I'll note that a company that depends on a single employee like this has failed to plan and is already in trouble. No matter how well you treat them, your critical employees will leave. You might be able to pay them well enough to limit the risk on them taking another job (though few employers do) but even with that sooner or later they'll win the lottery, get hit by a bus, or just retire.
A business can and must hedge against critical employees leaving. It's much harder as an employee to hedge against your employer giving you the boot.
If one employee quitting takes out your whole team, the problem isn't the employee that quit. Something is seriously wrong with your working environment and the whole thing was balanced on a knife edge.
> In tech, it is relatively easy for an employee to hedge against getting fired. It is a well paid job, in high demand.
I have a friend who several years ago who was laid off with 3 months severance. They left feeling cheerful, telling people that if they couldn't find a job in 3 months, they deserved to be fired. Fortunately it only took slightly longer than 3 months and it's something we can laugh about now. The whole "it'll be easy to find a job with this skill-set" is true right up until it's not and is a risky backup plan.
As an example to further illustrate your point, it is possible for a business to purchase key employee insurance. As an employee we do not have the same privilege.
Employees have exactly this - it's called "Unemployment Insurance". YMMV depends on which state you live in, but many states, mandate employers pay into this so that when an employee is let go, they receive compensation.
You can debate whether it's enough or fair or whatever, but insurance against unemployment does exist for employees.
It's just a nitpick and it doesn't impact GP's point all that much, but: surely employees in the US have some sort of job loss insurance - if not standalone, then attached to a mortgage or life insurance?
It's usually unemployment insurance and it's provided by the state (literally, it'll be the state the employee resides in - here's California's: https://edd.ca.gov ).
There ARE "insurance" products that will "defer your credit/mortgage payments in case of a job loss" - they are almost all universally some form of scam (or at least a very bad "insurance").
Interesting. My personal experience is with a loss of job insurance I had to buy as a condition on my mortgage, which did have somewhat reasonable terms. I also noticed options for this on life insurance, but never pursued them.
I suppose the ultimate protection a person has is savings, and it's likely more cost-effective than any form of insurance - except it's hard in practice for most people, partly because they barely have any disposable income, and partly because it requires the degree of self-control many (if not most) don't have (and the overall culture isn't encouraging it).
I think it’s the state of the employer but I’m not sure. After all that’s who is paying into the fund. At least that’s what I remember when I looked into it when I was living in a different state than my employer and things were looking precarious.
I'm out of state compared to my employer and they had to establish a "nexus" or something because I am here, which required them to do something like register as a business and withhold state tax; I assume they're paying into some sort of unemployment in my state for me. All of those things became much more important when Covid hit, but cross-border employment has been big in Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, etc for a long-time, so it's a solved problem (by someone).
I was commuting across state lines at the time. Never looked deeply as I left before it became relevant and it was what it was in any case. MA would have been more than NH and I thought it would be NH but not sure why.
But the bigger point is that unemployment insurance is very little money compared to a good professional salary.
Not really. There’s unemployment insurance. But in NH for example to pick one state I’m familiar with, the maximum is $427 per week for 26 weeks. Some other states are certainly more but for someone in a high paying job it’s not much. So a max of about $11,000. I’m familiar with other insurance other than your own savings.
A business can and must hedge against critical employees leaving. It's much harder as an employee to hedge against your employer giving you the boot.