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Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

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Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#31

Post by cgearhart »

__z wrote: post #27
yummyfajitas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much of the liquidy is caused by changing social norms among workers and workers taking advantage of better work opportunities and how much is caused by an unstable job market(with unions losing power) caused by CEOs? Mass layoffs were not always a "thing." They are traumatic to those who get layed off and those who witness layoffs of their friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors without getting layed off them…

I think it has as much to do with a corporate shift away from pensions and other considerations for long-term employees. For my entire professional career I've been warned that there is no one else looking out for me but me. There will be no pension when I retire, and no social security, I'm told. So I have to maximize what I earn and what I save now in order to survive later.

Is it any wonder then that my generation has absolutely no sense of loyalty to their employer and show a pathological willingness to jump at almost anything that pays more or has better growth potential?

What benefit is there to an employee that would encourage them to stay with one employer? (To be fair...I've been with my employer for about 10 years, so YMMV.)

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#32

Post by cousin_it »

dragonwriter wrote: post #26
paulpauper wrote: post #22

One possible solution is cognitive screening - the use of tests such as the Wonderlic, SAT/ACT, or Wechsler to find prospective employees who can learn quickly and have good critical thinking skills (and thus would benefit the most from on-site training for technical tasks. training obviously costs money), but unfortunately something called 'disparate impact' makes this difficult to implement, so employers instead ha…

> The 'logic' is if the tests expose a reality that isn't politically correct, we must do away with the test Untrue. The logic is if there is a disparate impact against a legally-protected class, such that the test would be a convenient cover for illegal discrimination, and you allow discrimination using the test without demonstration of relevance, it becomes an easy, obvious, and effective tool for those looking for…

I'm not sure why employers must prove the relevance of IQ tests but not work sample tests, given that the former are better predictors of job success (Hunter & Schmidt 1998).

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#33

Post by jackmaney »

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.

Then that business will have to pay better.

You want me to stick around? Fuck you, pay me[1] (or give me some other reason that is compelling--to me, not to you--to stay).

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#34

Post by thirdtruck »

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.

And nothing stops the first business from raising the employee's pay to $91k. Why should they expect to keep paying the same salary to someone they've made more valuable? They already amortized the costs of training over the value added by the employee in the first year, right?

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#35

Post by normloman »

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.

People change jobs more because nowadays, it's the only way they can get a raise. This is also the fault of employers. The middle class hasn't gotten a raise in years, while executive bonuses continue to rise. Pay people more, and you'll retain them longer.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#36

Post by s73v3r »

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…

That's not true at all. Business doesn't want to have to actually compete for it's employees, that's it.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#37

Post by walterbell »

cgearhart wrote: post #25
walterbell wrote: post #5

The Uber robotics talent raid of CMU took piratization to a logical extreme, http://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/ube... "They took all the guys that were working on vehicle autonomy — basically whole groups, whole teams of developers, commercialization specialists, all the guys that find grants and who were bringing the intellectual property," recalls a person who was there during the departures"…

I think this is a better example of dysfunction in academia than retaining/training a workforce. In particular, previous articles suggest that most folks saw their salaries doubled , with six-figure incentive checks to lure them away. From what I hear, it's not so much that the new salary is unusually high for industry researchers and engineers, but that the old salaries were unusually low (except in academia). CMU c…

Historically, university researchers doing fundamental research with mass-market industrial applications have been spun out into a company, so that both the university and the researchers have an upside opportunity for founding equity stakes.

A signing bonus or normalized salary is in an entirely different (smaller) class of compensation, especially since there was already an international track record of investment into the commercialization of self-driving vehicles.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#38

Post by yummyfajitas »

thirdtruck wrote: post #34
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. And nothing stops the first business from raising the employee's pay to $91k. Why should they expect to keep paying the same salary to someone they've made more valuable? They already amortized the costs of training over the value added by the employee in the…

Then the total cost to the first business for this employee is $111k. The cost to the second business (who provides no training) is $92k to beat the first company's offer. It's a losing proposition to provide training - you get the same labor at a higher cost.

In contrast, if you simply pay $100k to trained employees, and employees can pay for training out of pocket, you preserve the cost structure (big caveat: I'm ignoring taxes) but without the risk of losing your investment.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#39

Post by wavefunction »

walterbell wrote: post #5

The Uber robotics talent raid of CMU took piratization to a logical extreme, http://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/ube... "They took all the guys that were working on vehicle autonomy — basically whole groups, whole teams of developers, commercialization specialists, all the guys that find grants and who were bringing the intellectual property," recalls a person who was there during the departures"…

Perhaps this can serve as a cautionary tale to the public about the perils of private-public partnering. Especially when the "partnership" is so slanted in favor of the "private" side of things that such a situation can occur.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#40

Post by dragonwriter »

cousin_it wrote: post #32
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 'logic' is if the tests expose a reality that isn't politically correct, we must do away with the test Untrue. The logic is if there is a disparate impact against a legally-protected class, such that the test would be a convenient cover for illegal discrimination, and you allow discrimination using the test without demonstration of relevance, it becomes an easy, obvious, and effective tool for those looking for…

I'm not sure why employers must prove the relevance of IQ tests but not work sample tests, given that the former are better predictors of job success (Hunter & Schmidt 1998).

> I'm not sure why employers must prove the relevance of IQ tests but not work sample tests

If challenged in court, and if the work sample test is shown to have a disparate impact such that its use would be illegal discrimination if it were not tailored to the job, they do have to show this for work sample tests. Your premise is simply false.

(OTOH, the disparate impact of IQ tests is more readily established by a plaintiff since there are numerous, readily available studies. So the work of establishing the threshold issue which requires the employer to prove relevance has largely been done by the plaintiff for IQ tests.)

> given that the former are better predictors of job success

The legal standard addresses the specific job for which hiring is being done, not a generic job. Interestingly, your source indicates that the types of jobs where IQ test challenges have notably occurred are those where the test is least relevant per the source you cite (unskilled/semiskilled jobs).

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