reason, or just not say anything. I know a number of people who are just DONE with with covid culture, and just want to get away from it. The only way they can do that in many cases is to just leave their job. Since they are trying to get…

> I know a number of people who are just DONE with with covid culture, and just want to get away from it.

What do you mean? What is "covid culture", and how do you get away from it?

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#124

Post by xiphias2 »

There's nothing black swan in an inflationary environment that leads to hyperinflation, even if it's for a country with a reserve currency.

Every empire hyperinflated itself in the past, people just ignore history and how returning to sound money is inevitable.

The only black swan part is that now we have a better alternative to gold.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#125

Post by mcv »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #50
mbit8 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that many companies don't even offer raises, at least nothing of much worth.

6 years, got a raise once, when almost whole crew quit..

I think I got a raise two or three times in 20 years. Most real raises were new jobs.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#126

Post by edmcnulty101 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #124

There's nothing black swan in an inflationary environment that leads to hyperinflation, even if it's for a country with a reserve currency. Every empire hyperinflated itself in the past, people just ignore history and how returning to sound money is inevitable. The only black swan part is that now we have a better alternative to gold.

What happened to the countries that hyperinflated?

We're they able to get it under control historically?

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#127

Post by swiftcoder »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #55
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* employers are able to give 20-30% raise each year(which is pretty hard)* Can’t be that hard if an engineer can just walk out and get that. What do you think the replacement will cost? And with none of the knowledge.

25% raise over 20 years means 86 times increase in salary over a fresher. And no company could pay 5 million dollar or so for an average 20 years of experience. The entire industry hinges on the fact that a person would only change job 5-6 times in 20 years.

> And no company could pay 5 million dollar or so for an average 20 years of experience

Just how many 20 year experience engineers do you think the average company has?

I have a feeling you will find that the (very small number of) folks who have been at the same FAANG continuously for the past 20 years are indeed making compensation in that ballpark (we're talking Google's Senior Staff Engineer or Amazon's Distinguished Engineer level) - particularly if you take into account the massive stock price increases over that period.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#129

Post by xiphias2 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #126
xiphias2 wrote: post #124

There's nothing black swan in an inflationary environment that leads to hyperinflation, even if it's for a country with a reserve currency. Every empire hyperinflated itself in the past, people just ignore history and how returning to sound money is inevitable. The only black swan part is that now we have a better alternative to gold.

What happened to the countries that hyperinflated? We're they able to get it under control historically?

Quite often people fled with gold to other places, as the countries confiscated gold from people.

US was trusted to hold gold in the world wars, but of course Nixon renegged on the gold standard.

Right now people are starting to hold Bitcoin, and it's much harder to take away from them (flying out with a billion dollars of Bitcoin is trivial, as metal detectors won't catch you), so I'm optimistic that the transition will be more peaceful. Also Bitcoin adoption in US is highe than in other countries.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#130

Post by kubb »

freedom2099 wrote: post #58
swift532 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if I assume too much, but I think you'd be thinking quite differently if you had to consider buying your first home on the French riviera now, on something like a 60.000-100.000 euro pre-tax salary.

I just did (although not my first, that one I bought 10 years ago)… sold may old apartment (still in the French Riviera) and with my wife we bought a very nice house 100m from the sea! Mortgage interest rates are great at the moment… 0.9% ain’t bad!

"Why do you need money? Aren't you already rich like me?"
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