Appropriate compensation is important, sure, but it’s impossible to stop talent sniping like this. There’s a fundamental asymmetry.
You are TSMC and have 50k employees, of which say 5,000 are experienced engineers, the top 10%. A competitor wants to hire away 100 of them and offers them an enhanced salary. They only need to offer that to 100 people, but to stop them getting any of those 5000 employees you have to offer a competitive package to all of them. Any you don’t offer it to are vulnerable to getting hired away. So for every $1m they are willing to spend on enhanced packages, you need to spend $50m in enhanced salaries to block them. If they decide to cut it down to hiring away only 50 engineers, now for every $1m they spend you need to spend $100m.
As head of resourcing at TSMC, at what point do you stop the defensive salary inflation? Bear in mind your not competing with the financial resources of just another chip company, you’re competing with the financial resources of the Chinese state.
> A competitor wants to hire away 100 of them and offers them an enhanced salary. They only need to offer that to 100 people, but to stop them getting any of those 5000 employees you have to offer a competitive package to all of them.
I don't think this is true as (I think) you're assuming that all 5000 employees are equally skilled and desired. More realistically, the poaching company wants the more senior/experienced so TSMC only has to watch out for these. Still not an insignificant number nor amount of money.
Long-term, the solution is probably for companies to focus more on building their culture and focusing on the non-financial perks (e.g. ala Google) so employees will think twice about leaving.
This 5,000 is the top 10% of TSMC employees, and the article says China is hiring engineers at all levels in the company, so I’m already tilting the deck quite a bit.
> Bear in mind your not competing with the financial resources of just another chip company, you’re competing with the financial resources of the Chinese state.
But you have the resources of the other Chinese state (Taiwan) at your disposal because, TSMC and the Taiwanese semi industry work hand-in-hand with the government as well.
Does Taiwan have 50x to 100x the financial resources of mainland China though, and does it make sense to even get in that competition on those terms on the first place? It’s not a path to a viable business.
You are TSMC and have 50k employees, of which say 5,000 are experienced engineers, the top 10%. A competitor wants to hire away 100 of them and offers them an enhanced salary. They only need to offer that to 100 people, but to stop them getting any of those 5000 employees you have to offer a competitive package to all of them. Any you don’t offer it to are vulnerable to getting hired away. So for every $1m they are willing to spend on enhanced packages, you need to spend $50m in enhanced salaries to block them. If they decide to cut it down to hiring away only 50 engineers, now for every $1m they spend you need to spend $100m.
As head of resourcing at TSMC, at what point do you stop the defensive salary inflation? Bear in mind your not competing with the financial resources of just another chip company, you’re competing with the financial resources of the Chinese state.