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Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

sloanreview.mit.edu

151–160 of 385 posts

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#152
this is tangential maybe - but some of these industries are dominated by unions and really skew the data. Airlines for instance. No one leaves an airline unless they're quite literally at wits end and willing to go start all over at the bottom of the pay scale somewhere else.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#153
Perhaps I’ve been unlucky but my experience at big tech has been marred by churn and burn culture - high pressure tactics to get the most work out of employees and discarding them when they inevitably burn out. Average tenure was 1-3 years. Amazon was particularly bad at this. The only modicum of power employees have is in quitting and now that they’re exercising it the employers are acting like their throats have been cut.

Edit: a story I like to tell people about what it’s like to deal with Big Co. is that I solo built a $50Mp.a. profit data science artifact in my first year. They offered me the highest once off bonus on offer $30K stretched over 6 years, no promotion (those were used to keep US citizens). I said, give me the same bonus as my manager for for ‘managing’ my project ~$150K in one year or I’ll quit. They said no so I quit. The artifact was extremely difficult to build and written in Scala, it took a lot out of me, no one understood it after I left. They rewrote it in Java which made it even harder to understand. It atrophied over 5 years and now it doesn’t even work at all. I’m in contact with my former colleagues and keep offering to fix it for 7 figures, but no dice. They’ve now convinced themselves it is impossible to do. That’s how committed they are to maintaining the status quo.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so, my pay should increase within 10 years of being employed more than six-fold (1.2^10). makes sense!

Seems reasonable enough for a fresh grad. For example 50k->300k. I doubt every engineer could prove to be so valuable in the end spectrum but might work for some companies. Of course if the company fired people the model would lose it's appeal, since you are leaving money on the table on the early spectrum but have no security to reach the end. Would you leave a company where you got a guaranteed 30% raise every year…

Getting a 30% raise yoy, is something even the most optimistic entrepreneur starting up out there would salivate at.

Even going from 50 -> 300k, is no easy joke. Its not even worth starting a company if you can make these kind of 6x increase in fortunes in years.

Imagine going to the stock market and claiming to have 30% return yoy.

I'd like to believe even at FAANGs these mad salaries aren't common. And I would be very wary of hiring anyone with a yearly jump trail on a resume, with a high salary. That resume is basically signalling the candidate does no work apart from hopping jobs. Hiring a non performer one has to replace in 10 months is a non starter.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#155
post #87

This article does accidentally capture one of the major corporate problems pretty well. The conclude from their data that Toxic Workplace Culture is the biggest cause of resignation, and then they immediately suggest 4 short term things to try that don't relate to culture at all . If you have a toxic workplace culture, the very first thing you should do is to start fixing your culture. This is very hard and not fast…

Most of the posts on here focus on wage/money and yours is one of the few that outright points out the toxic culture in companies. I think for too long the toxic workplace has been hidden behind laywer drafted agreements when employers leave and the rest of the workforce have been captive because they thought they might not get the same job with better conditions elsewhere. But a growing population means this is chan…

The idea that AI would be bad for the economy or society had the appearance of sensibility when we were stuck in secular stagnation with inflation refusing to get off the ground. It was possible to argue that demand just wasn't going to catch up fast enough.

Now, though, we have inflation. It's back: the bad news is inflation sucks, the good news is that the standard theory has something to say about this situation, and it's the Parable of the Broken Window. As long as demand keeps up, we can expect an increase in supply efficiency (automation) to improve wealth (roughly) across the board.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real issue is that changing the companies always gave bigger raise in pay than staying in the company for most of the folks. Most were not changing jobs due to multiple factors like relations, not having to change house, comfort, good office, free food etc. Now this all factors have reduced a lot that staying in current company is looking even worse option. So till employers are able to retain using other…

"Pretty hard" is an understatement. In ten years, somebody receiving a 30% raise each year sees their pay go up by a factor of nearly 14. Over a 30 year career it is a factor of 2600. Somebody starting at 50k would end their career making 130,000,000 annually.

Some people do actually end up at that kind of a multiple of their initial salary. It’s not that such growth is impossible it’s just really really uncommon and generally takes regularly changing roles.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#157

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

It's a myth that Americans are greedier than other people.

Few people want money for its own sake. Some people are competitive, they want to earn money for status reasons. Or they just want to advance their career and money is a follow-on from that. Other people want money so they can buy expensive things or live in a nice house. Others just want to support their family.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#158
post #107
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. I hope I don't come off as abrasive but I don't think you've had enough money if you think this is American or applicable only to a small subset of people. Greed has driven people forever, in different systems of government, from communism, to fascism and capitalism. Leaders have always had (or had access to) a ton of capital to influence and c…

I don’t really feel like I need to make charitable donations. That’s what taxes are for right? At least that’s something I like my goverment to take care of.

I assume you don't live in America.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#159
post #134

> Workers are 3.8 times more likely to leave Tesla than Ford I wonder how much of this is culture and how much is that Tesla employees are more likely to have gotten rich off their stock compensation in the past 2 years.

Does this data include factory-floor employees? Do they get stock?

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#160
post #122
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While it may seem that way a lead engineer has more actual ability to swing outcomes than an executive. I can save or loose my company millions in a month but my exec can’t even get us 1-2 people without 3 months of paperwork. He can’t allocate more than 5k in capital without months of review. And he works 60-80hrs a week requesting status. It’s a total joke that he Gets paid 3-4x what engineers do
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