tags: #publish links: [[Staffing and Employment]], [[Business Strategy and Competition]], [[Law]] created: 2021-07-25 Sun --- # Golden Handcuffs ## Compensation The practise of offering compensation (e.g. shares or bonus) that is only received if your employment continues for a certain period of time, and is forefeit if leaving the company before that. So you're *handcuffed by the money*. Particularly in the case of stock-based compensation, this can make it 'too expensive to leave' if the stock goes up over time such that stock vesting dominates income. This structure is a combination of rewarding high performance, encouraging commitment to the employer, but also increasing [[Costs of switching employers]] and making it difficult or expensive for other employers to poach staff, which overall will have a suppressing effect on wages and employment conditions. See also [[Non-Compete Clauses]] and [[Anti-Poaching Clauses]]. ## Other benefits You might not want to move for other benefits-and-perks reasons... Perhaps your employer pays your **health insurance**, and it would be very expensive to leave. Perhaps you get child care, extended parental leave, or other benefits. This is less of a handcuff, as these benefits are replaceable by a competing employer if they want to - whereas they're not likely to compensate you for the unvested stock options you walked away from. They might still make you reconsider leaving *right now* before having another job lined up, though. ![[Embed - disclaimer - my opinions, not legal advice]]