Comment by lazypenguin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazypenguin | Hacker News Reader

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I used to work for a private company that had a market cap in the billions of dollars and is the dominant monopoly in their field. I left that job in September. Here are things they could have done to make me stay (only would have needed one):

- Increase paid vacation from 3 weeks to 6+ weeks

- Increase base salary to match offers I was receiving at other companies

- Reduce work week from 40 hours to 32 hours

- Hire people more experienced than me so I can learn from them and keep growing

- Fire the toxic team member on our team who, despite being junior to me in experience and ability level, was at risk of becoming my manager on a long enough timeline simply because he had been at the company longer than me

However, none of these were offered to me when I announced I would be leaving. I was leaving to move to my own company so I was open to being convinced to stay but there was never a serious attempt. Instead everyone during my exit lamented how hard it is to hire people right now. I had a good team and the company is pretty decent but HR was seriously lacking when it came to managing developers.

You said you weren't offered any of these, but did you tell your boss that you'd have stayed if any of your conditions had been met?

I think the broader point is that the onus should not be on the employee but on the employer. The employer should be ahead of the employee anticipating needs and reacting to broader market trends. Even if the company isn’t seeing significant levels of attrition yet, they should be extra attentive and provide incentives to stay before the employee has decided to leave. By then, it’s usually too little too late.

> The employer should be ahead of the employee anticipating needs and reacting to broader market trends.

In the case of the parent comment, be ahead of the employee how?

"Good news, Steve. We're giving you a $50,000/year raise but you'll be working 32 hours a week instead of 40. We're giving you 2 months of paid vacation next year instead of 3 weeks. We're hiring 5 new people with more experience than you, who will be responsible for mentoring you and helping you grow, as well as a personal comedian, who can keep you entertained when you're feeling down."

Effectively, yes, this.

Just as businesses are expected to monitor and react to competitors that are after their customers. They should also have processes in place to react to competitors for their staff.

> ...react to competitors...

In this case, there were no competitors. The parent poster indicated that he was leaving to start his own thing. Nobody was offering him a high-paying job where he would work only 32 hours a week, have 6+ weeks of paid vacation annually and generally be treated like the company's most valuable asset.

While I wish the parent poster the best, he's far more likely to discover that running his own business will require him to work more, not less, and at least initially, is likely to provide him with lower net pay and benefits.

Unless you're an absolute rockstar, you have to be realistic, even in this market.

He didn't say he needed to be offered all of that, just at least one of the items.

I've hired and fired, both in management roles and for my own business. The problem with the parent poster's incentives, even if he was willing to accept just one, is that they're not thoughtful and consistent.

On one hand, the parent poster would be open to the company firing another employee he doesn't like or hiring more people who could help him grow, but on the other hand, he's open to working part time or taking off on vacation for a month and a half or more each year. If I was his manager, I would be genuinely confused about whether a person like this wanted to be more or less invested in his work at the company. And that's never a good thing to have an employer be confused about.

By all means, ask for a raise. Express a desire for greater opportunities to learn and grow. Raise concerns about situations you're uncomfortable with. But seriously thinking that you might command full-time pay and benefits for part-time hours? That's a huge red flag.

The parent poster basically admitted he already had one foot out the door. Given that it doesn't sound like his employer fought to convince him to stay, I'm guessing that his employer either sensed this or that he wasn't as valuable to his employer as he thought it was.

Gp asked for more pay OR fewer hours, so either way it's just an increase in hourly rate, potentially to exactly the same figure.

Coming from a country where we have saner annual leave norms than the usa, the above rhetoric about "wanting fewer hours" equating to "lack of commitment" conjures up visions of stuffy bankers from Mary Poppins.

> Gp asked for more pay OR fewer hours, so either way it's just an increase in hourly rate, potentially to exactly the same figure.

For an employer, there's a huge difference between paying a full-time employee more money and having a full-time employee become a part-time employee for the same pay.

This poster's comment was especially telling in that, on one hand, he talked about his employer making a greater investment in him (by hiring people he could learn from and firing another employee he didn't like) but on the other hand he talked about providing his employer with less than full-time hours, which basically represents a reduction in his investment in his employer.

> ...the above rhetoric about "wanting fewer hours" equating to "lack of commitment" conjures up visions of stuffy bankers from Mary Poppins.

I'm all for a healthy work schedule (I don't even like the phrase "work-life balance"). That's why I eventually left the rat race and started my own thing.

But it's not like the parent poster was talking about going from full-time plus (like 50-60+ hours/week to 40 hours). Again, he was talking about going from the minimum hours associated with full-time work (40) to a part-time job. Even beyond the fact that that his employer might not believe he can do the job he was hired to do satisfactorily as a part-time employee, for a lot of employers, there can be a variety of factors that make it more attractive to find a full-time replacement than try to hire part-timers.

I have a full time contract in the UK, it's 35 hours (and 45 days holiday though admittedly that's on the lucky side - I rarely use all of it). Not 100% sure but in France I believe the standard is 32? Which is what GP asked for.

(edit: France has legislated 35 as full time - overtime must be paid for hours >35. They are currently considering revising this to 32).

edit2:

I get your argument from the employer's point of view, I just don't think it stacks up psychologically, because I've previously been in the position myself of wanting more pay or fewer hours AND knowing I was still committed to that job (I could evidence this by saying I stuck to it a long time after that discussion despite only minor improvements in pay). Sure, some individuals might be conflicted if presenting those goals but you'd have to assess that on your knowledge of the individual rather than pure game theory.

Even if you insist on a pure game theory perspective GP's ultimatum makes sense, though - it sought to address an imbalance in investment by saying either invest more in me or allow me to invest less in you.

> (edit: France has legislated 35 as full time - overtime must be paid for hours >35. They are currently considering revising this to 32).

That's great. The parent poster should consider moving to France, where, I understand, there are far fewer tech jobs that pay near what can be earned at large tech firms in the US. I'd be willing to bet money that trade will not result in 25% fewer hours for the same US pay.

> Even if you insist on a pure game theory perspective GP's ultimatum makes sense, though - it sought to address an imbalance in investment by saying either invest more in me or allow me to invest less in you.

Given that the parent poster apparently didn't even submit his ultimatum to his employer, and his employer apparently didn't fight to keep him...

Even in this very difficult environment, most of the people in my network who are hiring in tech/digital media companies are remaining very selective about who they hire. Yes, it sucks to not have the desired staffing levels, but it sucks more to hire the wrong people or keep people who are toxic or ask for way more than they're realistically worth on the mistaken assumption that just because there's a labor shortage, they can demand anything.

All of your replies sound like the same desperate defenses I see crappy managers make over and over. Just blame the employees.

Contrary to what plenty of people seem to think, companies are not always (or even often) efficient and managers do not always (or even often) operate with logic. Just because a company doesn't fight to keep an employee doesn't mean the employee is dogshit. Last team I left had over 50% turnover before I put in my resignation. No one gave me an exit interview or asked why I was leaving. I had no demands because nothing could have made me stay, but they didn't know that. It should be common sense at that point to ask questions. If your team has people leaving in droves, there's a problem. It's not just coincidence. And while companies not making more of an effort to retain employees over hiring new ones may be anecdotal, as the OP explained, I've yet to see anyone offer much in the way of evidence to the contrary.

the crappy manager posting blamed everything on the leaving employee calling him not thoughtful, unimportant and uncommited and attributed the lack of exit interview to the coroprate super power of remote sensing. Laser vision so sharp there is no need to ask anything.

These are all great indicators that one should leave asap. The value you produce doesnt rub off on your value as an employee.

Lmao the butt hurt manager making a throwaway to blame employees in reply to a comment about how managers/companies blame employees without introspection. You really showed me

> The parent poster should consider moving to France

Not really my point [1], which is this: do you consider all French (with the exception of those who do overtime) uncommitted to their jobs?

[1] that response does serve to reinforce the Mary Poppins banker image, though ;-)

Companies who want to keep staff need to proactively work this out rather than wait for employees to make demands, or you end up only with employees prepared to make demands. Not everyone is emotionally or culturally comfortable with that. It is a management problem. Thankfully many companies are tackling the issue because diversity, as one of the numerous reasons there are things like gender pay gaps is that people in many less privileged social groups are uncomfortable or unwilling to make demands of their employer.

Plenty of companies also only accept the demand when you have already gotten the demand satisfied elsewhere.

Because the demands being satisfied elsewhere is proof that those demands are the minimum required to keep the employee - after all, what a company wants to pay is the minimum viable pay for the worker to work.

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