6 ms·

"Peer pressure" is the polite way of putting it; I would go as far as to say "collective punishment".

by desdiv 10y ago

Mithaldu 10y ago
I've been pondering this because on the face of it it sounds stupid and counter-productive. I want to think that the decision makers aren't complete baboons and at least thought they were doing something good. What i think they might be thinking is this: In germany workers have EXTREMELY strong sick protections and take every chance to get paid-sick-leave as mandated by law they can. And the main way this happens is the flu, which knocks a person out of work for two weeks over here. And this is unavoidable, people get the flu, people get sick. It happens. Especially in group environments. But if people are individually on the hook for their flu stuff, have it affect their bonuses, then they have an incentive to show up to work, not get their days counted, but get everyone else sick. Out of those there will be a number of people who do take the sick days. However if you average the bonus sickday connection out over a group, then suddenly the sick people have an incentive to stay home. If they don't infect coworkers, they don't raise the sick days of the group en masse, thus affect their own bonuses, and everyone else's less than if they went to work sick and got everyone else sick too. At least that's what i think the managers are thinking. Whether that works out like this here, i can't even imagine.
- spullara 10y ago
  This was my take on it as well. The damage that one sick person coming to work could do with this structure would probably cause the peer pressure to be not to show up and potentially spread it around. Guess we will see.
  - Scarblac 9y ago
    That's already the peer pressure in the Netherlands which has similar illness rules as Germany I think. If you're sick, stay home, not least because other people don't want to be infected. And we also have a sort of common punishment -- if too many people are at home sick, we get less done of the stuff we want to get done.
- toyg 10y ago
  By the time people show symptoms, in many cases one has been infectious for at least a full day, so this reasoning seems fairly useless. Besides, your average manager is not an epidemiologist. The most likely explanation is simply that they're trying to shave "sickies" through peer pressure rather than managing large-scale infections.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    > your average manager is not an epidemiologist. Makes it even more likely that they thought like i did, even if those thoughts are not realistically useful.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Here's a fun idea: don't have people's sick days affect their bonuses at all.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    It is not great and i don't excuse it. I can however explain why it happens: This is done in Germany because especially in jobs where many people do the same thing and aren't paid very highly, people fake sick to get a day or two off. A relative of mine works as a train attendant, and around days where locally something big happens, or around national holidays (from which they're excempt) her coworkers suddenly send in slips about coughs and throat pains from their doctors at much higher rates than usual.
mistermann 10y ago
Prediction: the United States will push the limits of everything to the maximum tolerances (for humans, society, etc), "destroying" society in the process (any monetary fruit borne by these efficiencies flow to the top 1% and are moved to offshore accounts, under the watchful eye of the government and three letter agencies mind you). China will sit back and observe all this, and then at a time of their choosing, implement the majority of these businesses, but in a less insane way, and capture most of everything. Ok, that is somewhat tongue in cheek, but I honestly do believe that we can't keep running things the way we do. Too much inequality, too much dishonesty, too much theft, too little morality, etc. Some day, this is all going to come to a head, and something very bad is going to happen.
- spdionis 10y ago
  The policy was implemented in Amazon DE. The US has nothing tobdo here.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    Oh, I would have thought amazon.de would be associated with Amazon in the United States, which has a stellar reputation. All is well then, nothing to worry about.
- jldugger 10y ago
  How do you factor in the fact that this news was from Amazon.de?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sjg007 10y ago
  China implements with brute force and no employee protections. The USA should socialize as Europe has done and it will state by state.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    I honestly don't see how you can socialize things with essentially unrestricted free trade.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

"Peer pressure" is the polite way of putting it; I would go as far as to say "collective punishment".

by desdiv 10y ago

"Peer pressure" is the polite way of putting it; I would go as far as to say "collective punishment".

I've been pondering this because on the face of it it sounds stupid and counter-productive. I want to think that the decision makers aren't complete baboons and at least thought they were doing something good. What i think they might be thinking is this: In germany workers have EXTREMELY strong sick protections and take every chance to get paid-sick-leave as mandated by law they can. And the main way this happens is the flu, which knocks a person out of work for two weeks over here. And this is unavoidable, people get the flu, people get sick. It happens. Especially in group environments. But if people are individually on the hook for their flu stuff, have it affect their bonuses, then they have an incentive to show up to work, not get their days counted, but get everyone else sick. Out of those there will be a number of people who do take the sick days. However if you average the bonus sickday connection out over a group, then suddenly the sick people have an incentive to stay home. If they don't infect coworkers, they don't raise the sick days of the group en masse, thus affect their own bonuses, and everyone else's less than if they went to work sick and got everyone else sick too. At least that's what i think the managers are thinking. Whether that works out like this here, i can't even imagine.

spullara 10y ago
This was my take on it as well. The damage that one sick person coming to work could do with this structure would probably cause the peer pressure to be not to show up and potentially spread it around. Guess we will see.
- Scarblac 9y ago
  That's already the peer pressure in the Netherlands which has similar illness rules as Germany I think. If you're sick, stay home, not least because other people don't want to be infected. And we also have a sort of common punishment -- if too many people are at home sick, we get less done of the stuff we want to get done.
toyg 10y ago
By the time people show symptoms, in many cases one has been infectious for at least a full day, so this reasoning seems fairly useless. Besides, your average manager is not an epidemiologist. The most likely explanation is simply that they're trying to shave "sickies" through peer pressure rather than managing large-scale infections.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  > your average manager is not an epidemiologist. Makes it even more likely that they thought like i did, even if those thoughts are not realistically useful.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
Here's a fun idea: don't have people's sick days affect their bonuses at all.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  It is not great and i don't excuse it. I can however explain why it happens: This is done in Germany because especially in jobs where many people do the same thing and aren't paid very highly, people fake sick to get a day or two off. A relative of mine works as a train attendant, and around days where locally something big happens, or around national holidays (from which they're excempt) her coworkers suddenly send in slips about coughs and throat pains from their doctors at much higher rates than usual.

mistermann 10y ago

Prediction: the United States will push the limits of everything to the maximum tolerances (for humans, society, etc), "destroying" society in the process (any monetary fruit borne by these efficiencies flow to the top 1% and are moved to offshore accounts, under the watchful eye of the government and three letter agencies mind you). China will sit back and observe all this, and then at a time of their choosing, implement the majority of these businesses, but in a less insane way, and capture most of everything. Ok, that is somewhat tongue in cheek, but I honestly do believe that we can't keep running things the way we do. Too much inequality, too much dishonesty, too much theft, too little morality, etc. Some day, this is all going to come to a head, and something very bad is going to happen.

spdionis 10y ago
The policy was implemented in Amazon DE. The US has nothing tobdo here.
- mistermann 10y ago
  Oh, I would have thought amazon.de would be associated with Amazon in the United States, which has a stellar reputation. All is well then, nothing to worry about.
jldugger 10y ago
How do you factor in the fact that this news was from Amazon.de?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sjg007 10y ago
China implements with brute force and no employee protections. The USA should socialize as Europe has done and it will state by state.
- mistermann 10y ago
  I honestly don't see how you can socialize things with essentially unrestricted free trade.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]