Is there a reason they couldn't encode some of those risk factors into the acceptability parameters? "Average staff attrition < 10% annually" "average employment duration at the company > 8 years" "no subcontracting/staff augmentation allowed" "pay scale for employees no more than 5% below market reference point for salaries in the field" and similar requirements could encode it in a way that filters out many of the negative traits/keep the positive traits while also being an easy binary filter for the bid evaluators.
You could relax things for some contracts, or departments so that it's not impossible to start a firm, but the critical contracts go to companies with a history of success and ability to retain and grow employees.
It's so much worse than that: government contracts will, instead, *require* organizations to keep average pay artificially low. This is in the name of cost savings. I do not believe it is effective, to put it mildly.
Is that a direct requirement or a race to the bottom side effect? If you tack on some workforce qualifications - ex: the contractor is able to attract and retain people with a proven history of delivery - would that make it more difficult to undercut by paying lower and lower wages?
I have had it explicitly stated by the CEO of an org, backing up what I'd heard from a number of mid-level managers, that there was a legal requirement to keep average hourly wage on certain federally funded projects under a certain limit. And I suspect "proven history of delivery" is difficult to establish factually to the extent that you don't need to worry about a court challenge.
Is there a reason they couldn't encode some of those risk factors into the acceptability parameters? "Average staff attrition < 10% annually" "average employment duration at the company > 8 years" "no subcontracting/staff augmentation allowed" "pay scale for employees no more than 5% below market reference point for salaries in the field" and similar requirements could encode it in a way that filters out many of the negative traits/keep the positive traits while also being an easy binary filter for the bid evaluators.
You could relax things for some contracts, or departments so that it's not impossible to start a firm, but the critical contracts go to companies with a history of success and ability to retain and grow employees.
It's so much worse than that: government contracts will, instead, *require* organizations to keep average pay artificially low. This is in the name of cost savings. I do not believe it is effective, to put it mildly.
Is that a direct requirement or a race to the bottom side effect? If you tack on some workforce qualifications - ex: the contractor is able to attract and retain people with a proven history of delivery - would that make it more difficult to undercut by paying lower and lower wages?
I have had it explicitly stated by the CEO of an org, backing up what I'd heard from a number of mid-level managers, that there was a legal requirement to keep average hourly wage on certain federally funded projects under a certain limit. And I suspect "proven history of delivery" is difficult to establish factually to the extent that you don't need to worry about a court challenge.
You are amazing.. I’ve been cheering through this whole article..
But this resonates:
“You’re buying a team’s ability to think, adapt, and deliver under changing conditions.”