Originally Posted By BourbonBeast:
If corporate America wanted employees to be loyal to the company for decades like the boomers were, maybe they should compensate people at the same relative rate as they did then.

Wages have been stagnant for decades, switching jobs is the best way to earn more. If you want me to stay, well, fuck you pay me.

My current company does okay on raises, they beat inflation every time, but they also give me a fuck ton of stock awards every year. Surprise surprise, I broke my "stay somewhere for 2 years then switch" rule because they are paying me.

It's not hard. Supply and demand applies to labor, too.

Originally Posted By K30MuleLAR15:

Company secrets is all bullshit, everybody already knows what you are doing. So unless you have some patent protection they have shit. They do not want you leaving and going to the competition and take their pissed off overcharged clients away.

Originally Posted By Baq:


Exactly, my company just announced  revenue increases in the 20% Range followed by annual raises two weeks later in the 2-4% range.  They basically handed everything down to the employees

Originally Posted By JLPettimoreIII:


Peter Gibbons : The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

Bob Porter : Don't... don't care?

Peter Gibbons : It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.

Bob Slydell : I beg your pardon?

Peter Gibbons : Eight bosses.

Bob Slydell : Eight?

Peter Gibbons : Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

Originally Posted By HELOBRAVO:

Our COO got 15%. We hope for 3.

Originally Posted By manderson1911:
Yea i really hate to see the out of touch boomers in upper management positions have to actually compete by providing a good work environment, competitive salary, and good benefits instead of locking them in with paperwork they force people to sign because they spend money on lawyers and not increasing salaries.

Originally Posted By fxntime:
What I want to see is if companies are going to now decide to give raises [if this sticks] to many of their employees that have had these held over their heads for years to try to keep them.

Originally Posted By Sartorius:
Non-competes are very common in medicine (again, state specific). Here's the thinking.

It costs roughly $125K (family doc, peds) to $250K (specialists) to bring a physician on board. You start paying them on day one, but it's weeks to months before their collections start to come in and cover costs. Our clinic estimates it takes 1-3 years to get back what was invested to bring on a physician.

So if you spend that $125-250K on bringing in a doc and they bail in 6 months and set up shop across the street, you've really got no recourse. The money is gone and can't be recouped unless they're generating fees. So you put a 1 year and reasonable geographic non-compete on them. Our clinic's non-compete is 1 year AND 5 miles from your primary office. So, you can set up shop 5.1 miles away (as the crow flies) tomorrow and you're good. Or you can wait a year and set up across the street. Or, you can buy out of the non-compete.

We've had physicians leave and choose each of these options. And while I realize that this will cause hate on this board, that's how it works right now. If non-competes are eliminated globally in the US, all the companies will adjust and figure it out.

But for those who are very confidently saying that non-competes are never enforceable, you clearly have never dealt with a professional or executive level non-compete. I'm not talking the "sandwich artist" at Jimmy Johns who can't go to Subway here. In my state, these non-competes are very enforceable if they meet the state rules (1 year only and geographically reasonable). You can't really hide your practice if it's in the area. Your old clinic WILL find out and will sue you and you will probably lose and get to pay attorney's fees too. We still have a few former physicians who decided to test this. They're still paying us their judgement and our attorney fees. Would've been much cheaper to buy out of the non-compete that they voluntarily signed upon hire. The amount is specified in their contract. A court judgement and attorney fees aren't, and they're always more.

Practically, if a physician is working for another group with a non-compete, part of the recruiting package might involve paying the buy-out on the non-compete. We've done that, and other groups have done that when someone left us for them.

Also, we expire our non-competes at 5 years from your hire date, so you can leave scot-free and set up across the street at 5 years and 1 day if you want.

Philosophically, I don't like non-competes. But as a private practice clinic owner, I very much understood why we had them. Hate on!

This is what I mean. Are you a lawyer? Have you brought these cases or defended them? Our corporate attorneys have, and we win. If you have a signed contract that was voluntarily entered into, not under duress, you can't just say ,"I'm going to quit, and there's nothing you can do about it. Our agreement is severed". Well, you can, and the court will laugh at you.

ETA: Our clinic is privately owned, by the physicians. We have around 100 shareholder/owners. We very much want the clinic structure and administration to make the company and the work environment to be as good as it can be, both for each physician and for the company at large. We want physicians to want to work here and to buy in as a partner.

Many will complain or grouse about non-competes when they come on. As soon as they buy in as a partner, they realize very quickly why we have non-competes. So it's not a matter of a bunch of Gen X and Millennials getting into upper management and not giving a crap about the newer employees. Quite the opposite.

Originally Posted By not_sure:

If people are leaving after 6 months you need to take a good look in the mirror at the problem.

Originally Posted By spidey07:
Non compete have never stood up to legal scrutiny or challlenge. It’s a scare tactic. As the prophet cartman once said “screw you, I do what I want”

NDA?  Sure. But not non compete.

Originally Posted By slow3v:

Basically this. I started young at a local company when I was 18 and was there for 12!! years through several promotions, etc. Left making a decent buck for my age, after going thru several years of stagnant raises and being faced with waiting for the next 65+ year old miserable fuck to retire so I could jump a rung again.

Said fuck this, went out on a limb, changed industries completely. +20% pay right out of the gate. Got offered a job in a different space within said new industry a year after that move, +100% pay. All in all it will be a 177% increase in pay in <3 years. I hit my personal income goal that I had set for myself for age 40 by the time I was 31, and I will do my best to hit a goal this year at age 32/33 that I thought would be unobtainable for my education level and zipcode at near any point in life.

In fact, if I count the gross income generated from our rental home, I will absolutely hit that goal, but I don't want to count that towards this personal goal.

Originally Posted By aggiesq:
the Feds have absolutely no authority to make this declaration.

Originally Posted By brasscrossedrifles:


You sure about that?

I swear there's gonna be people getting herded into ditches moaning about how their neo-Jacobin executioners don't have authority under muh constitution to do what they are doing.

Originally Posted By slow3v:

Basically this. I started young at a local company when I was 18 and was there for 12!! years through several promotions, etc. Left making a decent buck for my age, after going thru several years of stagnant raises and being faced with waiting for the next 65+ year old miserable fuck to retire so I could jump a rung again.

Said fuck this, went out on a limb, changed industries completely. +20% pay right out of the gate. Got offered a job in a different space within said new industry a year after that move, +100% pay. All in all it will be a 177% increase in pay in <3 years. I hit my personal income goal that I had set for myself for age 40 by the time I was 31, and I will do my best to hit a goal this year at age 32/33 that I thought would be unobtainable for my education level and zipcode at near any point in life.

In fact, if I count the gross income generated from our rental home, I will absolutely hit that goal, but I don't want to count that towards this personal goal.

Originally Posted By burnprocess:


Exactly.

"Raise? Nah, pizza party for a good month and jeans on Fridays."

Originally Posted By Sartorius:
It costs roughly $125K (family doc, peds) to $250K (specialists) to bring a physician on board. You start paying them on day one, but it's weeks to months before their collections start to come in and cover costs. Our clinic estimates it takes 1-3 years to get back what was invested to bring on a physician.

Originally Posted By not_sure:

If people are leaving after 6 months you need to take a good look in the mirror at the problem.

Originally Posted By Wineraner:


There are laws against misappropriation of trade secrets, which aren't touched by this FTC action.  Some of the activities you describe fall within that category.  There are also tort causes of action and breach of contract (NDA) actions the company could pursue.

Part of the problem was, it's easy to see why, e.g., the VP of Marketing for PepsiCo North America probably shouldn't be immediately allowed to step into the door of Coca-Cola North America and take the same position on Day 1.  The employee is going to inevitably use the information given to them by their old employer, to the detriment of that old employer.  As time goes by, that confidential information becomes less valuable, and so maybe a contract where that officer is barred from working in a competing position for a limited time might be justifiable.  Those situations are rare.

What ended up happening was companies grossly overapplying that tool to a bunch of people who lacked that knowledge, or other means of instantly harming the former employer and, oligarchies being like they do, Corporate America lock-step thought this was great.  I don't think the FTC has a 1/10th of the required rule making power to make this stick.  I also don't care.

Originally Posted By TheOtherDave:



The ruling by the FTC says that they can’t force you to stay unless you earn more than $151,xxx a year in pay AND are in senior management.

Originally Posted By Action45:
I’ll be using this law as leverage to increase my base salary & I can’t wait to have that conversation.

Originally Posted By killstick_engaged:

MDs and APPs wouldn't be coming in and leaving if they were paid what they are worth. Well maybe APPs since most of them are women and thus flakey employees LOL.

Big box hospitals buy everything up and then low ball, try to strong arm with non competes. Ochsner here in LA is very guilty of this, all MDs must sign a non compete, and they are NOT allowed to have ANY business ventures or relationships outside of the hospital system.

And they low ball salary because for much of the state, they're the only show in town.

This is going to hurt them bigly. But I don't feel bad because it means their low ball compensation is going to have to go up.

Originally Posted By not_sure:

If people are leaving after 6 months you need to take a good look in the mirror at the problem.

Originally Posted By HIMARS13A:

I just watched my wife's residency class all quit their first jobs and the simple solution is not to lie to people. Don't tell them that there is no night call when there is, don't surprise them with mandatory fees, don't change the salary amount and tell them they'll make it up later.

As for the buying into the practice thing, everyone promises that, and when you show up they laugh about it and say that you must be confused.

I've never seen a profession that will lie to job seekers the way physicians will, and I enlisted in the Army once, so I've seen some shit.

Originally Posted By Sartorius:
The business side of medicine is abysmal. More and more doctor jobs are employee only, working for a big hospital, or worse, a private-equity owned clinic. You'd better believe you're a small cog in the big machine.

There are privately owned groups out there (I've been partner at two in my 20 years). But all of this needs to be clarified at the time of contract negotiation, not after. We hired all physicians with them on the partnership track, except for the very few who just wanted to be employees.

In fairness, I'm not particularly worried about the non-competes going away. California did away with them years ago and CA somehow manages to still recruit physicians.

But non-competes are in a sense like term limits for congress. They're a very good idea and I'd support them. But, the entire system needs to use them. If only your state has term limits and no one else does, your senators and reps will have zero influence due to the way the seniority committee system works in congress. If your company has non-competes and no one else does, you're at a considerable competitive disadvantage. If no one has them, that part of the field is more even.