Historically, in these situations your business is either about to become obsolete or is about to have much more competition. You could hire people to do the new tasks required to thrive, but it’s easier to retrain people you already know and who want to work for you.
It actually much easier to hire people who already have the skillset and pay them 5-10% more than they are making because of salary compression and inversion.
That’s only true during stable times or when more mature markets are casting off that type of employee. Or, I suppose, if a company is incapable of understanding employees’ aptitudes behind their skills.
Let's be realistic here though: a big chunk of that is that there are plenty of people who decide they'll simply ignore the new direction, or they're too old to adapt with the times, and curmudgeon about it until someone's hand is forced.
