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Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

chronicle.com

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Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#11

Post by mrxd »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

For the most part, bonding agreements ("you can't leave for X years without repaying us for your training") are considered exploitative and usually not legally enforceable. As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force - if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete. If an investment can't…

And yet it was the norm only a few decades ago. What's new is the emphasis on speed and flexibility. If you're starting a new initiative, it's better to hire skilled people now than to start a training program and get them 2 years from now. And if the new initiative fails, laying off people you've trained is throwing away the money you spent on their training.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#12

Post by nateabele »

> The trick is to relabel it as education, then complain that your prospective employees aren’t getting the right kind.

Well, I guess if already-educated workers are the norm in your industry, companies are going to change their hiring practices accordingly. It's okay not to like it, but arguing against it on the basis that 'it didn't used to be like this' just makes you look entitled and whiny.

> Bemoaning the unpreparedness of undergraduates isn’t new. Today, however, those complaints are getting a more sympathetic hearing from the policy makers who govern public higher education.

Yeah, well, when policy makers are responsible for all the cheap money flowing into the system (without which the system would probably collapse at this point), I guess that'll happen.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#13

Post by VLM »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

For the most part, bonding agreements ("you can't leave for X years without repaying us for your training") are considered exploitative and usually not legally enforceable. As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force - if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete. If an investment can't…

"if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete"

Doesn't this assume a lifestyle from several generations ago where you get "the training" then you're set for the rest of your working life? I don't think the real world has worked like that since at least the 70s.

If I took that $90K job I'd be OK while I'm there... thats what, on average just a couple years? Then I'd be dead in the water and have some explaining to do at the interview for the next $80K job that provides the entry level training I'd need. Why would any employer hire an untrained employee if there's a perfectly well trained employee from the $80K job? Meanwhile the guy who stayed at the $80K job likely got a promotion to $100K and here I am trying to get in at the ground floor yet again.

How this fits in with stereotypical OTJ training is a mystery. Most formal training is a way to shovel money to middlemen who provide it in an accelerated format for an extremely large fee. Most real world training is "here's a PC with a web browser and your bosses bosses boss declared the due date for the project is next month, now figure it out yourself".

Think of the last time you worked a project with a junk spec that has no relationship with reality. Those people who can't spec a fizzbuzz if their life depended on it are the ones specifying the required training. I wonder if that training spec will be worth the paper its printed on?

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#14

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

For the most part, bonding agreements ("you can't leave for X years without repaying us for your training") are considered exploitative and usually not legally enforceable. As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force - if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete. If an investment can't…

[deleted]

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#15

Post by mrbabbage »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

For the most part, bonding agreements ("you can't leave for X years without repaying us for your training") are considered exploitative and usually not legally enforceable. As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force - if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete. If an investment can't…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_handcuffs

How would training followed by a bonding period be considered differently than other mechanisms inducing employees to stay? Could these other mechanisms also be legally questionable?

E.g. some San Francisco Bay Area technology companies offer large (~$20k) signing bonuses to new uni graduate hires that the employee must return if she leaves within her first year at the company. Similarly, companies offer five-year equity packages that deliver no equity until the twelfth month.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#16

Post by yummyfajitas »

mrxd wrote: post #11
yummyfajitas wrote: post #8

For the most part, bonding agreements ("you can't leave for X years without repaying us for your training") are considered exploitative and usually not legally enforceable. As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force - if a business invests $20k in training and $80k in salary, there is nothing stopping another employer from offering $90k in salary after training is complete. If an investment can't…

And yet it was the norm only a few decades ago. What's new is the emphasis on speed and flexibility. If you're starting a new initiative, it's better to hire skilled people now than to start a training program and get them 2 years from now. And if the new initiative fails, laying off people you've trained is throwing away the money you spent on their training.

It's not just starting and stopping projects faster, it's also social norms about changing jobs. We have a much more liquid job market and this provides a lot more opportunities for folks to arb opportunities.

This is overall a good thing, but there are side effects.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#17

Post by pjungwir »

zrail wrote: post #2

The whole for-profit code school thing has been giving me the creeps since I started hearing about it years ago, precisely because it's the potential employees paying for hyper-specific training. I wonder if there would be fewer outcries about a talent shortage if companies were somehow incentivized to hire these more junior people with the explicit goal of training them up to a productive level.

Today's code schools may be new, but not code schools in general. Riding on the T in Boston 2000-2005 I saw plenty of advertisements for courses in Java, XML, etc. I always assumed those were low-quality classes for low-quality programmers. Nowadays the code schools teach Node.js and TDD, and their branding is more hip. I hope the quality has increased (of both instruction and students), but I still see it as a continuation of the training classes that have always been out there. Not the same people (I think), but the same market need.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#18

Post by laurentoget »

It seems expecting schools to do all the training your employees will ever need would not be a good bet from a business point of view either. If your employees have the exact same skills as the competition's employees how do you expect the business differentiate itself?

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#19

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #16
mrxd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it was the norm only a few decades ago. What's new is the emphasis on speed and flexibility. If you're starting a new initiative, it's better to hire skilled people now than to start a training program and get them 2 years from now. And if the new initiative fails, laying off people you've trained is throwing away the money you spent on their training.

It's not just starting and stopping projects faster, it's also social norms about changing jobs. We have a much more liquid job market and this provides a lot more opportunities for folks to arb opportunities. This is overall a good thing, but there are side effects.

[deleted]

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#20

Post by cgearhart »

nateabele wrote: post #12

> The trick is to relabel it as education, then complain that your prospective employees aren’t getting the right kind. Well, I guess if already-educated workers are the norm in your industry, companies are going to change their hiring practices accordingly. It's okay not to like it, but arguing against it on the basis that 'it didn't used to be like this' just makes you look entitled and whiny. > Bemoaning the unpre…

> ...if already-educated workers are the norm...

That's the point -- there's a difference between education and training. It is only an issue because so much of the education looks very similar to the desired training.

It is not the purpose of an education to produce new employees, but to provide a broad basis for experiencing and making sense of the world. It just so happens that you also learn transferrable skills like a basic familiarity with a particular field, along with some tools and techniques that help you organize and solve problems. A proper education is not an extended code bootcamp, nor should it be.

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