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Comment by gedrap | Hacker News Reader

That's absolutely true. Giving a person who has proved his/her value the 15% pay raise they want or something similar is so much cheaper than letting them go, hiring someone new, training them, and hoping they will work out.

Unfortunately, in many larger companies (with hundreds of employees), there are so many layers of managerial bullshit that prevent that. People who actually know the employee who wants to leave (direct managers) often don't have power to decide the salary etc, and people who have that power are at the other end of company and they are not concerned about the productivity, etc., just making spreadsheets green.

I know a large company, where pay raises are almost non existent, and it's normal for employees to leave in 6-12 months. Needless to say, the productivity there is pretty bad.

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but statistics shows that this person will likely leave anyway, the 15% provides only very short term relief from the real reasons why someone wanted to leave in the first place.

if I see someone in this position who works for me, I immediately start looking for their replacement.

Alternatively, you could try to address the things that make them want to leave instead of writing them off as misanthropes?

Once my living expenses went up and a 15% raise would've absolutely kept me with the company if I'd been given it when I asked, because it was the difference between making ends meet and not. I left the company because I had no other choice when I found a higher paying position.

In every other position, it's been cultural. If you can't make your employees happy with money, maybe you should think about your management style, your communication with said employees, and the culture as a whole.

That's a solid point. I agree with you when it comes to small pay raises - usually the pay is not the problem, if the person is leaving for extra 15% or so.

>>> very short term relief from the real reasons

Unless the real reason is that the employee believes that he is being strongly underpaid. I'd define strongly underpaid as a situation, when an employee is certain that he could get (or already got) multiple job offers with 20%+ higher compensation.

Because at the end of the day, vast majority of people work to earn money. Some employers try to make you feel that you are changing the world and what not, trying to say that it's not all about money, but well, it largely is about money. Some jobs are enjoyable where compensation is not extremely important (meaning that an employee would leave only for a significantly better deal), but I'd say that it's a rather rear case.

At the end of the day, it's a free market. We all have a price tag :)

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