OT - Required Listing of Salary Ranges on Job Postings

[Johnson85]

In the hospital industry with COVID it was VERY eye opening in this regard because of suddenly how much they were paying travel nurses. Well over 100 dollars an hour in some cases. Basically it showed us that they could be paying us a LOT more. Really hurt relations with all employees who had been loyal to the company for years and years. A lot of health care professionals went into travel positions for that reason and no one could blame them.

I'm not a nurse but if I had the opportunity to work my ass of for a year or two and make 300K+ for a couple of year it would absolutely be worth it because I could easily take a year off.

That's not correct. Most hospitals were losing money on travel nurses and/or having MEMA (or whoever in other states) pay for them.

That said, travel nurses were a thing before COVID and outside of places with huge seasonal swings because they are a touristy spot or whatever other reason, it does indicate some inefficiency. Even if the differential is not that much once you account for benefits, you're still having to pay enough to cover the more expensive costs of temporary lodging, so something doesn't make sense.

[Johnson85]

The problem with this is that 90% of employees think they?re the ones producing ?twice as much?. The reality is that about 75% of employees pretty much suck. If someone ever says they would work harder if they got paid what they were worth, the truth is that they?re already overpaid.

If everybody has to comply with this, then it would just force companies to give more direct and honest feedback. Companies are generally scared to death of employees finding out that they are paid less because they are shitty employees. A lot of that is reasonable fear of litigation, but some of it is just not wanting to have difficult conversations. I have lost count of the number of times I've had to deal with a "problem" employee and it comes to me and their performance reviews don't adequately explain what they need to do to improve. Tons of times it's just "meets expectations" when the supervisor clearly things they are slightly below expectations and the employee thinks that "meets expectations" is a really good rating. Yes, the employees usually could benefit from some more self awareness, but there's no excuse for not just telling them where they stand.

[Lord McBuckethead]

I like it because of that exact reason. Let's say you want a manager that would be responsible for managing 12 other employee's efforts. You want to spend 75k a year on this position. There are other more bad ass managers out there, and they want 120k, which is above your range you are willing to go for. Without a listed salary level, that 120k guy may apply. If you list 50-75k for the position, you are telling the workforce pool of potential employees that is the range you want to pay and you will receive applications to people understanding that is the pay range to start. It saves everyone time.

Now, that doesn't mean someone can't come in and still apply and try to negotiate higher than your listed range. That is up to them. At that point, you can clearly state, nope the range is 50-75k. No hard feelings because you told them that from the get go.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Well that is capitalism at its finest. Free to not take the shot mandate. Lose your job. Know you have the hospital over the barrel, earn twice as much (kind of) as the original position, doing the same job.

I say kind of because that isn't reality. They have to now pay their own payroll taxes and that cuts deep.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Nah, the truth is that 90%+ of workers are vastly underpaid. That's where corporate profits come from.

It's always amazing (not at all amazing) how companies with competition for employees suddenly find their employees are worth so much more.

That is not where corporate profits come from. Corporate profits come from this equation, Cost of Labor + Cost of Materials + Overhead + Desired Profit = Price // (Price - Cost) X number of units sold = total profit.

Underpaid workers keeps the overall price down, which in turn sells more units, which makes more overall total profit. Price of labor does nothing, excepts changes the Price for the widget produced.

[somebodyshotmypaw]

I like it because of that exact reason. Let's say you want a manager that would be responsible for managing 12 other employee's efforts. You want to spend 75k a year on this position. There are other more bad ass managers out there, and they want 120k, which is above your range you are willing to go for. Without a listed salary level, that 120k guy may apply. If you list 50-75k for the position, you are telling the workforce pool of potential employees that is the range you want to pay and you will receive applications to people understanding that is the pay range to start. It saves everyone time.

Now, that doesn't mean someone can't come in and still apply and try to negotiate higher than your listed range. That is up to them. At that point, you can clearly state, nope the range is 50-75k. No hard feelings because you told them that from the get go.

That is the problem though. I want the 120K guy to apply. Because even though I had 50-75 in mind, once I see the 120K guy I might choose him because he's worth it. Like MSU looking for a head coach. If I list 3-5 million, I don't want to exclude Nick Saban from applying. Because if Nick sends me a resume wanting 10 million I might pay it. But if Sly Croom sends in a resume, I might only pay $150,000

[BoomBoom]

That is not where corporate profits come from. Corporate profits come from this equation, Cost of Labor + Cost of Materials + Overhead + Desired Profit = Price // (Price - Cost) X number of units sold = total profit.

Underpaid workers keeps the overall price down, which in turn sells more units, which makes more overall total profit. Price of labor does nothing, excepts changes the Price for the widget produced.

Great, now tell how much each of those variables a company has control over.

And you're kinda arguing with yourself there, btw.

[BoomBoom]

That is the problem though. I want the 120K guy to apply. Because even though I had 50-75 in mind, once I see the 120K guy I might choose him because he's worth it. Like MSU looking for a head coach. If I list 3-5 million, I don't want to exclude Nick Saban from applying. Because if Nick sends me a resume wanting 10 million I might pay it. But if Sly Croom sends in a resume, I might only pay $150,000

Then list it at two levels, with higher pay available for the higher level. That's what companies are already doing. I don't know why you're so crotchety about it.

[Lord McBuckethead]

That would be two separate job listings. That is the problem. Right now, vague job descriptions with zero salary range. Wasting everyone's time.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Company has control over 3 of the 4. Labor Cost, Overhead, and Desired Profit/unit.
They also control the cost, to a point. The market ultimately controls the cost, but it doesn't absolutely control it.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Why do you get to go fishing with job prospects?

[PMDawg]

Nah, the truth is that 90%+ of workers are vastly underpaid. That's where corporate profits come from.

It's always amazing (not at all amazing) how companies with competition for employees suddenly find their employees are worth so much more.

LOL. No, that's not true at all. Generally speaking, about 20% of the workers do around 80% of the work. It's the 80/20 rule. So, maybe I overstated when I said 90%. Maybe it's more like 80% of workers suck. But, that 80% is usually the loudest about wanting more pay. It's pretty easy to recognize your 20% and take care of them. And of course supply and demand will always play a role. If you can get the same worker for $80k or $120k, why would you pay $120k? Oh, the worker will be happier? No, they won't. They'll be happy for about 6 months, and then they'll want more. Everyone wants the system to be broken, because they want to scrap the system and replace it with something "more fair". The system isn't really broken though.

I'm off topic. I don't really care about the job listings thing. I've never interviewed for a job where I didn't feel like I had a good grasp on what the position might pay. If I ever felt underpaid, I worked to remedy it. I don't know, it's never felt really complicated to me. Not when I was a grunt, not when I was middle management, and not now.

[BoomBoom]

That would be two separate job listings. That is the problem. Right now, vague job descriptions with zero salary range. Wasting everyone's time.

I see job listings all the time recently for multiple levels, with respective typical salary ranges.

[BoomBoom]

Company has control over 3 of the 4. Labor Cost, Overhead, and Desired Profit/unit.
They also control the cost, to a point. The market ultimately controls the cost, but it doesn't absolutely control it.

Kinda hard to control overhead. I mean, yeah they can cut benefits I guess (and have been,but that's kinda labor cost), but taxes are taxes, beauracracy is beauracracy, etc. Not like you can just not tell the state they're owed more and save 10-50% on your overhead. Probably easier to control real estate costs etc I guess. But overhead is typically a much smaller portion of costs than labor, so much harder to drive profit from it.

Desired profit isn't really a thing, at least as relevant to this discussion. It's a part of price, yeah, but it's basically the same thing as profit.

[BoomBoom]

LOL. No, that's not true at all. Generally speaking, about 20% of the workers do around 80% of the work. It's the 80/20 rule. So, maybe I overstated when I said 90%. Maybe it's more like 80% of workers suck. But, that 80% is usually the loudest about wanting more pay. It's pretty easy to recognize your 20% and take care of them. And of course supply and demand will always play a role. If you can get the same worker for $80k or $120k, why would you pay $120k? Oh, the worker will be happier? No, they won't. They'll be happy for about 6 months, and then they'll want more. Everyone wants the system to be broken, because they want to scrap the system and replace it with something "more fair". The system isn't really broken though.

I'm off topic. I don't really care about the job listings thing. I've never interviewed for a job where I didn't feel like I had a good grasp on what the position might pay. If I ever felt underpaid, I worked to remedy it. I don't know, it's never felt really complicated to me. Not when I was a grunt, not when I was middle management, and not now.

80/20 rule definitely. But that 80 is still doing that 20. 20%ers are hard to find, and harder to hold. Which means the 80%ers still have value. And they're typically underpaid for it. You're basically arguing that the Aaron Judges of the world were underpaid back in the day, but the 80%ers of MLB weren't.

You don't see so many people suddenly changing jobs like we have if the system isn't broken.

[Lord McBuckethead]

The point of the entire thread was to discuss the ramifications for job seekers and the impact it has on workers with time already under their belt.

This policy is good that people can have more tangible idea of what the company is looking for and it goes a ways to not waste someone?s time.

The negative impact is when market forces businesses to hire folks in above the pay rate of existing equal positions. Which then leads people to job hop.

[Todd4State]

That's not correct. Most hospitals were losing money on travel nurses and/or having MEMA (or whoever in other states) pay for them.

That said, travel nurses were a thing before COVID and outside of places with huge seasonal swings because they are a touristy spot or whatever other reason, it does indicate some inefficiency. Even if the differential is not that much once you account for benefits, you're still having to pay enough to cover the more expensive costs of temporary lodging, so something doesn't make sense.

That may be true but as an employee if you're paying someone 300K and you're paying me 100K then that gives me the perception that I'm worth 300K and that you're willing to and have the ability to pay it.

[Johnson85]

That may be true but as an employee if you're paying someone 300K and you're paying me 100K then that gives me the perception that I'm worth 300K and that you're willing to and have the ability to pay it.

No doubt it's a huge morale issue. And some of it is based in reality. Again, if you're not seasonal and you are regularly using travel nurses, that means you are basically using travel nurses for price discrimination to fill out that last 5% or whatever of your nursing staff that you can't fill with your regular wages. The "market clearing price" or whatever you want to call it would be 15% higher, but you can use the fact that most nurses don't want to work on short term contracts and have to live in temporary housing and relocate every so many months to keep everybody from trying to do it.

But some of it is not based in reality. Pre-Covid when the differentials weren't as crazy, a big chunk of the differential would be explained by the fact that the hospital wasn't paying the employer side of FICA, unemployment, etc. and also didn't have to provide benefits. What was left was still a nice differential, but when you look at paying exhorbitant short term rent prices or living in a travel trailer and either way, not living in a place that is as nice as a home and away from family, the differential wasn't such a sweet deal.

[BoomBoom]

The point of the entire thread was to discuss the ramifications for job seekers and the impact it has on workers with time already under their belt.

This policy is good that people can have more tangible idea of what the company is looking for and it goes a ways to not waste someone?s time.

The negative impact is when market forces businesses to hire folks in above the pay rate of existing equal positions. Which then leads people to job hop.

Why would that be a negative?

[BoomBoom]

No doubt it's a huge morale issue. And some of it is based in reality. Again, if you're not seasonal and you are regularly using travel nurses, that means you are basically using travel nurses for price discrimination to fill out that last 5% or whatever of your nursing staff that you can't fill with your regular wages. The "market clearing price" or whatever you want to call it would be 15% higher, but you can use the fact that most nurses don't want to work on short term contracts and have to live in temporary housing and relocate every so many months to keep everybody from trying to do it.

But some of it is not based in reality. Pre-Covid when the differentials weren't as crazy, a big chunk of the differential would be explained by the fact that the hospital wasn't paying the employer side of FICA, unemployment, etc. and also didn't have to provide benefits. What was left was still a nice differential, but when you look at paying exhorbitant short term rent prices or living in a travel trailer and either way, not living in a place that is as nice as a home and away from family, the differential wasn't such a sweet deal.

I mean, you can cast chicken bones around to try to gleam a reason.....or accept that they underpay as much as they can get away with, for profit. But cons don't want to admit that, case then it's harder to justify tax breaks for the capital underpaying its workers. So we get bad faith arguments that reality isn't reality. Ivermectin.