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Money is the primary motivation to work. Would you be upset at an employee for working on their own project or for a different company during business hours? If

Money is the primary motivation to work. Would you be upset at an employee for working on their own project or for a different company during business hours? If you would not allow this then money is your primary motivation. You are giving money to the employee for ONE reason, you are buying their time to produce something of value for your company. Saying you aren't interested in people who are primarily motivated by money in a job comes across as disrespectful of the time of the employee.

greggman 10y ago
As someone who once took a 50% pay cut to do do something I wanted to do (work in Japan) and another 25% pay cut many years later to work on a project I really wanted to work on I don't know if I can agree that money is the primary motivation to work. Maybe for you? Maybe even for most people? Although I don't think I know a single person who is working for money. If that's all they wanted they'd be doing jobs that pay more.
timv 10y ago
> Money is the primary motivation to work For the overwhelming majority of people, the decisions about work are a balance of competing interests. I could go out and get a part time job working on weekends, and make more (overall) money, but I don't because the money I make in 5 days is enough, and I place some value on my free time. But the reverse it true, I could probably convince my employer to let me work 4 days a week for a 20% pay cut (or 0 days a week for a 100% pay cut), but that would drop my pay below the level I want/need in order to support my family and be able to do things on the weekends. I could quit my current job and go back to working in finance for more money than I make now. I don't want to. I've done that, and I prefer the work I'm doing now, even if I'm paid 20% less. I could quit my current job and go work for a charity and make 50% less than I do now. I don't want to take that sort of pay cut. It's because of these balances that we have some well educated, highly employable people making a (relative) pittance as school teachers. And why some people spend their evenings doing open source "work" instead of taking on a second job. Very few professionals in western countries have money as the single primary motivation to work. Once you can afford to pay your bills and maintain a comfortable lifestyle, you become quite willing to trade off the extra money to increase your overall enjoyment of life, whether that means more leisure time, or more interesting work, etc. It is quite reasonable for for-profit companies to aim to provide a compelling work environment through factors other than pure financial reward. It's also quite reasonable for workers to select job opportunities based entirely on the financial reward (though I think that's actually relatively rare). That company and that worker are probably not a good fit for each other.

greggman 10y ago

As someone who once took a 50% pay cut to do do something I wanted to do (work in Japan) and another 25% pay cut many years later to work on a project I really wanted to work on I don't know if I can agree that money is the primary motivation to work. Maybe for you? Maybe even for most people? Although I don't think I know a single person who is working for money. If that's all they wanted they'd be doing jobs that pay more.

timv 10y ago

> Money is the primary motivation to work For the overwhelming majority of people, the decisions about work are a balance of competing interests. I could go out and get a part time job working on weekends, and make more (overall) money, but I don't because the money I make in 5 days is enough, and I place some value on my free time. But the reverse it true, I could probably convince my employer to let me work 4 days a week for a 20% pay cut (or 0 days a week for a 100% pay cut), but that would drop my pay below the level I want/need in order to support my family and be able to do things on the weekends. I could quit my current job and go back to working in finance for more money than I make now. I don't want to. I've done that, and I prefer the work I'm doing now, even if I'm paid 20% less. I could quit my current job and go work for a charity and make 50% less than I do now. I don't want to take that sort of pay cut. It's because of these balances that we have some well educated, highly employable people making a (relative) pittance as school teachers. And why some people spend their evenings doing open source "work" instead of taking on a second job. Very few professionals in western countries have money as the single primary motivation to work. Once you can afford to pay your bills and maintain a comfortable lifestyle, you become quite willing to trade off the extra money to increase your overall enjoyment of life, whether that means more leisure time, or more interesting work, etc. It is quite reasonable for for-profit companies to aim to provide a compelling work environment through factors other than pure financial reward. It's also quite reasonable for workers to select job opportunities based entirely on the financial reward (though I think that's actually relatively rare). That company and that worker are probably not a good fit for each other.