I got to thinking about this after reading an article someone linked on Facebook. The gist of the article is that the economy is starting to recover and many employers that have been treating their people like crap will soon start to see them get other opportunities and finally escape their daily hell.

In a previous job, even though I was a programmer, I was put through training with the Direct Marketing Association. While in that course, they talked about the comparative cost of acquiring versus retaining a customer. Cell phone companies will spend millions of dollars trying to bring in new customers, but if an existing one asks for some new feature or deal that's being offered, they're left in the cold. The only way to get a better deal is switch providers (or at least threaten to).

Employees are really no different. I'm hunting for a job right now. To hire me from a consulting agency will likely cost an amount similar to my first year's salary. Then there are the many weeks spent bringing me up to speed on how they do business, putting me through orientation, etc, which takes up not only my time (which I'm being paid for) but also the time of multiple other employees in a variety of departments.

The job I'm likely to take is with a company that's expanding, but I've applied with several where I'm replacing someone that departed. Presuming he/she was a "good apple" that just left for better pastures, how much cheaper would it have been for them to retain that person by awarding a 10% pay increase and a week of vacation?

Yet for some reason, companies can't seem to get the simple lesson that retention is far cheaper than acquisition. It's like an ego thing where it's better to crush what you have, if it means conquering something new.

Count your blessings that you're possessed of skills that make you in demand and in a field where brains and initiative are seen as positive rather than an annoyance. The level of disempowerment and micromanagement that's either new or (I suspect) that my old boss shielded us from that's coming down the pike at my job is pretty dispiriting.

Then again, I work in retail, where staff, even management, is not expendable, but disposable, and I think a lot of retailers would rather you left after a year or two (if not a shorter time) so they don't have to pay you more.

This seems to happen in every economic cycle, though. As things get more prosperous, jobs will get more pleasant again. It is strange how companies seem to feel the best way to motivate anyone below the executive level is to make them miserable, when actually, that's provably false.

It's not like it's all that hard, either. Pay people enough that they're not worried about their finances all the time, give them some leeway on how to get stuff done if they're producing, make reasonable rules and enforce them, and treat people with respect and dignity.

I think there's a general disconnect between upper-management and a field like IT where the IT folks get taken for granted. Management doesn't understand how much demand there is for good IT and are often surprised when they leave for a new, much higher paying position.

It's more basic than that. It is the whole reason we have aphorisms like "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". It is human nature to see what we have as "ours" and to never imagine we won't have it. It is also human nature to do desire what we don't have, i.e. "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Hence why cell phone companies just cannot fathom that people will leave (even though the clearly do) AND why they pursue customers they do not have with such vigor.

It explains why people cheat on their spouse while feeling upset when they themselves are cheated upon. It why employers take their employees for granted while head-hunting for new employees. It's also why employees will sometimes jump ship from perfectly good jobs, hoping to land on a great job.

It is a sad truth that being 'satisfied' is hard. It's not a culturally endorsed value. You are supposed to 'stay hungry' (watch almost any Rocky movie). Supposedly, if you lose your hunger, some other guy (gal) will take what you have away from you. But in reality, many often lose what they do have in the pursuit of what they do not.

Nor do they understand that even if you prepare for something there will be downtime and it will be inconvenient.

Nor do they get that just saying "It's part of the job" doesn't make me want to put up with your unending stream of bullshit. If it's part of the job, I'm going to go look for another job. That train of thought cost my last boss a huge chunk of their IT/Development staff because we just got sick of his crap.

I've been on both ends of this. The investment in training a new employee can be significant, but in the grand scheme of things, it really isn't that much for most jobs. At my place, those trainers are there whether training someone or not even if they are contract. hey will retrain current employees as well as new hires. On the other hand, most employees have a highly inflated sense of self worth. I always hear guys saying how screwed we will be if they leave, and we never are.

I do agree that it is nice to retain talent. Some jobs more than others. Many jobs however, you can have a qualified individual up to speed and productive fairly quickly. In unskilled jobs, it really doesn't hurt the bottom line that much when someone leaves. It might be a huge pain for the direct supervisor, but higher up where the decisions about compensation are made, it usually isn't even a blip in the radar. No matter how great you think you are, you are replaceable.

The market will let you know how valuable your skills are. We are still in a time of high unemployment and lots of overqualified candidates for even entry level jobs.

Having said that, I think that things are picking up and might swing away from the buyer's market we are now in. That's when these companies will need to offer better compensation to retain employees.

Nobody is irreplaceable, but that doesn't mean there aren't subjective levels of usefulness. A veteran employee that's internally motivated is worth more than a new employee that requires constant supervision. Whether that worth is enough to factor into aquire vs. retain is the difference between skilled or semi-skilled and "warm body" jobs.

There are longer-term effects that companies might have to deal with, like keeping relative salaries between coworkers the same. What if an entire group demands a 5% raise? It could be cheaper just to let one person go than to risk widespread salary escalation.

Very true, but that level of usefulness often doesn't translate to better number in the end. With most jobs, there is a certain amount of idle time. I can unload 120 engines an hour, but the line can't maintain that rate, it can only send 90 an hour for a while then it will drop down to 60 or 80 as the bottlenecks back up. A new worker might only be able to unload 60 an hour at first, then get up to 80 after a few weeks. When he is working half as fast as me, we may not be producing any more Engines having me hoisting than him. You may be able to do inventory in half the time of someone unfamiliar, but if that extra time doesn't translate into higher sales or the ability to let another employee go, it doesn't matter.

True, but even that's not always a direct thing; the efficiency might not matter for most of the year, but during peak times like the holidays, it can make a huge difference. That can ripple, too: a veteran bookseller can put books in hands way faster than a rookie, and that does translate into sales. However, if the product is still in boxes in the stockroom and not in the store's inventory, even the best bookseller can't sell much. It goes back to the old saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.