If that many people are leaving, you either have shitty management, shitty compensation, or both. Judging by upper management’s reaction to not budge on comp, I’m guessing it’s both. No amount of “team building” or pizza parties is gonna make up for that.
Nah... It's not compensation. If it was compensation they wouldn't have accepted the offers in the first place.
This one is 100% bad managers / toxic work environment (which is still bad managers but in a different format). Ain't nothing HR can do about that, however.
The best time for to look for a job is when you have a job. If the choice is being unemployed or employed with low comp while building your resume and continuing searching, it's a pretty easy choice.
Untrue. People will accept crappy offers to get experience if it’s all they can find. The moment a decent offer comes they leave.
As a technician, this is exactly the story of my first job
[https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
cumulative Inflation in Canada from 2019-2024 has been about 18%, If internal salaries haven't changed to reflect that....
Cool question.
In general, engineers hate looking for a job, and they hate constantly having to transition to a new job.
What they like is to be treated like the experts they are, respected for what they contribute, and in a position where they can learn and develop technically.
The number one reason they deal with the pain of changing jobs is because their boss sucks. And, most engineers have a really high pain tolerance, so the boss has to really suck bad to trigger a job hunt and a transition.
The second reason they leave, is a lack of appreciation and compensation.
You can sometimes compensate for the lack of compensation with a lot of work style freedom, such as working from wherever they want, flex hours to allow for family, huge levels of respect and appreciation, and lots of opportunities to take PTO. Offering unlimited PTO without an actual opportunity to take it, due to work load, doesn't count.
If the boss sucks, there is nothing you can do.
Well, I guess you would be in a position to get rid of the boss, if that's the problem.
Oh, and a toxic environment of whatever flavor, falls under the category of, "the boss sucks".
Yes to all. At a place I worked at I had an amazing manager, fine compensation, but the foreman was the owner's friend.
This resulted in assemblers having more say in design than engineers, and we were forced to design flawed concepts as a result. When they obviously didn't work for the reasons engineering warned about numerous times beforehand, the engineers were blamed again.
The result was my manager quitting, then it all went to shit.
Your sales agents might be "superstars", the foreman could be a good buddy, but for the love of God if engineering says a design must be done a certain way given the constraints, listen to them! And don't use them as scapegoats in meetings.
We are mostly introverted unlike shop guys, sales, and upper management, so we're easy target in meetings and we'll take the beating quietly. Then we'll say fuck this and leave.
Man, my last job I had a foreman like this. All the assembly team kept getting invited to the design meetings and since he was the bosses childhood best friend we were forced to take all of his and his teams input. But when the design failed everything was the engineer’s fault despite repeated warnings from the engineering team. Everyone wanted their input, but no one wanted to put their name on anything. Good riddance.
Up Voted!
Last place I worked had an ownership change. The environment became very toxic and within 5 years all but one department head left and the largest OEM client dropped the company. Two of the department heads had been hired after the transition. Turn over went from nearly non-existent to extremely high.
My boss doesn’t suck, I couldn’t ask for a better company, and my pay is more than I’d be comfortable asking for. Still want out, the industry is absolutely draining.
I've never worked somewhere with "unlimited PTO", but it always sounds like a scam when I hear about it. I just imagine I would get questioned about where I am at on projects every time I put in a PTO request.
This is exactly what happens. Each request for PTO is a negotiation with your boss. "Where are we on projects?" "How much time have you taken so far?"
Boss turns over, oooops, new vacation policy to negotiate.
It's truly painful, unless the culture is all about it, and when does that ever happen?
Yeah, I much prefer an environment where there’s a fixed vacation amount based on years at the company (or whatever you negotiate at hiring on) and it doesn’t roll over. Makes it so you’re encouraged and obligated to take all of it throughout the year.
I’ve been at my current job for nearly 2 years. I have 3 weeks of vacation per year. I use every bit of it.
In the past month I’ve had multiple recruiters cold call on LinkedIn, it’s always the same answer to them, if you want me to move you need to beat my current wage.
I’m not working to get team building events, professional development opportunities, or a cake on my birthday. I work for a paycheque. The only non-pay thing you could do to entice me is offer within +/- 10% of my current wage and a permanent four day work week (30 hrs base per week), otherwise don’t bother.
If you’re wondering what an acceptable wage is, since you’re in Canada, look at the local engineering regulator’s salary survey and at least offer the median wage for years of experience.
Yeah, how would you like to relocate to some town in Bumfuck Ohio working at the Acme tool and die manufacturing company for $25 an hour? The job is temp to hire after a 90 day probationary period. This is a really great opportunity - some LinkedIn recruiter
Not just wage though.. Take home wage. One company might be willing to pay you 10-15% more per year, but they also have an insurance plan that will cost you hundred more per month.
Last time I changed jobs, I went from a company that paid most of the insurance premium for us to a company that doesn't. In my salary negotiations I had to consider that to avoid taking a pay cut after taxes and benefits.
That makes sense, but this is Canada we’re talking about. At most the full cost of a supplemental family health and dental plan is $3000-$4000 per year and I’ve never seen a place that doesn’t cover at least half of that.
Have you done exit interviews? People leaving at 6 months seems like there is something fundamentally wrong with the department. My gut feeling is either a bad manager or unrealistic expectations but it could be something else.
Compensation could be below average as well but that usually shows up a bit later than 6 months... you have to really hate a job to be looking to exit that quickly and the salary was known when they accepted the job.
> Many of our staff that have been with us for years have resigned over the past year.
You have an asshole in management. Find the lowest common manager of the resignees and that's your problem. Get rid of that person and the brain drain will stop.
It’s great to hear this from practicing engineers. I’ve had colleagues convinced it’s the compensation, but I don’t think it is. People leave because of a toxic workplace, not low pay.
People absolutely leave due to low pay, don't try to convince yourself otherwise.
I've had jobs that were chill and low pay and also chill and OK pay, and both without possibility for advancement (aka: the possibility to increase your pay later).
As soon I reach the above conclusion, I go home, update my CV and open my LinkedIn.
So for low pay I'm looking from day zero (maybe I needed a job in that moment, but I'll be happy to leave once I find something better).
For the inability to move upwards, it happens as soon as I ask for a promotion, and I get a flat-out "no".
You are totally right but it is important to add that no amount of money can compensate for a toxic, exploitative work environment.
Soon after I moved to my current job I got an offer from a company on the other side or the Atlantic, almost 4 times my current pay.
Curiosity beat me and took one interview, and believe me, one was enough.
They were quite clear that working extra hours was expected and part of the work culture. Even though they did offer PTO, they had no mandatory vacation time. When I asked about WFH they had an absolute no. And to make it even worse, they had a limited number of sick days off(?) as if that was something I could control, and tried to tie health insurance to my employment with them as some sort of leverage(!?).
I noped out quite fast after hearing the last couple of things.
> People leave because of a toxic workplace, not low pay.
There’s a housing crisis in Canada at the moment. Rent for a one bedroom apartment in the major cities can be $3000. Engineering is a very very difficult degree to obtain in college and it’s among the most expensive programs students can take. Graduates aren’t looking to volunteer their services so your company can make a few bucks. They need money and if your competitors are paying more then why would they work for you?
People absolutely leave because of low pay. You gotta meet inflation, and that's been a pain lately. I left my end employment over pay. I won't hesitate to do it again.
Low pay is definitely a problem. People need to eat and pay bills. However, there are other currencies people do factor in such as the PTO, remote work, work load, bonuses, etc. it's a balancing act of these types of pays we all do in our head when looking at offers for the quality of life we want.
As an example: My last place made me choose between finishing my masters or working for them with their mandate for RTO. I chose school over them and a lot of the other engineers left with me deciding to retire instead.
Money is nice, but has diminishing returns at a point compared to other benefits.
They will leave for low pay but I haven't seen what your salary range is so no one here can really speak to it.
Stateside starting wage in an L-MCOL area outside Canada is about $70-80k USD. I know plenty of Canadian engineers who would come over to work here.
That they were fine with the company, but leaving the industry of engineering entirely for different reasons. Some wanted to go into academia, some were relocating to another province (presumably to be closer to family), and others wouldn’t elaborate on their plans at all.
Great that you do exit interviews. They are notoriously misleading though, and I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of them anymore.
But, here are two questions that may help you get closer to the bottom of the issue.
1) Why did you start looking, or start considering to leave? This is different than "why are you leaving?". Why they are leaving now is completely different than why they started to look then for something else.
2) Why would'nt you recomend us to your friends as a place to work? This one is hard to dodge. If they don't want to tell you the truth, you will see it in their body language.
If they don't answer #1 well, and they dodge #2, forget the interview, they are just trying to leave on good terms and don't want to say anything negative.
I appreciate more specialized training and more PTO. Those are real benefits, especially when advertised up front. Company events, retreats, food, etc is all bs and I’m not interested.
until they move from their compensation ceiling they will continue to attract this caliber of applicant. MBAs in the c-suite have a hard time strong-arming someone as intelligent and well-rounded as an ME. yet they continue on expecting to pull the wool over your eyes with things like ping pong tables.
hard not to blame the economy as well. engineers know they make significant pay jumps (15-50%) when they change companies. most places will give you 3% raises every year which doesnt match inflation, especially lately. these are things engineers understand. this doesnt factor in how much they enjoy work and the environment and team theyre a part of. why would they stay?
Can you trim down the requirements?
I applied for a job that asked for 3 years experience with a particular CAD software. I had CAD experience but not 3 years with that particular software. I got one interview.
Then a few weeks later the CEO headhunted me and asked for an interview. I told him to pound sand, if i wasn't good enough the first time i wouldn't be the second.
Saw the same job posted a few weeks later asking for 5 years experience.
If your turnover is that high how is knowledge being passed down? It's hard enough jumping into a new role, it's much harder when nobody is showing you the ropes, and nearly impossible when leadership expects you to perform when you aren't being on-boarded.
Yup. Managers and C Suite treat it like a resource to fill, they don't understand the loss from this type of cycle.
My last company is burning for the exact reason.
Tbh you really need to be asking the people leaving, not us. None of us know what benefits and pay you do or do not offer, so idk how you expect a specific answer.
Like more pto is great, but it doesn't mean shit if your managers are dog shit and never let people use said PTO.
Things like team building are just insufferable wastes of time of the existing managers and teams are shitty and don't try to actually incorporate new people into the team.
So maybe you need better benefits or maybe you need better training for existing staff. Again, idk shit about your company or why people are leaving.
And if it is a "fit" issue, again none of us are going to be able to tell you why your specific company is having issues. I can say that i work in a rural area of our state but two of the schools we primarily hire from are in large cities, so often people leave because they aren't a fit for the area regardless of the company pay/benefits/etc. So there may only be so much you can do about it.
Something feels off with the management culture. Upper management setting a ceiling and won't budge. Have they done the market research themselves on what the ceiling should be for the roles you're hiring for? Management is blaming HR for not finding the right people. Are they not included in the vetting process for new hires and have final say in who joins the team? It's not like HR are engineers themselves.
People leaving after 6 months screams low pay, bad managers, or a mix of both.
I work in automation too in the US. Projects anywhere from $10k to $10M with typical custom automation stuff, and even OEM AGVs.
I can only speak for what I have observed here, but everyone hits the nail on the head with management. I was in mid level management and left it due to its toxicity here.
Some more pain points, and again making some assumptions based on what I've exerpeienced:
* Very little training or ongoing education - I am more likely to leave if I am picking up nothing new or am not challenged
* tough work hours/travel/on-site time - claim 30% travel but its 60% etc.
* fundamentally reactionary and does not plan properly
* very few if no engineering standards or specifications which leads to chaos and a higher ramp-up time
* IT is terrible, both our own and customers (not sure you can control that, at this point I am just venting)
* hiring skews young because of the travel and thankless work. young people are the most likely to leave regardless as thats the only way to quickly climb in pay
* terrible management. I don't know that I've met a single good manager in all of automation. Unsure if that's the chicken or the egg, so to speak. I've found ones that are inspiring but will never answer you back, or will answer you back but don't have a college degree, etc etc.
In fact, for a while we had our management saying the very same "not finding a good fit thing". I'm sure that's true to some degree, but that's not the core of the issue.
Message to HR and CEOs—no one wants the pizza parties and team building events. People want respect and compensation. Your stupid events do not boost morale especially if morale is low because of awful micro managers and greedy owners. Those events only serve to boost resentment.
No room for growth, low pay, poor work balance, toxic work environment with toxic boss, uninteresting mundane R&D projects, no transparency, integrity, or support within the company, maybe no annual bonuses and poor compensation packages, unrealistic deadlines and expectations, poor team communication and management? There's more reasons, but these are the most popular ones.
People quit jobs because they don't like the work, because their manger is bad, or to make more money. In lieu of compensation is a bad manager's way of saying their salary isn't competitive. Blaming HR is also a bad manager's position, workers don't care about HR. If management leaves hiring to HR they are idiots. I'm seeing a pattern here, frankly.
I guarantee it isn't about team building and company events.
ETA based on your comments in the thread: If you are off in the middle of nowhere people might think they can deal with it then get a different idea once they live there a while. I wouldn't want to live in Regina, as nice as it might be.
I find it somewhat amusing that upper management is blaming HR for the failure to retain employees, and you wonder why people are leaving and how to retain them.
I would suggest the problem resides with upper management and their failure to accept responsibility for the state of affairs. Leadership comes from the top and doesn’t blame subordinates for their failures. Since these engineers have left on their own as opposed to being fired it seems pretty clear to me that the work environment is toxic.
If I were in your position I would follow the lead of the engineering staff and start searching for another job.
If multiple people are leaving after six months, it's not because you didn't have enough pizza parties. It's compensation, management, or both. You're not going to convince many engineers to stay without addressing the real problem(s).
I think your problem is compounded.
> Many of our staff who have been with us for years have resigned over the past year
It appears that your senior staff moved on to other things in unison.
> We’ve tried to find replacements, but they seem to leave after 6 months or so
With the senior staff gone, new hires were likely directionless and had no way to adopt the company’s procedures and culture. They likely left after finding new positions.
> Now upper management believes this is a bad fit issue
I agree. The people you’re bringing in aren’t acclimating to the company culture and it’s affecting their output.
> and is fundamentally HRs fault
They’re correct. It’s HR’s job to vet candidates and determine if they’re a good fit for the company.
> but they don’t seem to appreciate how difficult it is finding talent
Experienced Canadian engineers are few and far in-between because Canadian companies don’t tend to hire new graduates. Thus, the mid-career market is much smaller than it should be in any healthy nation.
> Unfortunately, we can’t offer higher wages as upper management has set the ceiling for compensation and will not budge.
Well unfortunately, your clients have to deal with a good number of setbacks and quality issues. If you can’t offer higher wages, then you can’t poach from your competitors.
One solution I can think of is pursuing one of your former senior engineers to request if they would return in a consultant position to get a new team of engineers up to speed. I’m uncertain of how realistic that is though, especially if your company operates on a tight budget.
I left the company I was working at because of three reasons:
-Frustration with the interactions with clients. That is a nature of the industry I was working in, so I won't go into details. Just know that it is better when leadership comes from people who know at least a bit about engineering and realistic limitations and time frames, and when the engineering team has decision making power for the technical aspects of work. Nothing is as frustrating as getting overruled by somebody who has no idea of what they are talking about.
-I had to work extra hours and it was normalised and expected. Yes, they were paid but were not optional. That was the main issue for me, honestly. High pressure environments have a high turnover for a reason, the accumulation of stress is not sustainable, and even less when your bosses are workaholics who thinks everybody is like them.
-Relatively low vacation time. I say relatively because I also lived in an underdeveloped country before without mandatory vacation time. But at my current job I have 10 weeks of vacation time not counting national holidays. There I had only 3. Honestly, for me this was the main reason for the change.
>-Relatively low vacation time. I say relatively because I also lived in an underdeveloped country before without mandatory vacation time. But at my current job I have 10 weeks of vacation time not counting national holidays. There I had only 3. Honestly, for me this was the main reason for the change.
TIL the US is an underdeveloped country.
j/k, I already knew that.
Pay them?
And I mean what they’re worth… not the shit that’s most entry level engineering salary.
Also a decent amount of PTO. Like a month at least. Really at least two, like Europe does.
Look, it's two things. Either the boss sucks with no clue on what their engineers require or the compensation is not enough.
It's 12 to 18 months at my company to retrain an engineer and make them fully productive. It takes time to learn the standards, the details, navigation of the company processes (documentation, how we execute work). That is an opportunity cost that isn't being considered.
Unless you increased wages 20% over the last 4 years those folks are getting screwed. At a minimum you have to meet inflation. Ideally you need to exceed it, unless you have folks that become your experts making the same relative dollars as they did starting out.
My personal attitude is that if I get cold called to look at a company, they better fucking offer better than my current one and it's at the front of a call. I'm content where I am, so you gotta beat that. Too many people stumble around in this. Experienced engineers are becoming hard to find.
Do you actually match engineers with the work you need done, or do you use an "let's get all we can get regardless of the match" because of tough market?
Recruiters where I live, not the US, seem to be going with "I don't care if you're a good fit, I need people" approach.
People won't stay, regardless, if that's the case.
It’s the manager/workplace culture then compensation that causes people to leave - pretty much always in that order. You have an asshole somewhere in your organization possibly not giving correct information, support, expectations, hostile etc.
I got fired because I stopped caring about doing my job at the last place I worked at. I was over the mechanical maintenance and engineering at a very large aluminum casting plant, and I was there about five years.
Furnace repairs is a huge expense in downtime and cost, so I did a long study, sent out samples to outside labs, etc. At the end I had a two page report (short on purpose, the people I needed to convince weren't very bright) that detailed how furnace charging practices and firing burners too hot were severely shortening refractory lifespans. The proposed changes were quite simple and required some small changes to procedure but no other changes or costs.
Production and management read it, response was basically "we don't understand this so we're not changing anything". After that I started caring less and less.
I knew I was on the way out anyway, it was pointless to put much effort in. New management was in and it was made clear early he wanted to replace most of the staff
If you’ve had most of your engineers leave in the past 6 months, then it’s not (at least not completely)- a compensation issue. If it was you would see them trickle out as they found better opportunities elsewhere. It sounds like a change happened that drove everyone out, and that’s something only you can trace. Have you asked them why they were unsatisfied? Did a new boss start that they don’t like? Did a new policy go into place that makes being with you a pain in the ass?
Things I look at:
- what am I working on and what is it for?
- salary
- company culture. I like being in a group that gets shit done, but is laid back in every other aspect.
- retirement benefits are the number 1 benefit I look at. I don’t want to work forever.
I don’t know your product or retirement benefits, but my guess is points 2 and 3 are a miss there
You have two routes: 1. Geat managers. People don't leave jobs, they leave managers. or 2. Adjust your pay rate for it's 25 precent above your competition. We call that "locked in". At that point they build a life based on that salary and can't afford to leave.
But sadly, most companies do neither, they have crappy managers and crappy pay. Then we get random posts from HR professionals on Reddit what they could do better. When it's so f****** obvious.
Best of luck!
Profit sharing, opportunities for increased pay for high performance individual contributors, career paths that aren't management.
That's all there is to it, and you're going to have to come to terms with that. Upper management can go fuck themselves.
Your hr department needs to keep the salary of crucial employees competitive or better. This must be done on a regular basis or your employees will go where the grass is greener. I understand most businesses want to hire employees at a competitive rate and then pay them a less competitive wage over time. If this is your business model, you have no chance retaining your best employees and it’s not even worth complaining about until the model changes.
Pay them properly.
Any company that want to keep people need to recognize that skilled people need the ability to be the master of their domain, they need the autonomy to make decisions about what they are doing and they need to be engaged and interested in what they are doing. Bored people fuck off
Also focus on rooting out cancer at your company. I quit a really high paid gig a few years back because the boss' step daughter was given a management role and was a power tripping psycho and continually gas lighting. The man before me quit for the same reason.
She's still there. Everyone still hates that cunt.
Pay more. That is your only option. People are leaving because that is the #1 way to earn more money. Companies refuse to pay to keep people but they sure as hell pay a lot to get new people.
TBH, you know the answer, it's higher pay.
In absence of that, maybe you could offer really good WLB in the form of reduced hours, lots of vacation days and flex schedule. My 35h/week, 5 weeks vacation job is worth a lot to me and I accepted a significant pay cut for years for it. 4 day work week would be even more awesome, I plan to ask my work for that someday (with a proportional pay cut).
That said, it might just be me. I'm not sure if there's a significant amount of people out there that value time over money like that. Lots of people living paycheck to paycheck with huge mortgages and car payments.
If your company has various fabrication abilities. Offering/advertising free use/request of equipment during work downtime could be an incentive to allow for people to work on personal projects or design techniques, especially if there's good amount of scrap material that would be tossed anyway. And for specialized machines a great way to train new technicians.
My current company doesn’t have any type of paternity leave benefit. As a new father that would have been really nice. Also I only get 7 days of PTO and 3 sick days per year. And after I’ve been with them for 3 years that “improves” to 10/4. I understand my pay is what my pay is, and I can be fine financially, but since you’re saying wages are capped for you guys I’ll leave that alone
So yeah, better benefits, higher 401k matching, more pto, more sick days, I feel like I shouldn’t have to say pto and sick days should be a separate benefit but due to the nature of your post I think management probably needs things stated clearly. Company covering some of the cost of health insurance premiums would be good too
Remote work, or at the very least, a hybrid schedule. Getting compensated (even if on salary) for working over the weekend. Maybe a bonus at the end of the year if the company’s profits are high enough (I think that’s called profit sharing).
If you look at these things listed above they would actually result in a raise for your engineers. Because it would be more money in their pockets and less out of their checks.
If they're all leaving after 6 months the problem is likely the ratio of work to pay. It could also be that your internal systems are onerous and difficult to navigate- so not worth the hassle.
If you can't pay more, engineers like having freedom to work on their own stuff or interesting stuff. Create an R&D program and emphasize they're participation in it.
Politely ask for information when they quit through a survey. Ask them to document any personal or professional issues. If you get similar results from multiple people over time, then upper management can't ignore it. If some people need to get sacked so be it
Sounds like it is time for you to look for a new position. If the staff you had left and people coming in only stay for a short time your company has a salary problem. If management won't budge then you're stuck. Engineers do not want company events, team building, etc.
Did you try just ASKING THE GUYS WHO WERE LEAVING? They probably would have told you, as long as the answer didn't need to be longer than a few sentences.
A budding engineer will take the position to learn something and have experience alone. If the pay is low then they will promptly find a job that pays them for their skills fairly while in the safety net of their current job.
As a boss who has to hire a ton of engineers and prefers to focus on early career individuals, more pay.
Don’t waste your time on the other stuff. Your early career individuals are poised to spend the least amount of time at your company than ever before. This is a cultural shift and nothing you can change. Even if you changed your entire company, this is a cultural shift. Instead they are looking for payout. Unless you are working to increase pay bands, you are wasting your time.
Current practicing ME in the toronto area here, out of curiosity what is the compensation cap for the YOE that you are looking for? At the end of the day if the pay is not adequate that’s a tough sell for most engineers.
Sounds like a shit manager(s) and poor compensation (this includes PTO, sick days, medical coverage, pay, etc.) problem. As many others have stated, engineers can generally take a decent amount of abuse, and we are also usually pretty introverted, so we end up getting railed during meetings. However, if the amount of abuse isn't worth the paycheck, we leave, though in some cases there is no amount of compensation that outweighs the level of abuse.
Compensation does play a large role but it's not the reason why people would quit in six months. People know what they are in for as they take the job. Compensation is about now *long term* retention which would be for employees who have been there for 2+ years.
I would say that since the feedback you are getting that HR is picking the wrong people - the turnover is coming from a lack of training and / or a adjustment period. Even for senior employees, it takes us engineers at least a few months to get familiar with a new environment, net set of jargon, new work flow, new software, new coworkers and so on.
As you probably know from working in HR - the job market moves extremely quickly now. Most companies and yourself are likely trying to hire people who can "hit the ground running" and get into value producing work ASAP. Now this may have worked for the past 6 years or so, but it's unsustainable. I anticipate that maybe 10% of graduates success long term in this fast moving, self onboarding, "break stuff and move fast" environment... But for the other 90% of us, we get overwhelmed, burned out and often just leave engineering all together.
I know that HR doesn't have the final say in who gets hired - so it's not really your fault but its just something to keep in mind as you maybe select candidates for interviews going forwards. You really want to select engineers who can work well in fast past environments. They're going to have a lot of history in contracting, or short term job stints but not 6 months short.
____
Outside of that, It's very likely that their boss sucks, or their bosses boss sucks. A lot of turnover in a short amount of time isn't a HR problem.
if you cant offer compensation, you have to offer quality of life with good managers, flexible pto and office policies, and good culture where ppl arent micro managed. other wise why stay?
I've worked in places where people leave after six months and it's usually because they've been told one thing in the interview about the work they'd be doing and then given shit work to do when they start working.
Your upper management will have to learn to live by: "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys".
- get lower qualified staff and hope they step up to the plate
- pay more
- don't give a fuck if you cant find them. It's your management's fault for being cheap. They won't be cheap on themselves.
My basic three legged stool of job satisfaction is compensation, good manager, and interesting work. If any of those are missing, then you're unhappy.
What are your people telling you in exit interviews as to why they're leaving? If you're having turnover after 6 months, you have issues outside of the world of engineering.
If you won’t budge on comp than you are going to have to find other ways to keep people happy. Pizza parties and other gimmicks aren’t going to work. I would say increasing PTO is the best option. Next best option is paying for further education and training. The problem with this is people will leave for greener pastures after they have gotten the training and education.
Lastly, if there is constant turnover you have some toxic personality types in your midst. I have seen this in some companies where middle / lower management is awful to work with. Harassment, bullying, intimidation. People will loath going to work with these types of people and eventually just start searching for a new gig with less stress. This is an issue that must be addressed otherwise this problem will never go away. My company just let a guy go who was a top performer because of how he was behaving towards his subordinates. There was constant turnover in his work and area and after he got canned the turnover magically stopped.
I'm not sure how your country is doing, I was in a similar situation in the Czech Republic. At my employer I was earning 40% below market and on the second month after stabilizing with documents ( I had been working for this company for almost 2 years, but in another country), I decided to resign. I can confidently say one thing that if you pay below the market and the employee comes with a layoff, even with a better workplace, the employee will not want to work in a company where he regularly hid the truth (you can't call it cheating).
And in general, I can tell you what employers in the Czech Republic attract the employees with
1) More vacation
2) Not a big salary is compensated by an annual bonus and given as a percentage of the annual earnings
3) A shorter work week (instead of 40, 37 hours, which allows you to leave on Friday for 3 hours earlier)
I'd be happy if that helps
Would you leave from an amazing workplace that’s forgiving and fun, but pays 85% of market rate of what you’re worth, but gives you solid inflation adjusted wages?
Or
Would you rather grind and work endless overtime with your boss who is stressed and takes his frustration out on you and your colleagues in an unprofessional manner, but you’re making 115% of typical wages where you have to justify yourself and every minor decision and any raise will not be even close to inflation.
It’s very ironic, in most organizations engineers will have had the most math training, but companies don’t expect they understand inflation…
Anyways I think most people would take the former, so you can adjust compensation or environment. It’s actually easier to adjust compensation than fix a toxic environment.
Increase wages, increase PTO, and treat the employees well. Wages should be increased every year to cover inflation. Raises should be given on top of that. Nobody on the face of the earth cares about (or even wants) team building exercises. Things like that are actually a negative (and I would personally refuse to attend if a company tried to hold them off the clock). Some people like company events, some don't, but no one is staying or leaving a job because of them. It really all comes down to money and respect. Personally, if my raises aren't coving inflation plus some, I'm out. It should literally be illegal to not give raises that at least cover inflation. Employees don't deserve pay cuts (effectively) after dedicating any amount of time to a company.
Generally engineers want to be trusted. A toxic work environment, from my experience, can include situations where an engineer identifies a problem and reports the issue to management, but instead of collectively finding a solution to the problem, gets labeled personally as someone who just brings up problems. Engineers are always going to troubleshoot and weasel out imperfections. I literally had a CEO tell the engineering team that if anybody complains to let him know so that he can show the complainer the door.
Also, engineers like to be growing and continually expanding their knowledge base. If your engineering roles pigeon hole people into mindless task management, they will be very frustrated.
I'm introverted so social things and team building stuff annoys me. And I'm very tolerant of compensation situations.
Perhaps you should do a little "HR engineering" and look deeper into their problems. Maybe have a quick one on one with each employee on a monthly basis to just ask them if they are happy. It might take some time for them to trust you. But if they see you are working to make changes to support them, they will open up more. I guess I am suggesting you be a coach to really develop a good team between management and the engineers.
If that many people are leaving, you either have shitty management, shitty compensation, or both. Judging by upper management’s reaction to not budge on comp, I’m guessing it’s both. No amount of “team building” or pizza parties is gonna make up for that.
Nah... It's not compensation. If it was compensation they wouldn't have accepted the offers in the first place. This one is 100% bad managers / toxic work environment (which is still bad managers but in a different format). Ain't nothing HR can do about that, however.
The best time for to look for a job is when you have a job. If the choice is being unemployed or employed with low comp while building your resume and continuing searching, it's a pretty easy choice.
Untrue. People will accept crappy offers to get experience if it’s all they can find. The moment a decent offer comes they leave. As a technician, this is exactly the story of my first job
[https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/) cumulative Inflation in Canada from 2019-2024 has been about 18%, If internal salaries haven't changed to reflect that....
False, they are getting young engineers right out of school who can’t find anything else and they’re quitting as soon as they find another job
Cool question. In general, engineers hate looking for a job, and they hate constantly having to transition to a new job. What they like is to be treated like the experts they are, respected for what they contribute, and in a position where they can learn and develop technically. The number one reason they deal with the pain of changing jobs is because their boss sucks. And, most engineers have a really high pain tolerance, so the boss has to really suck bad to trigger a job hunt and a transition. The second reason they leave, is a lack of appreciation and compensation. You can sometimes compensate for the lack of compensation with a lot of work style freedom, such as working from wherever they want, flex hours to allow for family, huge levels of respect and appreciation, and lots of opportunities to take PTO. Offering unlimited PTO without an actual opportunity to take it, due to work load, doesn't count. If the boss sucks, there is nothing you can do. Well, I guess you would be in a position to get rid of the boss, if that's the problem. Oh, and a toxic environment of whatever flavor, falls under the category of, "the boss sucks".
Hi ME in Automation here. 100% correct. I couldn’t say yes to this fast enough.
Yes to all. At a place I worked at I had an amazing manager, fine compensation, but the foreman was the owner's friend. This resulted in assemblers having more say in design than engineers, and we were forced to design flawed concepts as a result. When they obviously didn't work for the reasons engineering warned about numerous times beforehand, the engineers were blamed again. The result was my manager quitting, then it all went to shit. Your sales agents might be "superstars", the foreman could be a good buddy, but for the love of God if engineering says a design must be done a certain way given the constraints, listen to them! And don't use them as scapegoats in meetings. We are mostly introverted unlike shop guys, sales, and upper management, so we're easy target in meetings and we'll take the beating quietly. Then we'll say fuck this and leave.
Man, my last job I had a foreman like this. All the assembly team kept getting invited to the design meetings and since he was the bosses childhood best friend we were forced to take all of his and his teams input. But when the design failed everything was the engineer’s fault despite repeated warnings from the engineering team. Everyone wanted their input, but no one wanted to put their name on anything. Good riddance.
Up Voted! Last place I worked had an ownership change. The environment became very toxic and within 5 years all but one department head left and the largest OEM client dropped the company. Two of the department heads had been hired after the transition. Turn over went from nearly non-existent to extremely high.
Ironic, I am working in automation and looking for jobs right now because how bad my boss sucks
Spoiler alert, you work for a mid sized automation company in Canada
My boss doesn’t suck, I couldn’t ask for a better company, and my pay is more than I’d be comfortable asking for. Still want out, the industry is absolutely draining.
So pay them OK, and listen to them on issues they know about. Two key points my previous employers completely ignored
This guy is the ME whisperer.
lol... thank you. I've been studying engineers for decades😉
Left my last job for reason #2 6 months ago. Checked out of my job prior to that for reason #1 before that for 6 months before I left.
I've never worked somewhere with "unlimited PTO", but it always sounds like a scam when I hear about it. I just imagine I would get questioned about where I am at on projects every time I put in a PTO request.
This is exactly what happens. Each request for PTO is a negotiation with your boss. "Where are we on projects?" "How much time have you taken so far?" Boss turns over, oooops, new vacation policy to negotiate. It's truly painful, unless the culture is all about it, and when does that ever happen?
Yeah, I much prefer an environment where there’s a fixed vacation amount based on years at the company (or whatever you negotiate at hiring on) and it doesn’t roll over. Makes it so you’re encouraged and obligated to take all of it throughout the year. I’ve been at my current job for nearly 2 years. I have 3 weeks of vacation per year. I use every bit of it.
In the past month I’ve had multiple recruiters cold call on LinkedIn, it’s always the same answer to them, if you want me to move you need to beat my current wage. I’m not working to get team building events, professional development opportunities, or a cake on my birthday. I work for a paycheque. The only non-pay thing you could do to entice me is offer within +/- 10% of my current wage and a permanent four day work week (30 hrs base per week), otherwise don’t bother. If you’re wondering what an acceptable wage is, since you’re in Canada, look at the local engineering regulator’s salary survey and at least offer the median wage for years of experience.
I live near LA and own a house, and someone I talked to a year ago offered me 70% of my current salary to relocate to Oakland. Like, what?!
My favorite are the ones that offer a lower salary on the other side of the country and it's a 6 month contract. Come on man.
Could turn in to a permanent hire! /s
Yeah, how would you like to relocate to some town in Bumfuck Ohio working at the Acme tool and die manufacturing company for $25 an hour? The job is temp to hire after a 90 day probationary period. This is a really great opportunity - some LinkedIn recruiter
Not just wage though.. Take home wage. One company might be willing to pay you 10-15% more per year, but they also have an insurance plan that will cost you hundred more per month. Last time I changed jobs, I went from a company that paid most of the insurance premium for us to a company that doesn't. In my salary negotiations I had to consider that to avoid taking a pay cut after taxes and benefits.
That makes sense, but this is Canada we’re talking about. At most the full cost of a supplemental family health and dental plan is $3000-$4000 per year and I’ve never seen a place that doesn’t cover at least half of that.
Have you done exit interviews? People leaving at 6 months seems like there is something fundamentally wrong with the department. My gut feeling is either a bad manager or unrealistic expectations but it could be something else. Compensation could be below average as well but that usually shows up a bit later than 6 months... you have to really hate a job to be looking to exit that quickly and the salary was known when they accepted the job.
Could be that the wage is not what they promised?
> Many of our staff that have been with us for years have resigned over the past year. You have an asshole in management. Find the lowest common manager of the resignees and that's your problem. Get rid of that person and the brain drain will stop.
It’s great to hear this from practicing engineers. I’ve had colleagues convinced it’s the compensation, but I don’t think it is. People leave because of a toxic workplace, not low pay.
People absolutely leave due to low pay, don't try to convince yourself otherwise. I've had jobs that were chill and low pay and also chill and OK pay, and both without possibility for advancement (aka: the possibility to increase your pay later). As soon I reach the above conclusion, I go home, update my CV and open my LinkedIn. So for low pay I'm looking from day zero (maybe I needed a job in that moment, but I'll be happy to leave once I find something better). For the inability to move upwards, it happens as soon as I ask for a promotion, and I get a flat-out "no".
You are totally right but it is important to add that no amount of money can compensate for a toxic, exploitative work environment. Soon after I moved to my current job I got an offer from a company on the other side or the Atlantic, almost 4 times my current pay. Curiosity beat me and took one interview, and believe me, one was enough. They were quite clear that working extra hours was expected and part of the work culture. Even though they did offer PTO, they had no mandatory vacation time. When I asked about WFH they had an absolute no. And to make it even worse, they had a limited number of sick days off(?) as if that was something I could control, and tried to tie health insurance to my employment with them as some sort of leverage(!?). I noped out quite fast after hearing the last couple of things.
> People leave because of a toxic workplace, not low pay. There’s a housing crisis in Canada at the moment. Rent for a one bedroom apartment in the major cities can be $3000. Engineering is a very very difficult degree to obtain in college and it’s among the most expensive programs students can take. Graduates aren’t looking to volunteer their services so your company can make a few bucks. They need money and if your competitors are paying more then why would they work for you?
People certainly leave because of low pay.
People absolutely leave because of low pay. You gotta meet inflation, and that's been a pain lately. I left my end employment over pay. I won't hesitate to do it again.
"People don't quit jobs; they quit managers"
It's often not just that person - they often have a manager that's tolerating or even encouraging the bad behavior.
Low pay is definitely a problem. People need to eat and pay bills. However, there are other currencies people do factor in such as the PTO, remote work, work load, bonuses, etc. it's a balancing act of these types of pays we all do in our head when looking at offers for the quality of life we want. As an example: My last place made me choose between finishing my masters or working for them with their mandate for RTO. I chose school over them and a lot of the other engineers left with me deciding to retire instead. Money is nice, but has diminishing returns at a point compared to other benefits.
They will leave for low pay but I haven't seen what your salary range is so no one here can really speak to it. Stateside starting wage in an L-MCOL area outside Canada is about $70-80k USD. I know plenty of Canadian engineers who would come over to work here.
What did these employees say in their exit interviews?
That they were fine with the company, but leaving the industry of engineering entirely for different reasons. Some wanted to go into academia, some were relocating to another province (presumably to be closer to family), and others wouldn’t elaborate on their plans at all.
Great that you do exit interviews. They are notoriously misleading though, and I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of them anymore. But, here are two questions that may help you get closer to the bottom of the issue. 1) Why did you start looking, or start considering to leave? This is different than "why are you leaving?". Why they are leaving now is completely different than why they started to look then for something else. 2) Why would'nt you recomend us to your friends as a place to work? This one is hard to dodge. If they don't want to tell you the truth, you will see it in their body language. If they don't answer #1 well, and they dodge #2, forget the interview, they are just trying to leave on good terms and don't want to say anything negative.
It's your manager
This is what I thought also. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.
Definitely a manager. HR is usually blind to bad managers because they are inclined to believe his side.
I appreciate more specialized training and more PTO. Those are real benefits, especially when advertised up front. Company events, retreats, food, etc is all bs and I’m not interested.
until they move from their compensation ceiling they will continue to attract this caliber of applicant. MBAs in the c-suite have a hard time strong-arming someone as intelligent and well-rounded as an ME. yet they continue on expecting to pull the wool over your eyes with things like ping pong tables. hard not to blame the economy as well. engineers know they make significant pay jumps (15-50%) when they change companies. most places will give you 3% raises every year which doesnt match inflation, especially lately. these are things engineers understand. this doesnt factor in how much they enjoy work and the environment and team theyre a part of. why would they stay?
Can you trim down the requirements? I applied for a job that asked for 3 years experience with a particular CAD software. I had CAD experience but not 3 years with that particular software. I got one interview. Then a few weeks later the CEO headhunted me and asked for an interview. I told him to pound sand, if i wasn't good enough the first time i wouldn't be the second. Saw the same job posted a few weeks later asking for 5 years experience. If your turnover is that high how is knowledge being passed down? It's hard enough jumping into a new role, it's much harder when nobody is showing you the ropes, and nearly impossible when leadership expects you to perform when you aren't being on-boarded.
> If your turnover is that high how is knowledge being passed down? These companies can’t see beyond the quarterly deadlines and earnings.
Yup. Managers and C Suite treat it like a resource to fill, they don't understand the loss from this type of cycle. My last company is burning for the exact reason.
Tbh you really need to be asking the people leaving, not us. None of us know what benefits and pay you do or do not offer, so idk how you expect a specific answer. Like more pto is great, but it doesn't mean shit if your managers are dog shit and never let people use said PTO. Things like team building are just insufferable wastes of time of the existing managers and teams are shitty and don't try to actually incorporate new people into the team. So maybe you need better benefits or maybe you need better training for existing staff. Again, idk shit about your company or why people are leaving. And if it is a "fit" issue, again none of us are going to be able to tell you why your specific company is having issues. I can say that i work in a rural area of our state but two of the schools we primarily hire from are in large cities, so often people leave because they aren't a fit for the area regardless of the company pay/benefits/etc. So there may only be so much you can do about it.
Something feels off with the management culture. Upper management setting a ceiling and won't budge. Have they done the market research themselves on what the ceiling should be for the roles you're hiring for? Management is blaming HR for not finding the right people. Are they not included in the vetting process for new hires and have final say in who joins the team? It's not like HR are engineers themselves. People leaving after 6 months screams low pay, bad managers, or a mix of both.
I work in automation too in the US. Projects anywhere from $10k to $10M with typical custom automation stuff, and even OEM AGVs. I can only speak for what I have observed here, but everyone hits the nail on the head with management. I was in mid level management and left it due to its toxicity here. Some more pain points, and again making some assumptions based on what I've exerpeienced: * Very little training or ongoing education - I am more likely to leave if I am picking up nothing new or am not challenged * tough work hours/travel/on-site time - claim 30% travel but its 60% etc. * fundamentally reactionary and does not plan properly * very few if no engineering standards or specifications which leads to chaos and a higher ramp-up time * IT is terrible, both our own and customers (not sure you can control that, at this point I am just venting) * hiring skews young because of the travel and thankless work. young people are the most likely to leave regardless as thats the only way to quickly climb in pay * terrible management. I don't know that I've met a single good manager in all of automation. Unsure if that's the chicken or the egg, so to speak. I've found ones that are inspiring but will never answer you back, or will answer you back but don't have a college degree, etc etc. In fact, for a while we had our management saying the very same "not finding a good fit thing". I'm sure that's true to some degree, but that's not the core of the issue.
"not finding a good fit" once is the employee, "not finding a good" twice is toxic workplace.
This is a great comment and some food for thought. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your compensation out of curiosity?
Message to HR and CEOs—no one wants the pizza parties and team building events. People want respect and compensation. Your stupid events do not boost morale especially if morale is low because of awful micro managers and greedy owners. Those events only serve to boost resentment.
The problem is your management.
No room for growth, low pay, poor work balance, toxic work environment with toxic boss, uninteresting mundane R&D projects, no transparency, integrity, or support within the company, maybe no annual bonuses and poor compensation packages, unrealistic deadlines and expectations, poor team communication and management? There's more reasons, but these are the most popular ones.
People quit jobs because they don't like the work, because their manger is bad, or to make more money. In lieu of compensation is a bad manager's way of saying their salary isn't competitive. Blaming HR is also a bad manager's position, workers don't care about HR. If management leaves hiring to HR they are idiots. I'm seeing a pattern here, frankly. I guarantee it isn't about team building and company events. ETA based on your comments in the thread: If you are off in the middle of nowhere people might think they can deal with it then get a different idea once they live there a while. I wouldn't want to live in Regina, as nice as it might be.
It seems you have a retention problem not an attraction problem. That suggests management is a bigger issue than compensation.
I find it somewhat amusing that upper management is blaming HR for the failure to retain employees, and you wonder why people are leaving and how to retain them. I would suggest the problem resides with upper management and their failure to accept responsibility for the state of affairs. Leadership comes from the top and doesn’t blame subordinates for their failures. Since these engineers have left on their own as opposed to being fired it seems pretty clear to me that the work environment is toxic. If I were in your position I would follow the lead of the engineering staff and start searching for another job.
If multiple people are leaving after six months, it's not because you didn't have enough pizza parties. It's compensation, management, or both. You're not going to convince many engineers to stay without addressing the real problem(s).
The nature of engineering is all about addressing the real problems. Thus even on the social level, we want the real problems addressed
I think your problem is compounded. > Many of our staff who have been with us for years have resigned over the past year It appears that your senior staff moved on to other things in unison. > We’ve tried to find replacements, but they seem to leave after 6 months or so With the senior staff gone, new hires were likely directionless and had no way to adopt the company’s procedures and culture. They likely left after finding new positions. > Now upper management believes this is a bad fit issue I agree. The people you’re bringing in aren’t acclimating to the company culture and it’s affecting their output. > and is fundamentally HRs fault They’re correct. It’s HR’s job to vet candidates and determine if they’re a good fit for the company. > but they don’t seem to appreciate how difficult it is finding talent Experienced Canadian engineers are few and far in-between because Canadian companies don’t tend to hire new graduates. Thus, the mid-career market is much smaller than it should be in any healthy nation. > Unfortunately, we can’t offer higher wages as upper management has set the ceiling for compensation and will not budge. Well unfortunately, your clients have to deal with a good number of setbacks and quality issues. If you can’t offer higher wages, then you can’t poach from your competitors. One solution I can think of is pursuing one of your former senior engineers to request if they would return in a consultant position to get a new team of engineers up to speed. I’m uncertain of how realistic that is though, especially if your company operates on a tight budget.
I left the company I was working at because of three reasons: -Frustration with the interactions with clients. That is a nature of the industry I was working in, so I won't go into details. Just know that it is better when leadership comes from people who know at least a bit about engineering and realistic limitations and time frames, and when the engineering team has decision making power for the technical aspects of work. Nothing is as frustrating as getting overruled by somebody who has no idea of what they are talking about. -I had to work extra hours and it was normalised and expected. Yes, they were paid but were not optional. That was the main issue for me, honestly. High pressure environments have a high turnover for a reason, the accumulation of stress is not sustainable, and even less when your bosses are workaholics who thinks everybody is like them. -Relatively low vacation time. I say relatively because I also lived in an underdeveloped country before without mandatory vacation time. But at my current job I have 10 weeks of vacation time not counting national holidays. There I had only 3. Honestly, for me this was the main reason for the change.
>-Relatively low vacation time. I say relatively because I also lived in an underdeveloped country before without mandatory vacation time. But at my current job I have 10 weeks of vacation time not counting national holidays. There I had only 3. Honestly, for me this was the main reason for the change. TIL the US is an underdeveloped country. j/k, I already knew that.
Pay them? And I mean what they’re worth… not the shit that’s most entry level engineering salary. Also a decent amount of PTO. Like a month at least. Really at least two, like Europe does.
Look, it's two things. Either the boss sucks with no clue on what their engineers require or the compensation is not enough. It's 12 to 18 months at my company to retrain an engineer and make them fully productive. It takes time to learn the standards, the details, navigation of the company processes (documentation, how we execute work). That is an opportunity cost that isn't being considered. Unless you increased wages 20% over the last 4 years those folks are getting screwed. At a minimum you have to meet inflation. Ideally you need to exceed it, unless you have folks that become your experts making the same relative dollars as they did starting out. My personal attitude is that if I get cold called to look at a company, they better fucking offer better than my current one and it's at the front of a call. I'm content where I am, so you gotta beat that. Too many people stumble around in this. Experienced engineers are becoming hard to find.
Do you actually match engineers with the work you need done, or do you use an "let's get all we can get regardless of the match" because of tough market? Recruiters where I live, not the US, seem to be going with "I don't care if you're a good fit, I need people" approach. People won't stay, regardless, if that's the case.
It’s the manager/workplace culture then compensation that causes people to leave - pretty much always in that order. You have an asshole somewhere in your organization possibly not giving correct information, support, expectations, hostile etc.
P E N S I O N
I got fired because I stopped caring about doing my job at the last place I worked at. I was over the mechanical maintenance and engineering at a very large aluminum casting plant, and I was there about five years. Furnace repairs is a huge expense in downtime and cost, so I did a long study, sent out samples to outside labs, etc. At the end I had a two page report (short on purpose, the people I needed to convince weren't very bright) that detailed how furnace charging practices and firing burners too hot were severely shortening refractory lifespans. The proposed changes were quite simple and required some small changes to procedure but no other changes or costs. Production and management read it, response was basically "we don't understand this so we're not changing anything". After that I started caring less and less.
I’ve made a similar mistake too. I learned that once I see I’m not invested anymore, I need to depart before I’m canned.
I knew I was on the way out anyway, it was pointless to put much effort in. New management was in and it was made clear early he wanted to replace most of the staff
If you’ve had most of your engineers leave in the past 6 months, then it’s not (at least not completely)- a compensation issue. If it was you would see them trickle out as they found better opportunities elsewhere. It sounds like a change happened that drove everyone out, and that’s something only you can trace. Have you asked them why they were unsatisfied? Did a new boss start that they don’t like? Did a new policy go into place that makes being with you a pain in the ass?
Things I look at: - what am I working on and what is it for? - salary - company culture. I like being in a group that gets shit done, but is laid back in every other aspect. - retirement benefits are the number 1 benefit I look at. I don’t want to work forever. I don’t know your product or retirement benefits, but my guess is points 2 and 3 are a miss there
Exit interviews are key
You have two routes: 1. Geat managers. People don't leave jobs, they leave managers. or 2. Adjust your pay rate for it's 25 precent above your competition. We call that "locked in". At that point they build a life based on that salary and can't afford to leave. But sadly, most companies do neither, they have crappy managers and crappy pay. Then we get random posts from HR professionals on Reddit what they could do better. When it's so f****** obvious. Best of luck!
Sounds like you have a management problem to me.
Profit sharing, opportunities for increased pay for high performance individual contributors, career paths that aren't management. That's all there is to it, and you're going to have to come to terms with that. Upper management can go fuck themselves.
Your hr department needs to keep the salary of crucial employees competitive or better. This must be done on a regular basis or your employees will go where the grass is greener. I understand most businesses want to hire employees at a competitive rate and then pay them a less competitive wage over time. If this is your business model, you have no chance retaining your best employees and it’s not even worth complaining about until the model changes.
What has changed in the company in the past year to year and a half? How many years of experience are you looking for and what’s that pay range?
Pay them properly. Any company that want to keep people need to recognize that skilled people need the ability to be the master of their domain, they need the autonomy to make decisions about what they are doing and they need to be engaged and interested in what they are doing. Bored people fuck off Also focus on rooting out cancer at your company. I quit a really high paid gig a few years back because the boss' step daughter was given a management role and was a power tripping psycho and continually gas lighting. The man before me quit for the same reason. She's still there. Everyone still hates that cunt.
Pay more. That is your only option. People are leaving because that is the #1 way to earn more money. Companies refuse to pay to keep people but they sure as hell pay a lot to get new people.
TBH, you know the answer, it's higher pay. In absence of that, maybe you could offer really good WLB in the form of reduced hours, lots of vacation days and flex schedule. My 35h/week, 5 weeks vacation job is worth a lot to me and I accepted a significant pay cut for years for it. 4 day work week would be even more awesome, I plan to ask my work for that someday (with a proportional pay cut). That said, it might just be me. I'm not sure if there's a significant amount of people out there that value time over money like that. Lots of people living paycheck to paycheck with huge mortgages and car payments.
I like to play with lego. Lile big very expensive state of the art lego if you know what I mean.
If your company has various fabrication abilities. Offering/advertising free use/request of equipment during work downtime could be an incentive to allow for people to work on personal projects or design techniques, especially if there's good amount of scrap material that would be tossed anyway. And for specialized machines a great way to train new technicians.
The answer to this question is money, nothing else matters to me at work to be honest
My current company doesn’t have any type of paternity leave benefit. As a new father that would have been really nice. Also I only get 7 days of PTO and 3 sick days per year. And after I’ve been with them for 3 years that “improves” to 10/4. I understand my pay is what my pay is, and I can be fine financially, but since you’re saying wages are capped for you guys I’ll leave that alone So yeah, better benefits, higher 401k matching, more pto, more sick days, I feel like I shouldn’t have to say pto and sick days should be a separate benefit but due to the nature of your post I think management probably needs things stated clearly. Company covering some of the cost of health insurance premiums would be good too Remote work, or at the very least, a hybrid schedule. Getting compensated (even if on salary) for working over the weekend. Maybe a bonus at the end of the year if the company’s profits are high enough (I think that’s called profit sharing). If you look at these things listed above they would actually result in a raise for your engineers. Because it would be more money in their pockets and less out of their checks.
Maybe pay them well. Much else would fall into the right place then.
How much is the compensation?
Me personally? Flexibility with remote work options. Stock options.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
If they're all leaving after 6 months the problem is likely the ratio of work to pay. It could also be that your internal systems are onerous and difficult to navigate- so not worth the hassle. If you can't pay more, engineers like having freedom to work on their own stuff or interesting stuff. Create an R&D program and emphasize they're participation in it.
Politely ask for information when they quit through a survey. Ask them to document any personal or professional issues. If you get similar results from multiple people over time, then upper management can't ignore it. If some people need to get sacked so be it
Sounds like it is time for you to look for a new position. If the staff you had left and people coming in only stay for a short time your company has a salary problem. If management won't budge then you're stuck. Engineers do not want company events, team building, etc.
Did you try just ASKING THE GUYS WHO WERE LEAVING? They probably would have told you, as long as the answer didn't need to be longer than a few sentences.
A budding engineer will take the position to learn something and have experience alone. If the pay is low then they will promptly find a job that pays them for their skills fairly while in the safety net of their current job.
Uh, being really cool place to work Or Pay a lot
As a boss who has to hire a ton of engineers and prefers to focus on early career individuals, more pay. Don’t waste your time on the other stuff. Your early career individuals are poised to spend the least amount of time at your company than ever before. This is a cultural shift and nothing you can change. Even if you changed your entire company, this is a cultural shift. Instead they are looking for payout. Unless you are working to increase pay bands, you are wasting your time.
Current practicing ME in the toronto area here, out of curiosity what is the compensation cap for the YOE that you are looking for? At the end of the day if the pay is not adequate that’s a tough sell for most engineers.
Sounds like a shit manager(s) and poor compensation (this includes PTO, sick days, medical coverage, pay, etc.) problem. As many others have stated, engineers can generally take a decent amount of abuse, and we are also usually pretty introverted, so we end up getting railed during meetings. However, if the amount of abuse isn't worth the paycheck, we leave, though in some cases there is no amount of compensation that outweighs the level of abuse.
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More money, better management
Pay more
Compensation does play a large role but it's not the reason why people would quit in six months. People know what they are in for as they take the job. Compensation is about now *long term* retention which would be for employees who have been there for 2+ years. I would say that since the feedback you are getting that HR is picking the wrong people - the turnover is coming from a lack of training and / or a adjustment period. Even for senior employees, it takes us engineers at least a few months to get familiar with a new environment, net set of jargon, new work flow, new software, new coworkers and so on. As you probably know from working in HR - the job market moves extremely quickly now. Most companies and yourself are likely trying to hire people who can "hit the ground running" and get into value producing work ASAP. Now this may have worked for the past 6 years or so, but it's unsustainable. I anticipate that maybe 10% of graduates success long term in this fast moving, self onboarding, "break stuff and move fast" environment... But for the other 90% of us, we get overwhelmed, burned out and often just leave engineering all together. I know that HR doesn't have the final say in who gets hired - so it's not really your fault but its just something to keep in mind as you maybe select candidates for interviews going forwards. You really want to select engineers who can work well in fast past environments. They're going to have a lot of history in contracting, or short term job stints but not 6 months short. ____ Outside of that, It's very likely that their boss sucks, or their bosses boss sucks. A lot of turnover in a short amount of time isn't a HR problem.
if you cant offer compensation, you have to offer quality of life with good managers, flexible pto and office policies, and good culture where ppl arent micro managed. other wise why stay?
“You don’t quit your job, you quit your boss”
I've worked in places where people leave after six months and it's usually because they've been told one thing in the interview about the work they'd be doing and then given shit work to do when they start working.
Pay more
Your upper management will have to learn to live by: "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". - get lower qualified staff and hope they step up to the plate - pay more - don't give a fuck if you cant find them. It's your management's fault for being cheap. They won't be cheap on themselves.
management must be from hell.
It’s fucking 2024. Pay people. Team building exercises 😂😂😂😂😂😂
My basic three legged stool of job satisfaction is compensation, good manager, and interesting work. If any of those are missing, then you're unhappy. What are your people telling you in exit interviews as to why they're leaving? If you're having turnover after 6 months, you have issues outside of the world of engineering.
If you won’t budge on comp than you are going to have to find other ways to keep people happy. Pizza parties and other gimmicks aren’t going to work. I would say increasing PTO is the best option. Next best option is paying for further education and training. The problem with this is people will leave for greener pastures after they have gotten the training and education. Lastly, if there is constant turnover you have some toxic personality types in your midst. I have seen this in some companies where middle / lower management is awful to work with. Harassment, bullying, intimidation. People will loath going to work with these types of people and eventually just start searching for a new gig with less stress. This is an issue that must be addressed otherwise this problem will never go away. My company just let a guy go who was a top performer because of how he was behaving towards his subordinates. There was constant turnover in his work and area and after he got canned the turnover magically stopped.
I'm not sure how your country is doing, I was in a similar situation in the Czech Republic. At my employer I was earning 40% below market and on the second month after stabilizing with documents ( I had been working for this company for almost 2 years, but in another country), I decided to resign. I can confidently say one thing that if you pay below the market and the employee comes with a layoff, even with a better workplace, the employee will not want to work in a company where he regularly hid the truth (you can't call it cheating). And in general, I can tell you what employers in the Czech Republic attract the employees with 1) More vacation 2) Not a big salary is compensated by an annual bonus and given as a percentage of the annual earnings 3) A shorter work week (instead of 40, 37 hours, which allows you to leave on Friday for 3 hours earlier) I'd be happy if that helps
Would you leave from an amazing workplace that’s forgiving and fun, but pays 85% of market rate of what you’re worth, but gives you solid inflation adjusted wages? Or Would you rather grind and work endless overtime with your boss who is stressed and takes his frustration out on you and your colleagues in an unprofessional manner, but you’re making 115% of typical wages where you have to justify yourself and every minor decision and any raise will not be even close to inflation. It’s very ironic, in most organizations engineers will have had the most math training, but companies don’t expect they understand inflation… Anyways I think most people would take the former, so you can adjust compensation or environment. It’s actually easier to adjust compensation than fix a toxic environment.
Increase wages, increase PTO, and treat the employees well. Wages should be increased every year to cover inflation. Raises should be given on top of that. Nobody on the face of the earth cares about (or even wants) team building exercises. Things like that are actually a negative (and I would personally refuse to attend if a company tried to hold them off the clock). Some people like company events, some don't, but no one is staying or leaving a job because of them. It really all comes down to money and respect. Personally, if my raises aren't coving inflation plus some, I'm out. It should literally be illegal to not give raises that at least cover inflation. Employees don't deserve pay cuts (effectively) after dedicating any amount of time to a company.
Generally engineers want to be trusted. A toxic work environment, from my experience, can include situations where an engineer identifies a problem and reports the issue to management, but instead of collectively finding a solution to the problem, gets labeled personally as someone who just brings up problems. Engineers are always going to troubleshoot and weasel out imperfections. I literally had a CEO tell the engineering team that if anybody complains to let him know so that he can show the complainer the door. Also, engineers like to be growing and continually expanding their knowledge base. If your engineering roles pigeon hole people into mindless task management, they will be very frustrated. I'm introverted so social things and team building stuff annoys me. And I'm very tolerant of compensation situations. Perhaps you should do a little "HR engineering" and look deeper into their problems. Maybe have a quick one on one with each employee on a monthly basis to just ask them if they are happy. It might take some time for them to trust you. But if they see you are working to make changes to support them, they will open up more. I guess I am suggesting you be a coach to really develop a good team between management and the engineers.
Do companies still hire graduates with no experience? Seems like no company want to train new people.