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by majormajor 1741 days ago
> As soon as you leave your job, the demand to fill your position goes up. If you don't leave, the demand stays the same.

That sounds like poor accounting that's overly dismissive of the outside world. If it's going to cost $X to fill the position, why is the person currently in the position worth $X (ignoring for the moment that filling the position will also often actually add a bunch of one-time costs like recruiters/interview time/signing bonuses..., but potentially also be offset by unvested bonuses/stock/whatever that the departing employee is relinquishing).

If you are in charge of salaries, and you don't pay attention to the fact that you're paying $0.7X for someone that you'd have to spend $X to replace, you've put yourself in a weak position compared to the companies who are immediately willing to pay >$0.7X for that person. The demand has already gone up, you just weren't paying attention.

An employee is like a subscription, you pay on an ongoing basis. And they can quit on you any day. Paying an employee currently and in the past doesn't necessarily mean you have no demand for their services in the future - having someone in-house who'd be happy to continue working for you is basically the best-case scenario in a role that you still demand. Don't try to exploit it by hoping they don't notice they're being shortchanged...

Assuming a replacement of equal skill, the demand to keep the position filled is the same as the demand to backfill it, because either action results in the same number of people in the same role.

2 comments

Many companies don't just undervalue their current staff, they underestimate the market value and demand for that staff. My wife was in this situation, pushed for market analysis of her staff (mostly PMs) to take to management in an argument to give out raises. That analysis was some employees were underpaid by almost half the market rate. Management disagreed with the analysis. Within 2 years, the entire department was depopulated, having taken alternate job offers for considerably more money. The CFO couldn't grasp that people wouldn't just stay out of loyalty at 60% of what they could make elsewhere.
>>>An employee is like a subscription

This is the best description of Coasian Theory of the Firm I have heard in ages