How much of the competency crisis is caused by the business side?

[NoReturn]

I was thinking about this the other day and it occurred to me that one of the reasons I hadn't considered was the breaking of trust between companies and employees. It really doesn't make much sense to do your best if your performance isn't tied to your pay or even your ability to keep your job (e.g. layoffs from higher up). Same too if you can't tell your boss if things are wrong without risking your job.

Other reasons I see talked about more often:

• Diversity/hiring quotas
• Lower standards for colleges
• Too many [X demographic] nowadays
• Business unwillingness to pay for training
• Business unwillingness to provide apprenticeships

 

[sweater_supremacy]

competent people no how much they are worth in their field, incompetent people can be lowballed

 

[Justtocheck]

Yeah, the unwritten rule from 2018 is that you get promoted by finding a new job.

 

[Neo-Nazi Rich Evans]

companies being unwilling to take in someone new and put them through a training or apprenticeship period is def something i noticed when i was fresh out of college.

 

[Justtocheck]

competent people no how much they are worth in their field, incompetent people can be lowballed

I half-half agree. If I were to guesstimate, let's say %5-10 of the workforce is absolutely worth in their field and cannot be replaced. Like very senior engineers or staff, etc. Even if you are competent, it won't mean that they won't lowball because there's not a shortage of competent people in the industry right now. And it's not easy to become an irreplaceable asset, and certainly not something the average smart and diligent worker can easily do.

 

[sweater_supremacy]

I half-half agree. If I were to guesstimate, let's say %5-10 of the workforce is absolutely worth in their field and cannot be replaced. Like very senior engineers or staff, etc. Even if you are competent, it won't mean that they won't lowball because there's not a shortage of competent people in the industry right now. And it's not easy to become an irreplaceable asset, and certainly not something the average smart and diligent worker can easily do.

 

[Absolutego]

The employer-employee relationship is overall toxic. I don't know who started it (though I have my suspicions), but there's a general industry-wide refusal to invest in employees and a reciprocal refusal to not just fuck off when you can find better prospects.
I blame these companies getting too big. It's much easier to treat employees like random figures on an excel spreadsheet when the headquarters for the top brass is in a different state or even country from the people they employ. And when people are just their resumes, you don't care about how they perform, you care about their credentials, and that's how you engineer yourself into a competency crisis of retards only good at looking qualified instead of having an actual list of accomplishments to point to.

 

[Justtocheck]

View attachment 5676957

r/antiwork before it was cool

 

[sweater_supremacy]

r/antiwork before it was cool

i remember an episode of the animated series where he kept his job by hoarding information on their old mainframe to the point he was the only one who knew how to resolve an issue in the entire company, cant find any clips of it sadly

 

[Quindoll]

I am personally not a big fan of the competency crisis theme. A proper evaluation would demand that you know a lot, too much actually. Unless you are literally driving a task force of people to do a study on it. The book "Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future" actually goes into various materials and how complex those processes are. Nearly nobody that does process 1 of product X knows how process 2, 3, 4 and so on actually works. Yet the finished products do arrive.

The competency crisis seems to always come from a single article by an author that, as far as I can remember, works in asset managemant. One industry and service that is losing to dumb index funds in the famous active vs. passive debate. That always struck with me as very ironic.

Now there are some aspects that might go into it with the actual blame for businesses. One would be the financialisation of the US economy, if that is a proper English world. Instead of investments within the company, you just do a share buyback program. Thus the share price increases and your leadership of the company is "successful". This doesn't lead to better products or even innovation.

The other factor is that you can save money by cutting costs. Which includes a lot of positions that are vital in the longterm. R&D for example. Or training. Or you can run a company on it's substance and try to get as much money out before it collpases.

The books "The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy" and "Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon" go into that topic with much more detail. This is important since Jack Welsh was spreading his mangement style to various now CEOs. Some were or are now in companies that are curiously plagued by similar issues like GE. One example would be Boeing.

 

[Justtocheck]

I am personally not a big fan of the competency crisis theme. A proper evaluation would demand that you know a lot, too much actually. Unless you are literally driving a task force of people to do a study on it. The book "Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future" actually goes into various materials and how complex those processes are. Nearly nobody that does process 1 of product X knows how process 2, 3, 4 and so on actually works. Yet the finished products do arrive.

The competency crisis seems to always come from a single article by an author that, as far as I can remember, works in asset managemant. One industry and service that is losing to dumb index funds in the famous active vs. passive debate. That always struck with me as very ironic.

Now there are some aspects that might go into it with the actual blame for businesses. One would be the financialisation of the US economy, if that is a proper English world. Instead of investments within the company, you just do a share buyback program. Thus the share price increases and your leadership of the company is "successful". This doesn't lead to better products or even innovation.

The other factor is that you can save money by cutting costs. Which includes a lot of positions that are vital in the longterm. R&D for example. Or training. Or you can run a company on it's substance and try to get as much money out before it collpases.

The books "The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy" and "Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon" go into that topic with much more detail. This is important since Jack Welsh was spreading his mangement style to various now CEOs. Some were or are now in companies that are curiously plagued by similar issues like GE. One example would be Boeing.

Read more about Jack Welch thanks to your post. Interesting stuff. I remember last year when tech stocks jumped after the massive layoffs, I was happy because I made money, and as an investor that's what I want. Though I did feel bad about it on the other hand. Many young smart starters getting fired early and how that will affect the industry and how it will make them cynical. And how it affects the people inside. So I dunno. And with generative A.I. coming, It's vox populi that another major layoff round will happen; when is the major quesetion.

 

[DJ Grelle]

What I'm reading in this thread should be split up into two debates.
1) the competency crisis: it seems standards are slipping overall, in all fields. Service is worse, Quality is worse, only a few flashy ""new"" technologies make it look like there is technical progress. It's a multicausal thing, with both the browning of America, the attention-span destroying influence of modern entertainment and the shift to "no child left behind" and mass democratisation of university in education.

2) Companies ossifying and losing their dynamism. A mindless focus on stock price and not on building a working company. Both the short term financial strategies, the disinterest in building and retaining a good skill and know-how base in talented employees, and the eternally growing regulations and non-productive departments.

 

[Thorndyke Special]

Companies ossifying and losing their dynamism. A mindless focus on stock price and not on building a working company

This is a built-in feature of capitalism, though, not a bug. Corporate entropy is what (theoretically) allows for new, dynamic companies to enter the marketplace and displace the set-in-their ways giants.

Unfortunately in many industries, companies are able to maintain their market share through means such as patents, government contracts, and regulations that snuff out competition. Even worse--it's becoming even more common.

 

[DJ Grelle]

This is a built-in feature of capitalism, though, not a bug. Corporate entropy is what (theoretically) allows for new, dynamic companies to enter the marketplace and displace the set-in-their ways giants.

Unfortunately in many industries, companies are able to maintain their market share through means such as patents, government contracts, and regulations that snuff out competition. Even worse--it's becoming even more common.

Another problem is that many industries are too capital intensive (heavy industry like steel, shipbuilding, high tech like jet airplanes and semiconductors) or have such a society wide sunk cost (operating systems) that you really can't break into them.

Creative destruction is indeed one of the strongest points of capitalism - as is its ability to harness human greed.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

Two generations back you would have very often hear people say "I am X and I've been working as an X for 30 years, trust me I know what I'm doing." I think companies stopped valuing employees, everyone in HR kept just thinking about the bottom line. Employee is worth Y amount per year and we pay them Z amount per year, how can we squeeze the absolute most of that equation before they will be so offended they will quit and leave for a better job? I think in the past job security was considered by HR as something to value not just for one employee in question but, them all. "Do we really want to fire this guy over some stupid anti-woke comment he made on twitter? He has been working for us for 8 years" Is something you will hardly ever hear. I think long ago companies saw the value in long term employees and they longer see that. I think they have become too susceptible to hypothetical liability concerns. I also strongly think in the age where everyone knows everyone's business employers are also hyper concerned about off work optics, political opinions, perceived misogyny, if you end up in a viral video and someone accuses you of being rude to a nigger or tranny or something, people like Keffals or Elliot Fong Jones and his minions will make sure your supervisor and the head of HR knows about it.

I do not hate capitalism or corporations but, I refuse to work for anyone. I started my own company over a decade ago when I learned by vast majority whoever you work for, you are only as good as the last dollar you made them. All that used to matter 50 years ago was, you showed up on time and the quality of your work. Now there are too many factors at play. If a company has no loyalty to you, why be loyal to them? Why give two weeks notice if they are going to fire you the next day for a minor mistake? Somewhere along the lines companies and employees lost value in each other. People at auto assembly plants in Detroit would take so much pride they worked for Ford/Chrylser/GM, they would only buy that brand car for life, that's been fucking gone for decades.

 

[Justtocheck]

Creative destruction is indeed one of the strongest points of capitalism - as is its ability to harness human greed.

UUU la la, somebody is not going to get laid in college.

 

[HackerX]

The issue isn't necessarily on the business side, but the clear gap between the business niggers and the people who do the work. Compound that with business niggers with no technical background and you're gonna have a mess.

 

[PeachDream]

companies being unwilling to take in someone new and put them through a training or apprenticeship period is def something i noticed when i was fresh out of college.

It's all based around degrees now.
If you have a degree you're smart and educated and competent.
If you don't have a degree you must be retarded or something.
My job has required a 4 year degree for years now but I've talked to more senior coworkers that confirmed this position used to just require a 2 year degree. The job hasn't materially changed, and if anything technology made it a bit easier.

 

[i440BX]

Too much Bureaucracy.
Meritocracy considered "rAcIST"
Lack of common sense and logic when managing the teams.

 

[DJ Grelle]

It's all based around degrees now.
If you have a degree you're smart and educated and competent.
If you don't have a degree you must be retarded or something.
My job has required a 4 year degree for years now but I've talked to more senior coworkers that confirmed this position used to just require a 2 year degree. The job hasn't materially changed, and if anything technology made it a bit easier.

Education "democratizes" (standards are lowered so more people can get a degree) > average IQ of degree holders declines > companies notice new hires are stupider than the old ones > require more stringent degrees > education "democratizes"....

Mandatory IQ testing, if you're >115 IQ you get a free college scholarship and if you're below you're forbidden from going. If you're <100IQ you should not be allowed to go to high school.