Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Made To Wait: Compensation
This is a great article on compensating young employees who're looking for "growth". A halfway decent developer, if he's not too busy blogging, will probably double his productivity for the first 3 years of employment at a company (assuming he stays). This is because if they're keeping up with what's going on in the industry and not just doing what they're told, they're creating value without you having to train them. And that skillset is highly portable.
And of course, the experience and know-how he has of the internal mechanics of your company is something you can't get from the pool of job applicants. Its something he takes with him.
So having shitty raises for the people in the "trenches" is a really dumb idea. I know that once you get a reputation of having "shitty raises", anyone that knows anyone at the company that's applying for a job is going to tack on a premium to their base salary. Its fact.
So to recap, read the article. And having a system where "busting your hump" gets you a 4% raise, and doing nothing gets you a 3% raise, and you have a system that's going to be gamed so that people do nothing. And then, what're you really paying for?
And of course, the experience and know-how he has of the internal mechanics of your company is something you can't get from the pool of job applicants. Its something he takes with him.
So having shitty raises for the people in the "trenches" is a really dumb idea. I know that once you get a reputation of having "shitty raises", anyone that knows anyone at the company that's applying for a job is going to tack on a premium to their base salary. Its fact.
So to recap, read the article. And having a system where "busting your hump" gets you a 4% raise, and doing nothing gets you a 3% raise, and you have a system that's going to be gamed so that people do nothing. And then, what're you really paying for?
Labels: corporate culture, money, personal, raises, ramblings, today's generation, Web Development
