I don't find enough people (for the salary I would give)

Question

I have an issue at work and I was hoping to get some help to propose a solution. Our company (an IT one) has issues in finding developers (I guess that's something common). But there are teams that are having hard times at work due to lack of developers. The manager is telling us that he has posted the job positions on several sites and the hr is looking for people, but they don't find anyone. As we proposed, give them a higher salary and people will come (the ambiance at work is on, the company is known as an ok one). But the manager told us that it will not be fair to give higher salary to the new guys and the older ones to receive the same salaries and when we told him to increase the salary and for the old ones, he said no. So what solution should I propose to the manager?

Take into account that this is happening in Spain and the company has the headquarter in Amsterdam and there the salaries are much higher, even if we do the same thing (actually, the core team is in Madrid).

Answer 1

You've proposed the correct solution to management, and management didn't agree. Your next move is to find another job.

What happens from now is that overworked and underpaid employees go looking for other jobs. The good ones find them fairly easily and leave, meaning that the remaining employees are even more overworked. The less competent will have more difficulty in getting new jobs, so they'll stay around longer. The company will be unable to hire anyone competent to fill in the vacancies. The shop will get more stressful and significantly worse to work in, which will drive away more people. This will continue until the company starts paying at least market rates for people. If what you're doing is important to the company, the company will suffer.

It's possible that management will realize what's going on and raise the salaries, and you might possibly try waiting for that. Unless there's a strong reason to stay with your current employer, though, that's mostly going to cost you money and stress.

As Ertai87 points out, the number one reason a company would scrimp on payroll in this way is financial difficulties, which suggests that the company might be in trouble, and if so it would be worthwhile to leave sooner rather than later.

I don't usually like answers that say to get another job, but in this case the signs are pretty clear that you should.

Answer 2

It sounds like your company is unable to pay its employees what they're worth. You admit that your company is advertising jobs at below market rate, and they can't afford to raise the salaries of its employees up to market rate. This screams of a company that is having financial difficulty. To be honest, if my company wasn't willing to pay me market rate, the first thing I would do would be to start looking for a new company myself.

Answer 3

If you can't incentivize potential applicants with money, perhaps you can offer them a better work environment, or perks which will serve to attract them.

Perks

For example, is working remotely an option that you could pitch to your boss? Offer them great flexibility in working hours, or getting time off without needing to give you much notice?

Would you be able to stock the lunch room with coffee that would be available to them for free? Get lunch for them once a week? Organize some company events such as BBQ's, or ice cream days during the summer?

How about putting a ping pong table, or console in the break room?

Young Talent

The other approach I would take is to try and rope in young programmers without a lot of work experience. Target universities and colleges. Offer paid internships for students without a lot of experience on their CV's.

Be open to interviewing programmers who may have learned to code on their own, and don't have degrees, but may be able to show you a strong portfolio of personal projects, etc.