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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

#61

Post by learc83 »

__z wrote: post #59
learc83 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ju…

I'm with you on this, but there are differences.

Subjective interview based hiring across all companies has been show to be discriminatory towards protected classes. But that's different than showing a specific company's hiring process is discriminative.

If company A uses IQ test X, and IQ test X has been shown to be discriminatory, then you can say definitively that the hiring process of company A is discriminatory.

If company B uses hiring process Y, and you can show that hiring process Y is discriminatory in 50% of the companies that use it, you can't make a definitive conclusion about company B in the same way you can company A.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#62

Post by notahacker »

bicknergseng wrote: post #43
yummyfajitas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> if you simply pay $100k to trained employees Assuming 1) you can find trained employees, and 2) they are willing to work for $100k. If the value of the trained employee is $111k, then why would they work for $100k except for ignorance of their value? This is my big problem with STEM shortage parrots and with labor as a market in general: ideal candidates are rare, and, in general, willingness to spend more or train…

Their market value probably isn't $111k, hence their existing employer being unwilling to match competitors' salary offering for a trained member of staff and pick up the tab for the training.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#63

Post by ghaff »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #41
cgearhart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The shift away from pensions is caused mainly by laws (e.g. ERISA) requiring companies to properly account for them. Defined benefit pensions are both extremely expensive and very risky, but companies were allowed to hide these losses and risks off the balance sheets in the past. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/15/sorry-folks...

And, as the author of the piece says, if you did have an overstuffed pension fund that caused problems too both with the IRS and because of LBOs.

Of course, a lot of benefits choices are driven by laws/accounting rules/taxes. Ideally companies want to give benefits that cost them less (however they look at cost) than their value to the employee. Once that balance flips, that benefit makes a lot less sense.

That said, a benefit structure that assumes long-term employment with a single company doesn't make a lot of sense for most people or most companies today. (Though I'm probably unusual among this readership is that I actually will have a modest pension from a past employer.)

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#64

Post by verbin217 »

mindslight wrote: post #45
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…

Your argument rests on an assumption that an employee produces nothing of value while learning. If they are performing useful work while learning, then the salary paid to them isn't being wasted. How true this is depends on the field and subject matter, but surely any entity will tend to see their own specifics as basic things anyone should already know even though the field is actually much larger.

The investment could produce a net gain, even in the immediate, and there would still be a problem. Leaking value into the competitive environment in which you're trying to survive will kill you. As alluded to by the GP, training as compensation produces employees that are worth more to competitors. Once trained, an employee experiences a loss in pay equal to the cost of their training. This Effectively subsidizes their departure.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#65

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

For a mathematician you sure like fallacious arguments.

As a result, a business can't pay to train it's own work force

Well, they could offer more pay after the training is completed, or focus on being a nice place to work such that employees would choose to stay put with a company that treated them well. Your argument rests on the implicit assumption that employees will leave the moment they receive a competitive offer and are only interested in maximizing the take-home pay aspect of their economic advantage. Employees are motivated by a combination of monetary compensation, benefits, and good will towards a firm in the same way that a firm is valued by both its book assets and its good will in the marketplace. You assume, without foundation, that employee loyalty towards an employer that provides training will be nil, and ignores the possibility that employees might look forward to receiving future training (and promotions) which would have significant economic value, whereas a firm that poaches employees and offers no training of its own presumably won't be offering any in future either.

If an investment can't be protected it's pointless to make it. Having employees pay for (and be compensated for) their own training is the most reasonable workaround.

You could equally argue that it's pointless for employees to run up debt buying expensive an education which an employer might then say doesn't quite meet their requirements and therefore shouldn't be rewarded by additional compensation. Considering the non-dischargability of student loans in bankruptcy and the financial weakness of employees relative to employers when it comes to negotiating prices for training/education, I would say it's rather irrational for employees to take on all the financial risk involved.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#66

Post by bduerst »

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…

I guess it depends on the purpose of the education. If you're already getting the CS fundamentals, maybe it doesn't hurt to get up to speed on some of the industry fads at the moment, since most of the students could be looking for an industry job in two-three years.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#67

Post by __z »

learc83 wrote: post #61
__z wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ju…

I'm with you on this, but there are differences. Subjective interview based hiring across all companies has been show to be discriminatory towards protected classes. But that's different than showing a specific company's hiring process is discriminative. If company A uses IQ test X, and IQ test X has been shown to be discriminatory, then you can say definitively that the hiring process of company A is discriminatory.…

Yea, I agree, thanks for clarifying.

There is a huge difference is explicit bias (give applicants an IQ test even though we'll weed out the blacks or even to weed out the blacks) and subconscious bias - which is an incredibly complex problem.

Most companies are trying to eliminate (unintended) bias in the hiring process.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#68

Post by mariodiana »

__z wrote: post #29
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…

Yeah, I heard about companies who pay for college - as long as you stay one year after your last class. If not you have to pay them back. Actually, just pay back just the tuition you spent in the last year.

Seeing as Army ROTC will want 4 years, it sounds like a great deal.

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#69

Post by meatysnapper »

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"…

Football coaches are often the highest paid employees at big schools. If I was a world class researcher, I'd be pissed as hell about that.

That said, Uber pretty much showed that they are unable to be trusted (if anybody trusts them at all still).

Re: Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force

#70

Post by anigbrowl »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #41
cgearhart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The shift away from pensions is caused mainly by laws (e.g. ERISA) requiring companies to properly account for them. Defined benefit pensions are both extremely expensive and very risky, but companies were allowed to hide these losses and risks off the balance sheets in the past. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/15/sorry-folks...

But most employers in the developed world shifted to defined contribution benefits ages ago. I was part of that first generation of workers to be told that my pension was going to be a moveable feast and not something that I could have specific expectations about, and that was back in the early 90s. Defined benefits pensions are indeed still expensive for companies and local governments that owe them to older workers, but they've been moving away from taking on such obligations for a long time now.
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