The one major point in your latest comment I'd disagree with is that companies will never have a problem recruiting new talent regardless of what they did to previous employees. Here in the US, most employees check services like Glassdoor where employees and former employees rate company behavior; the companies with bad reputations suffer certain consequences. (Of course, some companies offer so much potential wealth that employees ignore the poor working conditions, but that doesn't mean people are unaware of those working conditions.) How do people in Australia learn more about what it's like to work at a potential employer?
If your company strategy can work with the vast majority of talent and where some job/company-specific learning is in play (which is the vast majority of companies), then you would naturally prefer an experienced employee to a rank novice. That gives some power advantage to the incumbent employee over a walk-in applicant.
If your company strategy can use nearly anyone and there is no significant learning on the job, then incumbent employees are competing on fairly equal ground with new applicants and it can become a race to the bottom, but it also requires the lowest amount of investment on the part of the employee.
Your job as a prospective employee is to understand what type of company you're considering joining, and to get yourself in the right place on that spectrum, where right is a function of your abilities, aspirations, and preferences. Some like the battle to be the very best. Some like the idea of a lifetime of learning and stable employment. Others prefer (or have thrust upon them) a job where not too much is demanded of them in terms of job-related learning and development.
In theory they have to offer permanent employment after a certain time, but there are lots of ways around that. I worked as a casual staff member at a university here for 8 years and they just shuffled me to a different department when I got close to that point. Didn't bother me as I was both working and studying there at the time but the "casualisation" of staff that want permanent roles is rampant.
The best way of handling this, I feel, is to only allow a percentage of any business to be casualised, unless special dispensation is granted. Also, there it should be financially more expensive to follow this tactic - this way those of fixed contracts get compensated for the risk of their employment ending, and employers have an incentive to employee more full time employees.
It's like squeezing a tube of toothpaste; squeeze in one place, and the laws of economics cause the paste to come out in another.
1. That doesn't necessarily follow. In any economy there will always be talent, but the issue here is that you refer to the "best" talent - surely such a scenario you give also implies that once you are no longer the best talent, although you were so at one point, you can be perceived as no longer so and this you can be replaced?
There will also always be those who strive hard but have average performance no matter what you do. I don't see how you cater for anyone other than a relatively small proportion of high achievers.
That said, I don't see that it's the case that companies will ever have a problem recruiting new talent despite what they did to previous employees. There is no way of new employees to know how a business treated previous employees till they work for them, unless they know someone inside the company already and that's rather unlikely in my view.
2. That's a worthwhile aim, I guess I think some of the viewpoints about corporate culture in general that you wrote in your comments seem hopelessly naive and would foster toxic work practices.
3. It works fine in other cultures. In Australia we have incredibly high employment, and unless you work for a small business employer you can only be fired for cause, otherwise you must he made redundant which means your role cannot be fulfilled for at least a year.
The consequences of this are that employees cannot be unjustly removed and that employers need to clearly document what they have done to help the employee correct and improve their performance.
A side effect was that bullying someone out of a job became a tactic for having them leave by lower and middle managers. We now have stringent legislation that enforces proper investigation of claims of bullying by HR departments. This now happens - because the legislation penalises directors if it is found the issue is not addressed satisfactorily. I have personally seen that this is working - in my last role the colleague who took over my job was bullied by a middle manager, so he put in a bullying complaint to HR, who were forced to act very quickly through mediation and the bullying almost immediately stopped. The one being bullied got on with his job and company productivity improved.
This would never have happened unless it was legislated for.
As for companies not hiring - they still hire workers, but tend to be careful I their screening process and the legislation allows for a probation period where the can let the employee go and don't have to give cause. This can't be longer than 6 months, but it can be negotiated downwards if they really want the employee.
It works really well. Australia's workplace relations laws are very strong, and whilst there is black market, off the books employment this is quite low and we have fairly effective detection and enforcement of such practices.
4. I haven't read your book. I'm thinking of purchasing it to read it so I can better understand your ideas, but so far I have made my comments based on your comments on HN. If I've unfairly characterised your views I obviously apologise, but the comments that formed my view are on HN.