Employers will do almost anything to find workers except pay them more

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by whack on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:44AM (#17506772)

Expecting public companies to do anything except optimize for shareholder value, is pure folly. We can debate morality all day, but there's a more practical reason for this: shareholders hold all the power over management. Regardless of how unhappy you as a customer/employee are, you do not have the direct power to fire the directors/executives. You only have the indirect power of pressuring the shareholders, and hoping they will pass it along.

Hence why CEOs and Board of Directors will optimize for shareholders interests above customers/employees/society. Because if they don't, they will get fired and get replaced with someone else who does. This is textbook Evolution and Natural Selection.

If we aren't happy with the way corporations are paying their employees, the solution has to come from outside the corporations. Demand that your government increase the minimum wage, increase the capital gains tax rates, raise tax rates for the 0.1%, and use the proceeds to fund basic income or a better social safety net. he private sector does a great job of generating wealth, but don't ever expect it to distribute it fairly.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by lordxenu on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:32AM (#17507225)

I agree with you, however it's not easy to force government to act in the common people's interests either. You can say voting, but it's getting harder and harder to find any honest representatives to do work in good faith.

Take this example, the people voted that DC tipped workers should get a higher minimum wage, but now it's being repealed by the DC city council:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-council-...

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:27AM (#17507649)

It isn't that simple. A company that does "good things" for their employees can in turn reap results from those "good things". Better employees, or employees that stay long enough to have experience both have a value that returns back to shareholders.

Of course how much so spend on those "good things" is an optimization problem.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by whack on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @06:34PM (#17510789)

> Better employees, or employees that stay long enough to have experience both have a value that returns back to shareholders.

You're making the argument that companies should be nicer to their employees, because that is in the best interests of their shareholders. The linked article is implying that companies should be nicer to their employees, despite the best interests of their shareholders. These are 2 completely orthogonal arguments. The first is a moral argument, whereas the second is a business-tactics argument.

Since you brought it up, I certainly agree with the business-tactics argument to some extent. Companies like Google have certainly done well for their shareholders, by keeping their employees happy. But then again, companies like Walmart have shown that in some markets, employee happiness is barely correlated with shareholder returns.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Thursday July 12, 2018 @01:07PM (#17516581)

Actually WalMart is very concerned about employee happiness. The things they do about it are very different from other industries, but they results are employees that are generally happy. Of course outsiders look at it and wonder how their employees can be happy.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by whack on Thursday July 12, 2018 @04:06PM (#17518173)

From what I've read, Costco is extremely generous with how much they pay their (retail) employees, whereas Walmart doesn't even try to compete with Costco wrt (retail) employee happiness and satisfaction.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Thursday July 12, 2018 @04:50PM (#17518476)

Whoa, you are trying to compare WalMart to Costco. They are different companies with different concerns.

WalMart is concerned about employee happiness and satisfaction. The actions they take are not the actions that other companies take. Their employees are happy enough with the results for WalMart to be satisfied with them. That others do different things (which may or may not achieve different results) is not important to WalMart. What is important is their return on investment, they have determined that more investment wouldn't be worth it.

Of course as outsiders we can look on WalMart and make value judgements. I wouldn't want to work there. I wouldn't want to work for Costcot either. YMMV.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by rjkennedy98 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:31AM (#17507213)

Raising wages however should increase shareholder value by helping them lure better talent in a competitive market. It only proves that corporate America is an oligopoly.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by scroot on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:16AM (#17507080)

Time to also reconsider different kinds of corporations, specifically those that are wholly owned and operated by the people who work for them.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by tjr225 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:39AM (#17507282)

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to work for one.

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by scroot on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @05:11PM (#17510308)

Do you? If so, which?

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jimbofisher1 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:16AM (#17507564)

Coops, I'm not familiar with any in the IT space, care to share?

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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by scroot on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @05:10PM (#17510307)

I'm not really familiar with any either. I'm convinced it could work well though. Especially if it starts as a consultancy and then moves into building things.

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