[vsareto]

>The trust that’s given to employees will be returned tenfold–or even hundredfold. Everyone wins.

I must be a mercenary because that still reads to me as "we can do these things instead of paying you more". In fact, there is no mention of where their compensation falls, so it would be especially rude to do all of these things and then underpay your employees.

[ethanbond]

I mean we know that compensation isn't the primary factor for most people's happiness and satisfaction in their professional life. Put mercenary in and get mercenary out if you want, but for most people that's not the optimal strategy.

[linguae]

This has been my strategy. I would rather be paid less working for a lower-stress company that treats my colleagues and me well than to get paid a higher salary working in a stressful, less respectful environment.

With that said, I’m paying for this decision with inflation outpacing annual merit increases at work, which means my effective pay is getting reduced as the prices of everything else rise around me. I still rent an apartment; I got repeatedly outbid in 2021 when I attempted to buy a home, and then the interest rate hikes of 2022 and 2023 completely priced me out of the market. I’m still living fine, but this inflationary environment is highly demoralizing.

[bumby]

Ironically, there is evidence that money is still the primary driver of job selection (above meaningful work), based on the assumption that money will make them more happy.

https://giesbusiness.illinois.edu/news/2023/10/23/paper--hig...

[AlotOfReading]

I'm not sure that motivation follows from the preference. Money is an extremely good proxy for all sorts of desirable job attributes like respect, better working environments, and social status.

[bumby]

I would tend to agree, in part because of hedonic adaptation. I suspect the impact on happiness from more money is relatively less enduring.

[ethanbond]

Yep, people tend to have different (even contradictory and self-defeating) preferences over different time horizons. Many such cases.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I mean we know that compensation isn't the primary factor for most people's happiness and satisfaction in their professional life.

It isn't, but housing is, and housing costs money, a lot of money in the last few years.

[bumby]

Is there data showing that housing is the primary driver? I vaguely remember Sebastian Junger's book Tribe describing how people in low socio-economic community housing generally were happier than more well-off people in individual housing. I think his thesis was modern life, with suburban living, tends to disconnect us from community. From that perspective, it would seem like community is more of a primary driver than housing.

[FirmwareBurner]

There are also communities of well off people. In Europe. Not every well off person lives alone in a huge ranch 500km away from the nearest town.

[bumby]

I wasn't making a dichotomous claim about wealth. I was pointing out that housing may not be the primary driving of well-being. It's easier to illustrate with an example where lower income people report being happier, despite having less resources for good housing. Similarly, we could point out to poor people who are isolated and unhappy but that also misses the point.

Back to the original ask, I would be curious if there's data that shows housing as a primary driver of well-being, above those other elements.

[FirmwareBurner]

Well, self reported happiness is all relative. Someone who has two goats in a town of no goats will be very happy while someone owning a small apartment in a town of McMansions will feel very unhappy.

[vsareto]

My guess is they aren't seeing how much they're going to need for retirement (maybe it's much cheaper in Finland than the US), or have not thought about it, or have accepted/decided that they will work for more of their lives.

[KeepFlying]

I'm more curious if people are able to find another equivalent job if they leave. 10% turnover is a lot less impressive if you're the only game in town.

Can we trust the turnover rate or is something else keeping it down?

[gav]

I've worked with a few companies where a significant portion of the staff have been there a long time--the sort of place where you join after high school and stay until retirement and the "new guy" has been there over a decade.

One CEO told me their secret to employee retention:

1. Compensate people a little better than you need to

2. Promote internally

3. Be one of the few employers in town so that 1 and 2 compound

[hutzlibu]

"we can do these things instead of paying you more"

In short, yes and it makes sense. If a company treats you as shit, the compensation needs to be higher. If they treat you as a human and you know they don't screw you whenevery they have the chance - at least I rather work for such a company even with lower compensation. But for sure, every employer would like to have more money and also better work conditions ...

[HillRat]

In general, salaries are “hygiene factors” for retention — you lose people by underpaying, but you don’t in most cases improve retention by overpaying. There’s an interesting wrinkle in Finland in that income tax payer data are considered public records, so if you wanted to benchmark your salary you could simply request applicable data from Verohallintm, so theoretically — a very big “theoretically” it must be said — that should work against companies paying below-industry comp.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

Hm. Why is this "theoretically"? I live in Finland and wouldn't mind requesting this data. It couldn't be more than a few days' crunching numbers to figure this out.

[HillRat]

“Theoretically” only in the sense that most people won’t do it (since the data isn’t easily available, and you’d need to figure out who you were benchmarking against before requesting it), so the practical effect may be negligible.

[BobaFloutist]

What percentage of the population do you think would equally not mind submitting a formal governmental records request followed by a few days crunching numbers?

[paulcole]

If a company does all those things and the employees are happy to keep working there, how can anyone argue that they're under compensated?

Pay is part of compensation and compensation includes what going to work feels like.

If I'm at a reasonable level of pay I'll absolutely optimize for work that feels enjoyable vs. wringing out a few more dollars. And my definition of reasonable is quite low (intentionally because I live as cheaply as is possible in the US with a chronic illness).

[hnthrowaway0315]

Pay is just part of the story. I'm so frustrated with the current company that I'm willing to cut my TC to transfer to something I'm happier with.

[jandrese]

Your point of view is sad but understandable. Companies that show no loyalty deserve no loyalty, and that's pretty much all medium and large businesses today.

[vsareto]

The biggest looming factor is that many jobs in the US are at-will employment, so while people can have good intentions and share those with you, the person or company can turn around and fire you for almost any reason. There's no penalty for going back on their word.

Finland has something different than that though and it sounds like it's harder to fire people.