[Aurornis]

> say, sponsoring your employees' visits to conferences shows that you treat them well, care about their personal learning and growth, and inturn motivates them to look for synergies between their interests and work

As much as I’ve enjoyed employer-sponsored conferences in the past, I have to be honest that it seems like very few people are there to learn and come up with ways to help their employers.

It feels like an open secret that people go to conferences primarily for networking and finding other job opportunities to trade up to.

It’s actually a common recruiting strategy to go to conferences and find people looking to find new jobs.

[BurningFrog]

At one job I had in Sweden, conference trips abroad were a way to give engineers a reward that wasn't taxed at 60-80%.

I enjoyed my trips, but I learned very little.

[pdimitar]

What kinds of rewards were these that are not taxed?

[hiatus]

Business travel is not taxable for the employee.

[pdimitar]

Okay, but how is that a reward? Maybe I wrongfully assumed we were talking about a money / material reward here.

[darkwater]

If you consider going to a conference abroad like a mini-holiday with everything paid, and maybe even some fun activity, well, it can be seen as a reward.

[roncesvalles]

Many big tech companies treat business trips as rewards. Fly business, live in a nice-ish hotel, get meals and taxi comped. It's a little vacation.

One of my early managers (based in Asia) saw his annual two-week business trip to the Bay Area as one of the most valuable perks of the job. He even brought his family along a few times (he paid for their travel obviously, but they probably shared his hotel rooms).

[BurningFrog]

I got to spend a week in a nice hotel in an exciting foreign location with (by Swedish standards) fantastic weather for free.

Personally I also enjoyed some of the C++ talks, but I had no obligation to attend them.

[decimalenough]

Pretty much the only reason companies sponsor developer conferences is for the right to get a table on the floor, so they can recruit attendees.