1. Management realizes they have a captive workforce, and uses that to accelerate schedules, by working the employees harder
2. Management also realizes it doesn't need to pay bonuses for the same "bad market" reasons.
3. When the market recovers, and top talent flees en masse, management will call emergency sessions to discuss how to "stop the haemorrhaging", and try to understand why people are leaving.
I once worked at a place where they paid the backend people $35K. The going rate at competitors was $80K. Unfortunately, it was a bad market, and the competitors weren't hiring.
As the market recovered, the entire backend team picked up and moved. We had three competitors literally within a city block (finance industry).
Our management freaked out, and held an emergency session to discussion the issue of employee retention. They'd lost 28 employees in three months, it was panic time. Did anyone have an idea, ANY idea, how they could retain backend people?
Fifty hands went up.
"Oh, before starting, we have to mention that increased compensation is not an option. Okay, let's start with the first per-"
Fifty hands went back down.
Yup, it was truly a head scratching mystery as to why people were leaving.
The next steps, which I've seen happen, are:
1. Management realizes they have a captive workforce, and uses that to accelerate schedules, by working the employees harder
2. Management also realizes it doesn't need to pay bonuses for the same "bad market" reasons.
3. When the market recovers, and top talent flees en masse, management will call emergency sessions to discuss how to "stop the haemorrhaging", and try to understand why people are leaving.
I once worked at a place where they paid the backend people $35K. The going rate at competitors was $80K. Unfortunately, it was a bad market, and the competitors weren't hiring.
As the market recovered, the entire backend team picked up and moved. We had three competitors literally within a city block (finance industry).
Our management freaked out, and held an emergency session to discussion the issue of employee retention. They'd lost 28 employees in three months, it was panic time. Did anyone have an idea, ANY idea, how they could retain backend people?
Fifty hands went up.
"Oh, before starting, we have to mention that increased compensation is not an option. Okay, let's start with the first per-"
Fifty hands went back down.
Yup, it was truly a head scratching mystery as to why people were leaving.
Indeed