Comments by "looseycanon" (@looseycanon) on "A Life After Layoff"
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Things need to change the other way around. Let me tell you, this refuse at all cost bullshit was here even before Covid! So, you're wrong on that one. No, what needs to happen, is, unemployment benefits need to be set at actual individual costs of living for each person, must be automatically granted to anyone not working and, at the end of the year, corporations need to be made to pay, for what had been paid in the year prior. Basically the game must change from "chose whom you want." to "You can chose to hire them, you can chose not to. Either way, you'll pay for them!". At which point, the companies will restart hiring, because that way, they'll get at least something out of it.
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I actually understand a bit the position of finance... I am an accountant. I handle huge amounts of money on a daily basis. Money, that is not mine and that I am responsible for, if something bad happens. Now I have a bit of interest in computer networking and can tell you. Home networks are not safe. There's a whole lot of poorly configured devices on these networks as well as IoT devices with poor security and the networks are not partitioned, meaning any one of these could be used to attack the work issued laptop. If I were in CFO position, that would be a major argument for me, to want to not have my people work at home. Not that I don't trust them, I don't trust their network at home. To illustrate, I interviewed some time ago with a company, that was hacked a few years earlier. In spite of IT working around the clock, their accounting system was still not fully recovered from the attack and they had to do workarounds.
The problem here from IT standpoint is, that if you're in remote-first environment, there's a much wider angle of attack on your infrastructure, meaning you're under greater threat. This is what the CEO or CFO will hear from the CIO, hence the resistance to work from home in these high-stakes positions. Work at home can work for some fields, but not in all. IT and anything having to do with PCs is a good example. Why? Because the people working there are aware of this and act accordingly at least most of the time, hence lower threat and they can work from home safely. A call center operator? There are ways to add layers of security to what he/she is doing (and I'm not talking just about VPN) and there is no direct way, these people could handle the company money, hence same risk, but less danger and thus they can work at home, making ti possible for these people to work from home. But finance? These people handle the money directly in at least some positions. in smaller firms maybe even in most if not all positions. These people are not computer savvy to the point of securing their network (because it's a completely different field from what they use computers for), hence massive danger of losing money due to a hack.
Now what is the answer here? Well, there are four.
1. There's the hybrid model, where employees have two works stations, one being a laptop at home, one being a computer in the office, where the laptop is hard locked from the more sensitive agenda. Meaning that the accountant, for instance, can input invoices in to the system from home, but pay them in the office.
2. There's department structuring, where tasks, which can be safely done remotely are given to some employees to work from home and then there are few people, who have to come to the office, handling the more sensitive stuff. Again an accounting example. There are AP, AR specialists, who work from home, inputting/issuing invoices, and then there are treasurers, who are in the office and pay them.
3. buying the employees the equipment and training them, to use it properly. I have bought myself a router and switches, which can do VLANs and I have a specific network, firewalled completely from my core/home and IoT networks, so that I can work from home safely. Anyone, who's willing to put about four hours in to some learning can do that.
4. Combination of the above.
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There is never a good or bad time to look for a new job. Maybe, just maybe you can take a breather fourth to twelveth month of your new employment. There are always opportunities out there to sieze. Take my case, for instance. I ended uni and started looking for a job in my field, with a degree in accounting. At the time, economy was booming, employers were crying their eyes out, that they can't find anybody to fill roles, unemployment was sitting at 3%. Two years of looking for a job, well over 1000 CVs sent out, very interviews, none of them returned an offer. I then took a less than minimum wage job with an idiot of an employer, just to get my experience up, then had a panic attack caused by said employer and off for another year of aggressive job seach, sending out CVs with no luck... then covid hit and, third minister of healthcare in (we had four total just during covid), I scored my first decent job... I found a job in my field for more than minimum wage, in the middle of a lockdown! When I could have been fined, for crossing county borders without proof of good cause.
Even in bad times, there are people, who need job done and are willing to pay for it. It would be crazy, not to look. Maybe don't advertise on job boards, but do send CVs out and take calls from recruiters.
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As someone with well over 1000 responses and only a handful of actual interveiws behind me, I can tell you this. If a company admits in a moment of weakness, they do this, blacklist them. I had reached out to this major car manufacturer, that I'd like to apply what I've learned and look at the practical side of accounting, working for them, they told me, to apply to this catch all position, that they have set up specifically for this. Back then I did this, but as soon as I got a new job, I have blacklisted this company for myself. One of the best employers around mind you, because they don't treat their potential colleagues with respect and dignity.
If I were in shoes of that hiring manager and get a call from someone, stating, they're infront of my office, crossed two hundred kilometers for that job opportunity, I'd feel compelled to at very least sit down with that person for a short 10 minute introductory session and I'd actually look around all kinds of departments, whether they could use the guy, because that is the decent thing to do. point them to an application, where I'd full well know, they'd get ghosted.
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Non competes need not banning, they need reworking. Where I live, non compete clause only applies, where the worker quits and the worker has to be compensated for the inability to work in similar conditions, the penalty being the loss of the compensation. To illustrate, say you work as an accountant in accounting company, then you can't go doing accounting in another accounting company for two years per non compete agreement or start a business of your own doing accounting. For those two years, you receive salary as if you were employed by that employer and it doesn't bar you from doing accounting for say a manufacturing company, because in that space, you're not competing with your former employer. In that case, if you found job quickly enough after resigning, you'd effectively have double salary. If you moved to another accounting company, the only thing, that your former employer could get out of you, is the rest of the money they should have paid you for that agreement.
But man the idea of being tied by a non compete after you get let go or fired is absolutely ridiculous! I mean, such agreement, if left alone, would be illegal on the grounds of lack of consideration!
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Yeah, no kidding, operate at a level not based in reality... I worked for this company a while back. They introduced automation for payment allocations and, I think, they never properly tested the thing. Many, many, many Pounds later, I'm staring down a list many many remnants of incorrect allocations, because somewhere down the chain, somewhen, there were some errors, and nobody thought, that it might be a good idea, to have same reference number and invoice number in intries, so that reference number could survive in the records, so that the other company could doublecheck their records, whether they paid in full... We eventually managed to find out, which invoices had these remnants on them and when done, myself, my dear team mates and client's representative had a sit down with the CFO. And the CFO was like, "How could have this happened?", so I explained, very respectfully (I assumed, it was his idea, to do it like this) and recommended what to do to the system for any future situations... but in my head I was like "Dude, a human NEVER would have made such a mistake!"
So to sum up. I assume, because company wanted to "save money on payroll", they axed large part of their accounting team before I was hired, and in the end, they had to form a six member team to investigate, what was going on, which took months! The CFO's general attitude seemed to me, "who needs account auditing and proper reconciliation process anyway?". The best part? Given the turnaround on this account alone, they could have hired a single accountant, let him/her do the reconciliations (even in the this volume, it was work for an hour or so), let him/her twidle thumbs for the rest of the day, and the'd still pay less than our team racked up in those few months it took to sort this mess out... And we had multiple accounts to chew through! But the CFO asked... "How could this have happened?".
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I have a few things to say here...
1) Being contract worker ain't that bad. That is actually employers playing with fire, cause being a contractor is one step from giving up on the job market altogether and starting a business of your own and at that moment, the employers have lost. Cause entrepreneur can go multinational if need be. He/she can't be so easily controlled. And if there is little difference in monetary security between jobs and entrepreneurship, then going the route, that gives more options is the way people will take.
2) There is long term problem I think everywhere on Earth (except the Netherlands, they typically cover commuting expenses), that the commute is not considered work, yet, it is time spent by the employee on work. So you and your fellow HR professionals need to get political and push for commute to be considered on duty time. The moment, corporations will have to pay for all the time employee spends on tasks related to work, is the moment, when the employers shut up about working from the office.
3) We need employees to get more vengeful, when this happens. We need more "whistleblowers" out there, so that upon layoffs, the FTC, IRS, OHSA and other interesting accronyms get working these companies. Bonus points if the CEO then has to explain them selves to both FBI and the CIA.
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@382u3uuej Pretty sure, it's not just bias. You see, what you talk about is true to some extent, but there is a problem in your logic.
If we accept this bias as true, why are companies not actively developing employee retention strategies? Why is it, that wages don't keep up with inflation and the best you can expect, even in companies posting record profits, is some 3% to 4% year on year nominal raise and no improvement to benefits? You'd expect, that if an employee can do more qualified job, the company would increase their salary more than just inflation and provide more enticing benefits, because that employee can do the lower job more efficiently (because of faster training) and/or advance within the company to appropriate position, when company growth demands it. Yet, we see yearly culling of headcount and twenty to thirty years of stagnant wages.
If it's more expensive in the long run, to always hunt for new employees, why is it, that shifting companies every two or so years brings so much more income to the emplyoee? Shouldn't company remove this incentive by increasing it's wage growth above the inflation level or better yet, incorporate langugage into their contracts, that guarantees inflation raises every year and merit raises only being considered above that? After all, emplyoees don't work for nominal wage, they work for the real one, hence, if company isn't willing to increase wage sufficiently, they'll be forced out by costs of living.
If it indeed is so much cheaper, to keep old employees, why don't we see retention effort beyond public relation stunts? Why do we see pipeline postings, that never have actual position to be filled behind them all the time? Why do we see so many sales positions marketed as something else, like consulting or even highly technical work like computer networking? Why do companies use this bait-and-switch? Why is it, that company creates a recreation room, as Bender would say it, with Blackjack and hookers, and then hold it against the employee for utilizing those facilities even once? If you're employed only to do the work, why invest in those facilities?
Hence, why I think, you are wrong. And why you should look at employers with more critical eyes.
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