Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

hrdive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 247 posts

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#101

Post by mind-blight »

giantg2 wrote: post #67
woeirua wrote: post #17

When people say they want career progression, and opportunities, what they mostly mean is they want more money. Unfortunately, most companies have fallen into the trap where if someone has a title of X they can only make up to Y, regardless of how good they are at their job or how long they've done it. When that happens then the name of the game is getting a promotion in order to keep making more money. That creates…

"most companies have fallen into the trap where if someone has a title of X they can only make up to Y," Eh, most of the people in the established pay range tend to be at the low or mid range, so the company likely has the ability to pay more. Once they're at the top of rhe range, that shouldn't be much of a problem either... but that assumes the range was created using good industry data. If so, then there shouldn't…

I think there's often better pay elsewhere because companies generally reactive towards employees rather than proactive. This is also reflected by the data showing lagging indicators.

When you factor in how much it costs to have a roll unfilled, hired a new person, then train them, then productively paying to retain your talent becomes a no-brainer

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#102

Post by fuzzzerd »

waboremo wrote: post #57
turtlebits wrote: post #36

Agreed - new hires always get the current market rate, which always higher than what existing employees are paid. Also on the flip side, if you've been in a role longer than say, 4 years, you should interview at other companies. You're probably getting underpaid. (Even if you've gotten a promotion). You don't have to jump ship, just see what's available.

Yes there are also additional studies on "boomerang workers" that fit this new(er) class of people. Ones who despite even liking their job and eventually coming back, seek employment elsewhere because they aren't getting what they should be or aren't fulfilling the role they see themselves fulfilling properly. That's how intensely underrated retention is for a lot of companies, and how costly it can be when retention…

I'm one of those boomerang employees. It was the best thing I ever did. Left on good terms, learned a ton of new stuff at a few other companies, and ultimately came back a much improved employee, despite being a high performing worker to begin with.

Didn't realize there was a name/term for it, but it makes a lot of sense.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#103

Post by _carbyau_ »

gsibble wrote: post #11
panny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But accounting and HR will time your bathroom breaks. I guess the watchers don't like being watched, which is why retention isn't a bother for them.

Ha. I had the CFO once call me angrily asking where I was......I was in the bathroom. She told me to get back to my desk. I took my time.

I had the CIO - and a bunch of HR people - ask me why I was turning up to work at 10am!

I was on the late shift, 10-6.

Turns out the early and mid shift people hadn't turned up so CIO and HR people were manning the Service Desk until I got in.

You'd think they would then appreciate the work done. But no one appreciates a good service desk it seems.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#104

Post by twawaaay »

woeirua wrote: post #97
twawaaay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people say they want career progression, and opportunities, what they mostly mean is they want more money. Nah, that has been proven to not be true (at least in most cases). What usually happens is a combination of various factors, money being one of them. And when money is part of it it usually psychologically functions as a proxy for whether your company/boss cares for you. Most people want confirmation of t…

We're talking about two different classes of workers here. The article specifically discusses call center workers.

I am not responding to the article but to one particular sentence you have included which I highlighted for your convenience.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#105

Post by maerF0x0 »

hayst4ck wrote: post #23

The hazard of retention is creating dependency. Dependency means, not just high bus factor, but opening yourself (the business) up to being vulnerable to another person's superior negotiation position. Then CEOs/boardmembers would have to spread their wealth rather than hoarding it all for themselves. Without a way to force CEO/boardmembers to spread their wealth (unions), I think we can expect companies to do what i…

This behavior is a self serving behavior that is in contradiction with maximizing shareholder value. Reliance upon a reliable person is can be very profitable for all involved.

Of course humans are apes in suits and will actually maximize their own personal interests regardless of what the laws or their job description says.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#106

Post by sahila »

twawaaay wrote: post #93
woeirua wrote: post #17

When people say they want career progression, and opportunities, what they mostly mean is they want more money. Unfortunately, most companies have fallen into the trap where if someone has a title of X they can only make up to Y, regardless of how good they are at their job or how long they've done it. When that happens then the name of the game is getting a promotion in order to keep making more money. That creates…

> When people say they want career progression, and opportunities, what they mostly mean is they want more money. Nah, that has been proven to not be true (at least in most cases). What usually happens is a combination of various factors, money being one of them. And when money is part of it it usually psychologically functions as a proxy for whether your company/boss cares for you. Most people want confirmation of t…

This depends entirely on your raises. This year I left a unicorn startup to join a faang and got 100%+ increase in pay. I would’ve been happy to stay if the company could beat it, but they wouldn’t budge past 20%. In fact, I went down in level/titles so arguably, I don't care about the respect nearly as much as I do about the pay difference.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#107

Post by [deleted] »

sahila wrote: post #106
twawaaay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people say they want career progression, and opportunities, what they mostly mean is they want more money. Nah, that has been proven to not be true (at least in most cases). What usually happens is a combination of various factors, money being one of them. And when money is part of it it usually psychologically functions as a proxy for whether your company/boss cares for you. Most people want confirmation of t…

This depends entirely on your raises. This year I left a unicorn startup to join a faang and got 100%+ increase in pay. I would’ve been happy to stay if the company could beat it, but they wouldn’t budge past 20%. In fact, I went down in level/titles so arguably, I don't care about the respect nearly as much as I do about the pay difference.

[deleted]

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#108

Post by s1artibartfast »

luckylion wrote: post #77
endisneigh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier said then done. Firstly it requires for you to know what you’re doing is both a key project and something in which paying more would be more likely to result in its completion.

Is it though? I've never worked as an actual employee, but I'm working in long-time contracts as a freelancer with companies. I've always found it pretty easy to tell who was carrying a project and who was dead weight. Might be different and harder to calculate for new projects, but for existing ones that are maintained, observing who gets asked when weird things happen and who solves the strange issues usually ident…

Managers responsible for promoting usually aren't in the trenches and getting honest feedback is actually hard.

When asking people about the performance of their peers, you usually get equally positive feedback unless folks are fucking up.

You have a good point though. Perhaps managers shouldn't be asking for feedback on specific individuals, but ask individuals who they go to for help and mentoring.

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#109

Post by badlucklottery »

wisnoskij wrote: post #88
woeirua wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because they would prefer to keep running on the neverending promotion treadmill? I think a LOT of engineers would rather stay engineers if they could keep getting reasonable raises. The problem is that almost all companies make it impossible to keep getting raises past a certain point _without_ getting promoted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Come on now. That seems like an intellectually dishonest example.

Do you really think anyone is proposing the pay growth of a janitor should be so high they're getting CEO rates?

Re: Employers should prioritize retention over hiring, study suggests

#110

Post by sokoloff »

jonny_eh wrote: post #60
mr_toad wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay your people well if they're doing a good job Comparing peoples performance objectively in a large organisation is essentially impossible. Only the people working closely with someone really have any idea, and even then they only see part of the picture.

> Only the people working closely with someone really have any idea And are accused of bias when trying to get raises for their team.

OTOH, I can’t tell you the number of mid (or even poorly) performing teams whose lead tells me that everyone on the team is well above average. (I guess logically that I can only conclude that it’s a team leadership problem causing the under-performance...)
Post reply on HN