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Why would high performers stay in this environment when they could leave to work somewhere where pay is tied to performance and not seniority? It seems the only

Why would high performers stay in this environment when they could leave to work somewhere where pay is tied to performance and not seniority? It seems the only people who would be happy with this setup _are_ the mediocre.

vkou 10y ago
... Or people who are not good at self-promoting. Or people who are punished for self-promoting (Women). I'll know meritocracy when I see it, and most of corporate America is anything but.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  Anecdote to anecdote but "... Or people who are not good at self-promoting. Or people who are punished for self-promoting (Women)." is pure conjecture that doesn't align with the results I've seen in industry. What's to stop a high performer from becoming an entrepreneur (thus interacting with the market more directly)? The Google engineers making >300k /annual are definitely an order of magnitude more skilled than the Java dev making 75k in my experience. Despite the rhetoric, high performance is linked to pay if the employee does basic due diligence in job shopping. EDIT reply to child comment since I can't post to this thread anymore: Do you make that much money because you were highly assertive or are you highly skilled? I'm sure it's the latter, Google wouldn't be paying you that much if you weren't worth it. > And there's a million reasons for why a high-performing IC should not become an entrepreneur. Indeed, but it is an option, as is raising your skill level to the point where you can work at Google. > Speaking of Google... It's found that equally capable women are routinely under-rewarded, as they rarely nominate themselves for promotion. [1] Not receiving a promotion they didn't ask for does not sound like a problem in any way. We're talking about adults not children, if you want something, ask for it.
  - vkou 10y ago
    http://www.glassceiling.com/being-assertive-can-be-costly-for-women/ http://www.glassceiling.com/being-assertive-can-be-costly-fo... Fortunately for the average woman, you don't see any problems - I suppose that means that they don't exist. And there's a million reasons for why a high-performing IC should not become an entrepreneur. -A just-shy-of 300K Google engineer. Speaking of Google... It's found that equally capable women are routinely under-rewarded, as they rarely nominate themselves for promotion. [1] This is a problem - why women don't ask for promotion is not relevant to this conversation. What is relevant is that I just gave an example of a group that benefits from homogenized compensation... And said group is not composed of talent-less layabouts. [1] http://www.wnyc.org/story/google-test-case-gender-bias/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/google-test-case-gender-bias/
    - runT1ME 10y ago
      >What is relevant is that I just gave an example of a group that benefits from homogenized compensation. They don't benefit from a homogenized compensation plan, it just means others don't benefit more than they do from a non-homogenized plan. It's like saying the solution to racial bias in judicial proceedings is just make sure everyone is always found guilty.
    - jokr9 10y ago
      Here comes the feminazi. Do you have single mother by any chance?
metaphorm 10y ago
I find it strange that you assume that high performance is actually what is rewarded even in non-standardized payscale environments.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  It most definitely is in tech. 10X engineers exist and if they aren't being paid handsomely, it's because they've put zero effort into finding the correct job. I can't speak to government work since I'm in private industry.
  - Avshalom 10y ago
    That's being rewarded for 'finding the correct job' not performance.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Why would high performers stay in this environment when they could leave to work somewhere where pay is tied to performance and not seniority? Because most places that claim "pay is tied to performance" actually don't tie pay to objective measures of performance (or even know how to objectively measure delivered value), they tie pay to either: (1) an objective measure of something, but something often not tied to your performance of the duties of the job, (2) a subjective ranking of "performance" that can reflect a decisionmaker's biases and/or your effort and ability in deploying social manipulation unrelated to your nominal job function on the decisionmaker. If you're not a commissioned salesperson [0], ties to an objective measure of performance are hard to find. [0] And even there, there are some problems, as even getting the base right for a sales commission to really measure performance and not an imperfect proxy that becomes an incentive to acts which make the measure look good but are detrimental to the real goal of the job is harder than it looks.

vkou 10y ago

... Or people who are not good at self-promoting. Or people who are punished for self-promoting (Women). I'll know meritocracy when I see it, and most of corporate America is anything but.

exstudent2 10y ago
Anecdote to anecdote but "... Or people who are not good at self-promoting. Or people who are punished for self-promoting (Women)." is pure conjecture that doesn't align with the results I've seen in industry. What's to stop a high performer from becoming an entrepreneur (thus interacting with the market more directly)? The Google engineers making >300k /annual are definitely an order of magnitude more skilled than the Java dev making 75k in my experience. Despite the rhetoric, high performance is linked to pay if the employee does basic due diligence in job shopping. EDIT reply to child comment since I can't post to this thread anymore: Do you make that much money because you were highly assertive or are you highly skilled? I'm sure it's the latter, Google wouldn't be paying you that much if you weren't worth it. > And there's a million reasons for why a high-performing IC should not become an entrepreneur. Indeed, but it is an option, as is raising your skill level to the point where you can work at Google. > Speaking of Google... It's found that equally capable women are routinely under-rewarded, as they rarely nominate themselves for promotion. [1] Not receiving a promotion they didn't ask for does not sound like a problem in any way. We're talking about adults not children, if you want something, ask for it.
- vkou 10y ago
  http://www.glassceiling.com/being-assertive-can-be-costly-for-women/ http://www.glassceiling.com/being-assertive-can-be-costly-fo... Fortunately for the average woman, you don't see any problems - I suppose that means that they don't exist. And there's a million reasons for why a high-performing IC should not become an entrepreneur. -A just-shy-of 300K Google engineer. Speaking of Google... It's found that equally capable women are routinely under-rewarded, as they rarely nominate themselves for promotion. [1] This is a problem - why women don't ask for promotion is not relevant to this conversation. What is relevant is that I just gave an example of a group that benefits from homogenized compensation... And said group is not composed of talent-less layabouts. [1] http://www.wnyc.org/story/google-test-case-gender-bias/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/google-test-case-gender-bias/
  - runT1ME 10y ago
    >What is relevant is that I just gave an example of a group that benefits from homogenized compensation. They don't benefit from a homogenized compensation plan, it just means others don't benefit more than they do from a non-homogenized plan. It's like saying the solution to racial bias in judicial proceedings is just make sure everyone is always found guilty.
  - jokr9 10y ago
    Here comes the feminazi. Do you have single mother by any chance?

metaphorm 10y ago

I find it strange that you assume that high performance is actually what is rewarded even in non-standardized payscale environments.

exstudent2 10y ago
It most definitely is in tech. 10X engineers exist and if they aren't being paid handsomely, it's because they've put zero effort into finding the correct job. I can't speak to government work since I'm in private industry.
- Avshalom 10y ago
  That's being rewarded for 'finding the correct job' not performance.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Why would high performers stay in this environment when they could leave to work somewhere where pay is tied to performance and not seniority? Because most places that claim "pay is tied to performance" actually don't tie pay to objective measures of performance (or even know how to objectively measure delivered value), they tie pay to either: (1) an objective measure of something, but something often not tied to your performance of the duties of the job, (2) a subjective ranking of "performance" that can reflect a decisionmaker's biases and/or your effort and ability in deploying social manipulation unrelated to your nominal job function on the decisionmaker. If you're not a commissioned salesperson [0], ties to an objective measure of performance are hard to find. [0] And even there, there are some problems, as even getting the base right for a sales commission to really measure performance and not an imperfect proxy that becomes an incentive to acts which make the measure look good but are detrimental to the real goal of the job is harder than it looks.