I like the topic of this question here, but it needs some work to make it answerable in our format.

with that being said, here are a couple reasons I can see for this:

1) The actual goal of salaries is to pay the minimum amount that any given employee needs; therefore, the strategy of underpaying until there is an actual threat of an employee leaving makes more immediate financial sense. That way they don't overpay an employee who would never have become unsatisfied (those who highly value the comfort zone, don't like risk, etc.)

@BenBrocka so in the UX world, is there any sort of work into whether it's more engaging to users to be presented with a "you are individually important to us" vs a "we care about everyone here" perspective? ie whether or not there is a significant difference between "I" and "we" in terms of engagement

@NickC well it's not really answerable at all, is it? That Q presents a strong strawman argument drawn from a single, isolated incident and attempts to assume this is standard across the board

(got distracted) 2) There are so many factors going into determining market rates that in the scope of one company it's not as clear what the "market rate" as it is across a wide population. So many companies probably don't even realize how underpaid their existing staff is.

3) As far as I have seen it is rare for companies to understand how to value company-specific knowledge. A body filling a chair from outside the company is as good as a body inside, to most (maybe even better, psychologically? "Grass is greener" effect)

4) Companies also tend to vastly underestimate training cost. Related to #3. Conventional wisdom is that it is 3-12 months before an employee is really contributing value, but anecdotally most teams I've been on expect employees to be valuable within 3 weeks.

@enderland Depends if it's a community or individual based thing. Expressing (and showing, in a believable way) that you care is probably a lot more important than "you" vs "you all" in that context. Maybe ask on UX though

We have a number of "which pronoun should I use" questions on UX but IMO the answers are far less useful than I might hope, not sure any real research has been done

@enderland I agree, but "How do I convince my company that they are undervaluing existing employees? might work, don't you think?

I think that might be the real question, because part of that is understanding why they might do such a thing.

@NickC It's kinda a rant though, "why company so stupid!!!"

@BenBrocka I'll write-up my question and see. This goes beyond just UI design too (in some sense, it even goes for organizations trying to recruit... etc)

@enderland Depends how it's asked, right?

@NickC Sure, but, based on how the question was initially written... idk. Part of me wants to respond something (which is PROBABLY an actual answer to this question) like, "Women, as compared to men, don't negotiate or fight for raises, so the company has no incentive to proactively give her one"

@enderland I'm not following why you would respond that.

@NickC because it's probably a key part of the answer to that specific question

@enderland Wait you really think that?

@NickC it's fairly known women negotiate/ask for less raises than men

I took gender as fictional and/or irrelevant in the post.

@NickC well, in a general sense, it probably is, but in this specific sense? it very well might be THE answer

@enderland Maybe you've had different experience than me, but I've seen this phenomenon to be true, almost exclusively being applied to men

(I've worked with very few women programmers)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.671/full

I think an honest answer to that question too is that salaried time is never actually valued - it's often never a huge priority to stop wasteful salaried employee things (as compared with, say, hourly employees putting widgets together)

@BenBrocka I asked. Not sure how to tag that Q though.... heh

Added copywriting and emotion. Not so sure about the other two tags

Wording should probably be a synonym of copywriting

Sweet. Thanks. Hopefully will get a good answer to that - I'm curious for a variety of reasons

The concept also applies to things well outside the realm of traditional UX work as well