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PaperclipPerfector  22d ago (text post)   26722 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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Good on you for training them. Seriously. I don't think anyone's actually said it yet.

Perhaps sitting down with them and discussing how the training is likely to affect their salaries, and asking them as a matter of honour to see out a year with the company would work better than just implicitly expecting them to. But so many companies expect employees to magically appear, fully formed and massively overqualified, and would rather hire for months than actually try to help somebody improve.

As a matter of honor? You're basically admitting that the training will make them more valuable, but that you're not going to pay them any more. Especially since it sounds like these people already work there and aren't new hires; it's not like they can skip the training and continue doing their old jobs. At least the way things are now they might not know how much more they can make and stay out of inertia.

This is a solved problem anyways: Multi-year contracts. If you think someone is worth training up, tell them so, give them a modest pay boost and a 3 year deal with a significant buyout.

Yes, that seems fair. “We are going to train you in a way that should give you a shot at senior admin position in many major companies. In return, we ask but don’t demand that you give us a year before looking for a new job.”

I would call that honest, fair dealing. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better than “ they might not know how much more they can make and stay out of inertia”. I need to write something on this at some point but it seems like American society always chooses a maximally adversarial way of dealing with people who have opposing interests. To some extent also true of other Anglo countries but to a less exaggerated degree.

It's exactly as fair as an employee saying to their boss, "I've just got a new mortgage so I would ask that you don't consider dismissing me for the next 12 months."

I think you’re being sarcastic but I agree as written. I would expect a well-run company to be quietly aware of its employees’ circumstances and aware that firing the young father-of-two comes with consequences that firing his footloose colleague doesn’t.

This is the kind of thing that @coffee_enjoyer talks about all the time. Carefully set-up adversarial processes work sometimes but they aren’t actually a substitute for a virtuous population that takes honour and obligations seriously for their own sake. Instead they’re often a doom loop that shreds trust and willingness to cooperate on both sides.

'Quietly aware' is how it has to be though on both sides. Once you come out and ask (for an employee to stay on a year, or for a boss to protect you), you are bringing the unsaid into the open in a way that feels like asking for something that can't be given outside of a contract.

But so many companies expect employees to magically appear, fully formed and massively overqualified, and would rather hire for months than actually try to help somebody improve.

I'm under the impression that this isn't even confined to tech.

Its not. I know a law firm that has had the same job posting for a specific lawyer/phd combo that has been open long enough that they could have send 2 lawyers with appropriate undergrads through a Ph.D program consecutively.

Would you be willing to share what the PhD field is?

Its some sort of pharmaceutical chemistry thing.

Do they specifically need the PHD? Like I don't know details but unless they're expecting the Lawyers to have done novel research into pharmaceuticals that feels like overkill to acquaint themselves with the industry.

It makes little sense to me. But I know they have turned down multiple people with chemical engineering, chemistry, and microbiology undergrads and otherwise pristine qualifications.

Are you sure it's a real position and not one of those "ghost job listings" I keep hearing about? If it had been a shorter amount of time, I'd assume they'd just written it to target one specific person as a formality, but if it's been posted for a while, then it certainly can't be that.

I don't know the partners unfortunately, so I can't ask. But they are spending $100+ a year to keep it posted on some law bulletins and association websites. Although maybe that is just like a netflix subscription you forgot to cancel. It isn't really a big expense in the scheme of things.

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