Hacker News Reader

Comment by warmcat | Hacker News Reader

How Can Companies Improve Their Retention and Hiring? Answer is simple, Pay the people appropriate salaries and remove micromanagers to improve conditions.

View on HN

Actual raises would help. In every software dev job I've had, every significant pay increase has come from either switching employers or threatening to switch employers.

I think most HR departments are hoping people can't do math, and as such, raises should be expressed in after-inflation-and-taxation values. If we force credit-cards and car loans to use a standard annual easy to understand APR format, why not enforce simplicity on our incomes too.

I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase. I'm happy I'm employed and all, but lets stop pretending I got a "raise".

> I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase.

My last raise was actually a decrease when compared with inflation. I took on the responsibilities of a dev that left and a lead that didn't lead.

I asked for a raise and they gave me what they said, "Was the best we could do."

I left and got a 40% raise somewhere else, and started a mass exodus once others knew how much I got offered.

I'm pretty sure that company now outsources all development aside from a couple people who stayed to start their career. They were already beginning to outsource development jobs, and we could all see the glass ceiling that was installed on top of our heads, despite being told it didn't exist.

I wonder if instead of asking for a higher raise, if there is better luck asking for a promotion. A promotion can typically be justified as getting an additional 10 - 15% bump in pay on top of the last merit increase, and can happen at any time of the year. Technically you are leaving one role and getting hired into a new one, but at the same company.

This is exactly what I've been telling some friends who've been at the same jobs for the past 5 years getting 3% standard raises. They don't even take into account the inflation (which itself may be underestimated). I always tell them they're actually losing money every year by staying at those particular jobs.

This is exactly what frustrates me so badly, with yearly performance evaluations. I was working at Sony for 3~ years. I would receive "Exceeded Expectations" as the evaluation, and raise matching the inflation :D, then they expect you to show gratitude and appreciation :D

It is almost an insult at intellect of anyone working at a knowledge work.

So, I switched to consultancy instead. No longer, annual performance review bullshit. My hourly rate is so high, they don't waste my hours with such crap anymore. That has been my new motto for career "If they're filling your time with crap, you're being underpaid for your time". Make them think twice for using your time.

It's going to be even worse now. I can tell already.

I live in a low wage area. Most of you would be embarrassed to know what I'm paid (glass door says bottom 10%). Now that remote work has open up my job market to the entire country, recruiters are reaching out to me and when I ask for double my salary, they say okay without hesitation.

There's 0% chance of me getting a 100% raise at my current role. My last one was 2%.

Ask for triple then. You want them to hesitate.

The best I've seen is having a salary range for each grade level. At a large company I worked at during the late 90's to mid 2000's, I was hired in as an "E5". Raises above and beyond cost of living increases would be based on exceeding performance goals for that grade level. You would then move up in that grade level's range (which gets adjusted every year based on inflation). That in turn would be an indicator of those that need a promotion into the next grade level / salary range (and the promotion pay increase is independent of the cost of living / merit increase). In my case I went from an E5 up through and E7, then the company outsourced us (was a re-badging, all employees affected were hired by the outsourcer).

From what I remember this company had something like 20 different E levels, going all the way up to what would cover the C levels. And each job category had specifics that were required to move into a given level. For example an E5 would be basic systems administration, E6 would include scripting/programming, something like an E8 would include architecture type roles.

It really surprises me that more companies don't do this. Really helps with transparency, and when you hire someone you pick which grade level they get initially placed in (so there could be a group of job reqs that cover multiple grade ranges, and the new-hire gets slotted based on how they interviewed).

If there were more companies where you could work 3-days a week with 60% pay without requiring any special approval, I'm sure they would improve retention and attract a lot of candidates. It seems like this would work well with the move towards part-time remote setups that many companies are trying out now. FAANG companies pay their employees very well but their average tenure per employee is still very low.

I wouldn't mind the micromanaging if I was payed double

Not that you are wrong but still LOL. The only place JIRA slaves would go from micro management to nano management or some such.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com