4 ms·

Isnt't a salary just a predefined quota of hours and rate?

Alupis 9y ago
> Isnt't a salary just a predefined quota of hours and rate? That depends on one's employment contract.
vanadium 9y ago
In most companies I've been exposed to, it's the _minimum_ expected effort for the rate. It's also why one of the first career mentorship steps I go through with Juniors is calculating their hourly rate with the assumption of 40 hours a week (per the ostensible employee agreement), and then calculating it against the _real_ hours worked per week after taking a position. You'd be surprised how illuminating that's been to those Juniors, and how much of an imprint it left on those folks as they progressed in their careers. A lot of people in our industry genuinely don't recognize how much they devalue themselves and diluting their hourly rate when they're putting in 60-80 hours a week.
- ratsimihah 9y ago
  And everytime we start new jobs we're like "ok I'm doing 9 hours days max," but that never lasts.
  - namibj 9y ago
    In other countries it is illegal to work that much without being a manager.
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      More accurately, for Europe it would be illegal except for the business owner. A normal manager is still convered by the limit. (Actual limit is 48h/wk, averaged over several weeks.)
  - softawre 9y ago
    I have worked probably 20 days over 8 hours in my 10 year career. My team hardly ever works more than 8 hours these days. Depends what you do, but if you're a "normal" software company you should be able to get away with this. Work smartly - don't waste a bunch of time, recognize how much actual work your people can do in a day - and let them go home to recharge.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  >It's also why one of the first career mentorship steps I go through with Juniors is calculating their hourly rate with the assumption of 40 hours a week (per the ostensible employee agreement), and then calculating it against the _real_ hours worked per week after taking a position. My dept. is considering moving us from hourly to salary. I've expressed that I don't mind that as long as we get a pay increase equalling expected overtime. Let's see how that plays out.
  - taneq 9y ago
    My old job started requiring frequent work on remote sites. I was originally paid a bonus hourly rate while away (in lieu of my salary for those days), and they tried to move me from that setup to a slightly higher base salary but no extra pay for remote work. Of course, while they were quite happy with capping the amount they were paying me (at less than even my existing salary-plus-site-bonus), they always refused to accept a limit (any limit at all, not just one I felt reasonable) on the number of weeks a year I was expected to be away. Eventually I left and a friend of mine accepted their deal, he ended up racking up 400 hours of overtime (which he never got to take or got paid out) in his first three months.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      Eventually I left and a friend of mine accepted their deal, he ended up racking up 400 hours of overtime (which he never got to take or got paid out) in his first three months. An employment lawyer and/or the Department of Labor would be very interested in this. It takes more than simply putting someone on salary to exempt them from overtime (in the US).
      - taneq 9y ago
        We're not in the U.S. and my friend has since moved on to much greener pastures. I don't know the specifics of his employment contract but I believe software development is one of the roles specifically exempted from "reasonableness" requirements for overtime where I live. It was still a crappy thing to do to him (and made me feel totally vindicated in my initial cynical attitude to the whole thing.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 9y ago
Generally, no, especially for tech workers at common Silicon Valley pay scales, which are exempt under state and federal wage and hour laws. But lower-base-pay non-exempt employees sometimes are quoted a salary but with terms that make it a predefined quota of hours and rate that is in practice more like an hourly rate; these positions usually have paid leave so that, unless the leave is exhausted, it mostly only differs from a pure salary in that overtime is paid, either at straight, time-and-half, or double pay, depending on labor law and contract terms.
chrisseaton 9y ago
No I think a salaried employee is a professional and supposed to put in the hours required to get the job done, within reason. For example if a client has come to see you and your boss wants to take everyone for a work dinner you wouldn't say 'sorry it's after hours' - you're paid full time and you're supposed to be there as required, and you don't quibble about the hours, within reason. Where as an hourly employee would say 'sorry I'm off the clock'.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisbennet 9y ago
  "is a professional and supposed to put in the hours required to get the job done, within reason" Funny how it only goes one way. Not many employers are OK with someone taking Friday off because they got their work done early. Lots of employers will see nothing wrong with asking people to come in on the weekend. I think people forget that the employer/employee relationship is a value for value business relationship. As a professional I'm flexible but I'm not exploitable.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    Well flexibility is what I mean. Being a salaried employee means not clocking in-and-out, not quibbling about hours worked either way, and working with your employer rather than against them in some kind of by-the-hour adversarial relationship. Taking a salary means you are being responsible for what you achieve, not just mindlessly churning out the required number of hours.
    - feiofh398r39rty 9y ago
      Well, flexibility is what I mean. Being an employer of a salaried employee means signing more than just one fixed paycheck per 2 weeks, not questioning when someone requests to be paid more and working with your employees rather than against them in some kind of exact-amount-of-dollars adversarial relationship. Taking a salaried work means you are being responsible for the well-being of your employees, not just mindlessly handing out fixed amounts of money.
lostboys67 9y ago
technically in the UK a Salaried position doesn't have fixed hours of work - this is a major social status indicator

> Isnt't a salary just a predefined quota of hours and rate? That depends on one's employment contract.

In most companies I've been exposed to, it's the _minimum_ expected effort for the rate. It's also why one of the first career mentorship steps I go through with Juniors is calculating their hourly rate with the assumption of 40 hours a week (per the ostensible employee agreement), and then calculating it against the _real_ hours worked per week after taking a position. You'd be surprised how illuminating that's been to those Juniors, and how much of an imprint it left on those folks as they progressed in their careers. A lot of people in our industry genuinely don't recognize how much they devalue themselves and diluting their hourly rate when they're putting in 60-80 hours a week.

ratsimihah 9y ago
And everytime we start new jobs we're like "ok I'm doing 9 hours days max," but that never lasts.
- namibj 9y ago
  In other countries it is illegal to work that much without being a manager.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    More accurately, for Europe it would be illegal except for the business owner. A normal manager is still convered by the limit. (Actual limit is 48h/wk, averaged over several weeks.)
- softawre 9y ago
  I have worked probably 20 days over 8 hours in my 10 year career. My team hardly ever works more than 8 hours these days. Depends what you do, but if you're a "normal" software company you should be able to get away with this. Work smartly - don't waste a bunch of time, recognize how much actual work your people can do in a day - and let them go home to recharge.
unethical_ban 9y ago
>It's also why one of the first career mentorship steps I go through with Juniors is calculating their hourly rate with the assumption of 40 hours a week (per the ostensible employee agreement), and then calculating it against the _real_ hours worked per week after taking a position. My dept. is considering moving us from hourly to salary. I've expressed that I don't mind that as long as we get a pay increase equalling expected overtime. Let's see how that plays out.
- taneq 9y ago
  My old job started requiring frequent work on remote sites. I was originally paid a bonus hourly rate while away (in lieu of my salary for those days), and they tried to move me from that setup to a slightly higher base salary but no extra pay for remote work. Of course, while they were quite happy with capping the amount they were paying me (at less than even my existing salary-plus-site-bonus), they always refused to accept a limit (any limit at all, not just one I felt reasonable) on the number of weeks a year I was expected to be away. Eventually I left and a friend of mine accepted their deal, he ended up racking up 400 hours of overtime (which he never got to take or got paid out) in his first three months.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    Eventually I left and a friend of mine accepted their deal, he ended up racking up 400 hours of overtime (which he never got to take or got paid out) in his first three months. An employment lawyer and/or the Department of Labor would be very interested in this. It takes more than simply putting someone on salary to exempt them from overtime (in the US).
    - taneq 9y ago
      We're not in the U.S. and my friend has since moved on to much greener pastures. I don't know the specifics of his employment contract but I believe software development is one of the roles specifically exempted from "reasonableness" requirements for overtime where I live. It was still a crappy thing to do to him (and made me feel totally vindicated in my initial cynical attitude to the whole thing.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dragonwriter 9y ago

Generally, no, especially for tech workers at common Silicon Valley pay scales, which are exempt under state and federal wage and hour laws. But lower-base-pay non-exempt employees sometimes are quoted a salary but with terms that make it a predefined quota of hours and rate that is in practice more like an hourly rate; these positions usually have paid leave so that, unless the leave is exhausted, it mostly only differs from a pure salary in that overtime is paid, either at straight, time-and-half, or double pay, depending on labor law and contract terms.

chrisseaton 9y ago

No I think a salaried employee is a professional and supposed to put in the hours required to get the job done, within reason. For example if a client has come to see you and your boss wants to take everyone for a work dinner you wouldn't say 'sorry it's after hours' - you're paid full time and you're supposed to be there as required, and you don't quibble about the hours, within reason. Where as an hourly employee would say 'sorry I'm off the clock'.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chrisbennet 9y ago
"is a professional and supposed to put in the hours required to get the job done, within reason" Funny how it only goes one way. Not many employers are OK with someone taking Friday off because they got their work done early. Lots of employers will see nothing wrong with asking people to come in on the weekend. I think people forget that the employer/employee relationship is a value for value business relationship. As a professional I'm flexible but I'm not exploitable.
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  Well flexibility is what I mean. Being a salaried employee means not clocking in-and-out, not quibbling about hours worked either way, and working with your employer rather than against them in some kind of by-the-hour adversarial relationship. Taking a salary means you are being responsible for what you achieve, not just mindlessly churning out the required number of hours.
  - feiofh398r39rty 9y ago
    Well, flexibility is what I mean. Being an employer of a salaried employee means signing more than just one fixed paycheck per 2 weeks, not questioning when someone requests to be paid more and working with your employees rather than against them in some kind of exact-amount-of-dollars adversarial relationship. Taking a salaried work means you are being responsible for the well-being of your employees, not just mindlessly handing out fixed amounts of money.

lostboys67 9y ago

technically in the UK a Salaried position doesn't have fixed hours of work - this is a major social status indicator