Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less

Sure, you learn the most in your first 6 months by quantity but that doesn't mean you learn the most valuable things. You won't learn anything of depth in half a year.

The conclusion of the article- that the easiest way to ensure you secure large raises every few years is to job hop, is probably true. But I think it takes a very defeatist attitude towards negotiating raises with present employers:

"In 2014, the average employee is going to earn less than a 1% raise and there is very little that we can do to change management’s decision. "

Most good managers know that it costs much more to find a new employee than to retain an experienced one- it takes a lot of time and effort to find a suitable candidate, and then to train them. I believe that given an opportunity, they'd rather pay up a larger raise than originally budgeted, to keep a good performer, than to have to find a replacement. But this rarely happens.

Why? I blame poor communication and avoidance. Most employees are loath to negotiate with their employers, and they're usually not very good at it when they do. Negotiating is hard- it can be scary, uncomfortable and awkward to "demand" hire pay from your manager. It's easier to just think "there's nothing I can do to change their minds, so I'll just have to go find a new job elsewhere". That path allows you to avoid negotiating and still be offered a 10%-20% raise.

What would happen if, before any employee decided to leave for a new job, they met with their manager to discuss the situation? And really thoroughly discuss it- meaning a well prepared case for a solid raise: An outline of the employees successes during the year, details of how they've contributed to the company's bottom line (even in a tangential way), hard stats on what the current job market pays for a someone with their experience, and a soft/gentle reminder of the costs of finding/training a replacement. All done in a calm and professional way.

Would every single manager just hand them a 20% raise and an apology? No. But managers are business minded, and are usually evaluated based on the costs and revenues associated with their team. I'd like to think that given a convincing argument like the one above, a good number of them would respond logically and offer larger, more reasonable raises.

Ideally a high performing employee shouldn't have to do that- management should recognize their contributions and the costs of find a replacement. But that's not reality. Pushing for a 10-20% raise for employees at the annual budget meeting would be met with responses that a manager is prematurely trying to solve a problem that hasn't yet presented itself.

So I believe the best solution is for employees to have those difficult negotiation meetings before they decide to jump ship. It won't work every time, but it'd work more than not having those discussions at all.

HR but mostly due to computing being still a young trade and with that unlike many other long estabilished trade they are far more protected and clearer qualifications/rewards. Take construction, a contract builder for example in the UK can pay a couple of hundred pound to cover there National Insurance TAX and that's it for the year, no matter what they earn. IT contractors will not only not have access to a equivalent system but now on many contracts get classed by the TAX laws under a law just for them called IR35 that they pay a vastly higher rate without any flat rate option.

But when many trades can do one recognised exam and that's it and IT those exams change every year and so do the ones you need with there being no single acknowledged qualification that carries with time. Well you can see how as an industry it is a nightmare when you compare it towards other trades.

Put it another way, people will happily pay almost half the cost of the car to have it fixed and the time and parts all get paid for at a rate the garage and part makers all do well.

Have a problem with a PC and the true cost in time and effort to fix it can if properly paid for outstrip the total cost of a PC. Yes there is much waiting but the distractions etc do eat more time on an install than if truly costed would not be as cheap. Hence shops will do this in batch's and automate as much as possible, but still. Often easier to reinstall than clear out and de-virus some users PC and they treat you as if you built it and wrote the operating system and thing everything is a 5 second quick fix as computers are fast.

But as for HR, well they are in many companies a liability regarding IT staff. Personally had an interview were I had two interviews, one IT manager recruiting and tech geek and the other with HR. HR interview was first and she (mostly women in HR, some gender imbalance their that gets ignored unlike other trades) said, your bit too young for the type of money your asking for and was very belitterling in attitude.

Had tech interview, wiped the floor and was offered more than I was asking for, turned it down as no way was I going to expose myself to such an HR department like that. But sadly seen many unsuitable people in HR regarding IT staff and it is as you say an issue more than people truly admit. How else do you explain rejections for being over-qualified -- those are most of the time HR filtering and you never even make the tech managers desk, though not like the manager is technical these-days either.

Everyone has their "jump ship" price

Most organizations don't need the top 20% talent to solve their problems to make a profit.