Cannot find skilled employees - ideas and anyone want to move to AZ?

a good legend story about pay rates:

 

I work in small town public sector IT. If you want to send me the job description and your pay scale for it, I can at least give you an idea of where you're going wrong. That said, public employees are woefully underpaid. "Serving the people" doesn't mean that you shouldn't get paid commensurate to your abilities. Our local government did a wage study only to find that everyone was under paid and tech positions SEVERELY under paid. This causes a rotating door of employees and a staff that is essentially never fully trained because they get the line for their resume and ditch out.

I remember looking at an open IT position in our local government (Think city hall) and kept reading the qualifications and job description lines. I'm talking a novel worth of tasks and responsibilities. At the end, pay was $19/hr. I was appalled, insulted even for a job I wasn't going to apply for. A few years later I did apply for a similar position in the same department of the city and they offered 65k Salary after doing a wage study. $31/hr is still woefully under paid for this type of position. I passed.

At this point you're probably saying "Wow, we can't even pay that". If that's the case, then you need to look for an MSP that serves your area and hope they'll take care of you in the 40-50k area. Good luck! I'd love to move to AZ, but hanging out in the sun is worthless if I can't afford to do anything.

 

When in my 20's I worked in a gang installing new lights and gates at road crossings for Conrail. A lot of hand digging with a shovel. The new equipment had an electronic unit box called a PMD-1. Phase Motion Detector #1. No one in the gang had a clue what to do with that new fangled magic box but I asked if I could take the manual back to the motel each night and read it. I gradually started to understand the procedures for setting it up and testing it and by the end of the week I was the guy that was going to be working inside the case using my fingers and knowledge instead of being in the ditch using my back. This attitude made me a valuable asset.
My Dad told me it's best to make your boss look good instead of flying your own flag. He was right. My entire career was spent trying to stay out of the limelight but letting the guy who makes sure I get paid receive all the credit. Gold stars don't support the family.

 

good stuff.

and social media teaches the soft brained folks the EXACT opposite.

Social media teaches them that they are special & unique & exceptional....without putting in any work.

so, here we are.

debating about how someone in IT is getting underpaid.

you are not underpaid, if you sign the paper to be underpaid. you agreed to the pay.

 

I remember a McDonald's commercial saying their product was created just for each unique person. Yeah right. Selling the exact same product to millions and millions of sheep is what they did.

 

I’d say working fast food is just as difficult as a lot of manual labor jobs. Nobody looks down on the guy working in a warehouse receiving shipments in, but is that harder than cooking hamburgers? I’d say it’s easier since you don’t have to deal with entitled a-hole customers all day. That’s why I ask what the criteria is for deserving to be paid well.

I can afford to pay more for a hamburger, so it doesn’t bother me if they pay them more. Those prices all went up a ton anyway, and I’d rather it go to the guy doing the work than the shareholders. Corporate profits have always increased at a much higher rate than their payroll has.

People’s ire just tends to be misdirected in most cases. Just like complaining about taxes going towards education, healthcare, etc, yet the enormous government waste in other areas gets ignored for the most part.

 

in what seems like a lifetime ago...I was at a MGT training retreat. I was early 20's...my mind was fresh. no internet back then.

the dude said...your energy follows your focus.

boom....it is still stuck in my brain.

from that point I focused on the things I truly wanted for my family and myself.

think about it - if you are stuck in a low paying job....what are you focused on?


and another one comes to mind....discipline always outperforms intelligence.

I'm not a super-genius...but I am a disciplined S.O.B. I'm relentless.

I left 2 careers because the pay was not commensurate.

 

It’s not for me to decide what someone else’s business chooses to offer to pay its employees. We’re already seeing how hard it is to hire and retain people. Let businesses suffer through constant turnover and difficulty in finding workers if they won’t pay what good employees want for the job. If you mandate that a job which only requires a pulse to do must pay a “living wage” the definition of which is a moving target, those higher costs are either passed on to consumers (do this across enough industries and you’ve effectively raised the cost of living all because you forced higher pay for jobs that were never meant to single-handedly support a family, let alone an individual) or the position is eliminated altogether through automation.

It’s now cheaper for McDonald’s to have you to order a burger at a kiosk than from a human employee. How much of that is from people demanding that these positions pay more?

What is frustrating to me is wealthy people saying things like “we need to raise wages across the board.” They are more insulated than the average middle class family from the effects of the wage hikes they want to see. Doesn’t matter how much a burger costs; they can afford it at three times the price. This is not true for most people, and the guy they tried to give a higher wage to now no longer has a job because it’s now too expensive for the company to keep that position.

 

If you want to attract the right talent, you should plan to spend the $$$ in compensation to attract them.

 

I'll say this. Flipping burgers is not meant to be a family supporting job. Flipping burgers is meant to be an ENTRY level job to give high schoolers and young adults work experience so they can move onto something better. Paying $20/hr for working at fast food places is just encouraging people to remain low value in society. Fast food joints should not have line crew members for more than 2 years.
I absolutely do not agree with raising their wages.

 

That's why fast food restaurants are closed during school hours, right?

Personally, I'd rather they just pay the burger flippers a living wage so my tax dollars can be spent somewhere other than subsidizing walmart/mcd's employees.

 

my answer is ...your are paid commensurate to your knowledge/abilities.

fast food/manual labor is not going to get you very far. agreeing with @Windsor

Why are plumbers paid well? they know sh1t you don't
Why are electricians paid well? they know sh1t you don't

let's go back to caveman days....if you didn't contribute to the tribe, what happened? you either got put with the women or you got kicked out of the cave.

it's really that simple.

but Gov/union entitlements muddy up that simple water. folks are living in the tribe that are not contributing. and now they expect to get paid as much as everyone else. it will not end well.

I know folks, from high school days, that have been living on Gov Assistance for 3 generations...damn. that's all they know. How do you fix those people?

 

It just sucks for her that she'd have to step up to something she obviously didn't want to do to be able to afford to retire when she wanted to.

 

Not sure what part of AZ this opening is in but cost of living/housing in Maricopa County has really shot up over the last 3 years. While wages at some places have kept up many others haven't.

There were many aspects I enjoyed about AZ in general but once I found my cost of housing sky rocketing in comparison to my pay increases I ended up moving back to California. (Feel like I should update my username now). My last rent increase negated two years worth of raises and then some.

I'm not surprised that recruiting is difficult out there. Those pay ranges were fine when you could grab a home for $180k but that isn't the case anymore. It's amazing how fast the price of housing/rents went up out there.

 

I’m pretty sure flagstaff has a higher cost of living than any where in the basin

 

I agree. I wasn't aware they were recruiting for an opening in Flag.

 

I think you're right on that one - though, to be fair, my job is technically as a DA (Dept. of the Army) Civilian, so I suppose I'm not a 'pure' civil service employee like I might be if I worked at the DMV, USDA, etc. In a way, I view what I do as still serving my country - was in uniform for 17 years, and now what I do directly benefits the Army.

But yeah....the stereotypical gov't civilian is what we envision when we go to the DMV and put up with their $@!$# to get absolutely necessary IDs. LOL

 

Heh...I drink it because I have to, in order to stay awake. LOL

Funny story...when in the Navy, I discovered I had a hiatal hernia. I worked in the 'blue tile' area of the USS Enterprise, meaning that I worked in the flag area. It wasn't unusual to work directly with the flag admiral, CO, and a bunch of other high-ranking officers.

Anyways, I discovered that high-quality coffee minimized or eliminated acid reflux...so I started making it in the common area. I'd get all kinds of comments - e.g., "real men don't drink that foofoo sh*t."

Fast forward a few months. I'd make a pot of coffee, take a sip, then yell 'foofoo!' You'd suddenly hear 'Meeting adjourned!' and everyone from the flag admiral, the CO, the CAG (carrier air group commander), etc. would come at a literal run, shoving each other out of the way, to be first in line. LOL

 

They do, but it's somewhat rare. Where I work we have had a few fired; but I admit it does take some doing.

With that said, I can tell you for a fact we were busier'n sh*t during COVID. We run the servers everyone uses on post, and they can be used remotely...so almost overnight we had to go from supporting a few hundred users on VPN to more than 12,000 or so, with multiple applications, reimaging, SQL/SCCM, etc. 'Fun' but not fun.

But yeah, there were some that did little to nothing and got paid.

 

I suppose she could also sell the boat, keep the house or downsize, etc...

 

Except you get paid to do the job your employer needs done, not the one you want to do.

 

It is hard to have this whole conversation without getting political. This is why they are pushing socialism so hard and a larger percentage of the population worship the Govt. and expect them to be their father, mother, babysitter, and savior. People that think things aren't fair here should move to a socialist country and see how they like it. Please note my signature line.

 

i wouldnt get out of bed for 21 dollars, thats no money in todays world

 

agreed.

We, as family units, grow up in a socialist type environment. it's when we become adults that we have to shift to self-preservation.

that's where these young folks mess up....social media teaches them these socialist processes that you mention.

the successful folks get busy making hay.

 

Why bother if you can learn Linux kernel and get paid $150-200/h and more? Or something radically more simple in IT and yet get your $50+, to start with? With perks like work from home, flexible hours, etc.

This is what young people think and what they actually do. Result is 4000 licensed plumbers for the whole state of New Hampshire and its 1.3M population. And weeks/months long wait list for any kind of contractor work done in your house. Heck, a welder is what, $450/hr now? For $450 you can get that darn cheap Harbor Freight ARC welder, helmet, gloves, fix that rusty fence yourself and replenish your beer supply for the next month.

What everyone needs to do is to learn Linux kernel and learn DIY everything else as well Win-win.

 

Im not arguing that they should be paid as much as people with better skills. I just don’t have an issue with them making more than they do now.
The overall theme of this thread is that OP will never attract skilled people for 20 bucks an hour. That pay is no longer considered good by most standards. A few years ago it was, but not anymore.
Basically, 20 bucks an hour is way too much to pay a fast food worker, yet none of us would entertain working for that.
I at no point think people should make a career of it, but some people have to at least for a while. Lack of childcare or reliable transportation limit a lot of people to what they can do. Why should we be mad if they get paid what we all agree is too low for skilled labor? Is 20-30 dollars an hour range a forbidden zone that nobody should make?