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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

#51

Post by __z »

mrbabbage wrote: post #15
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…

Vesting options on your 401(k) are common. For example, my company does it like this:

First year - no company 401(k) contributions.

Second year - full 401(k) contributions but 25% vestment. That means you get the money in your account (and it compounds) but if you leave before you hit your third year you only get to ultimately keep 25% of the money they contributed.

Third year - 50% vested.

Fourth year - 75% vested.

fifth year - 100% vested. Money is all yours.

(I think vested is the right word, correct me if I'm wrong)

Also, I worked for a company (in a non-technical position) where they initially hired at a low rate. You learned your job as you went and each job milestone had a test (written and practical). Passing the test netted a large increase in salary. You could learn other jobs other than the one you were hired for and increase your salary even more. It was a great system.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#52

Post by brixon »

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…

Companies have to do stuff like this since employee loyalty was lost when companies started making layoffs commonplace.

Training from a company says that they have a vested interest in the person, but they don't. Companies don't care about you, they only care about the bottom line and do not have any interest in spending effort to teach you something you could use somewhere else.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#53

Post by learc83 »

The worst class I had in college was Software Engineering. It was the university's attempt to prepare us for the work force, and it was taught by an adjunct who had plenty of industry experience, but it was already a 10 years out of date.

Industry processes are mostly fads that change with wind. CS fundamentals however, are much more stable. 20 years from now knowledge of automta, graph theory, and complexity analysis will still have immense value--a scrum master certification won't.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#54

Post by notahacker »

VLM wrote: post #13
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 t…

If I've got a specific skill or qualification that's increased my market value to $90k, I'm not really sure why I'd be reduced to applying for entry level jobs and requiring training again in two years time?

And there's a huge spectrum of on the job training, from pointless classroom exercises to tick company compliance boxes to highly expensive professional qualifications that might pay for themselves in two years if the firm can hang onto the employee and bill for their time, but also make it much easier for the employee to get a better offer. It's the latter type that costs firms the most money as well as benefits candidates the most.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#55

Post by brixon »

learc83 wrote: post #53

The worst class I had in college was Software Engineering. It was the university's attempt to prepare us for the work force, and it was taught by an adjunct who had plenty of industry experience, but it was already a 10 years out of date. Industry processes are mostly fads that change with wind. CS fundamentals however, are much more stable. 20 years from now knowledge of automta, graph theory, and complexity analysi…

If college education is too specific to one company then you are locking yourself into that company and you will lose any leverage over salary or even leaving.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#56

Post by jackmaney »

__z wrote: post #51
mrbabbage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Vesting options on your 401(k) are common. For example, my company does it like this: First year - no company 401(k) contributions. Second year - full 401(k) contributions but 25% vestment. That means you get the money in your account (and it compounds) but if you leave before you hit your third year you only get to ultimately keep 25% of the money they contributed. Third year - 50% vested. Fourth year - 75% vested.…

No, "vested" is exactly the right word for this.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#57

Post by mseebach »

linkregister wrote: post #4
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.

My opinion is divided about the "pay-to-play" model of workers paying for their own training. On one hand, they assume all the risk and financial hardship of training. On the other hand, compared to other developed economies (British, Australian), they have more opportunities to change careers because the risk of training has already been assumed by the worker. I've found that American hiring is far more flexible tha…

> There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives.

Can you link to them? I'm trying to do due diligence on some of them, but haven't been able to find much at all of substance. I'm specifically interested in Maker's Academy in London.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#58

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

__z wrote: post #49
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…

It isn't about political correctness (this word has really lost its meaning lately) its about eliminating tools that companies use to illegally discriminate against a protected class. It depends on its intent and its effect. The company must demonstrate the job requirement that has a disparate impact is job-related and consistent with business needs. A strength test might have a disparate impact on women and those wi…

"Political correctness" has maintained its primary meaning over the years, which is an indication of terrible opinions coming from the user.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#59

Post by __z »

learc83 wrote: post #50
yummyfajitas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, we are unwilling to apply that same logic to traditional hiring processes. I.e., few companies have ever done a study (sufficient to win in court) to prove that their subjective human opinion-based tests do not have a disparate impact. Yet processes like this are somehow allowed. I.e., if my subjective human hiring technique is biased, you need to prove I discriminated on purpose. If my objective, IQ-based…

>Why this disparity? For the simple fact that we already have evidence that some protected classes perform worse on IQ tests. Therefore, simply by using an IQ test you are discriminating against a protected class. The burden is on you to prove that the discrimination is necessary. No one needs to prove that discrimination is happening because you are using a test that has already been show to be discriminatory. Inter…

>they have not been shown to be near universally discriminatory.

They actually have...

I am not going to get fully into it at the moment (but there's a ton of research on the topic) but we know that resumes that say Lakisha are significantly less likely to get a callback than a resume that says Karen.

Another example is blinding in orchestras. When the practice became the applicant played behind a curtain (so they judge didn't know what the applicant looked like) the number of women in orchestras increased.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#60

Post by linkregister »

mseebach wrote: post #57
linkregister wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is divided about the "pay-to-play" model of workers paying for their own training. On one hand, they assume all the risk and financial hardship of training. On the other hand, compared to other developed economies (British, Australian), they have more opportunities to change careers because the risk of training has already been assumed by the worker. I've found that American hiring is far more flexible tha…

> There are a high amount of horror stories we hear about them on HN, from both the students' and hiring managers' perspectives. Can you link to them? I'm trying to do due diligence on some of them, but haven't been able to find much at all of substance. I'm specifically interested in Maker's Academy in London.

Just going from what I remembered reading, here are the ones that stood out the most. Comments vary from supporters to detractors.

Ask HN threads I found interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7147664

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9616691

The one I really wanted to find, which accompanied an article about some students who felt scammed by their bootcamp, is eluding me right now. It was an interesting article about how the students were required to post misleading stories on social media that made the school look better than it was.

Edit: I found out why it was hard to find; it was taken down. Here's the link to the comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492381

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