4 ms·

If employees were personally liable for costs of mistakes, no one would do the work - too much personal risk involved. Also, the degree of blaming anyone-but-m

If employees were personally liable for costs of mistakes, no one would do the work - too much personal risk involved. Also, the degree of blaming anyone-but-me would be off the charts, crippling the organization. Having some type of accountability is important - incompetent people should not be allowed to keep their job, and institutions should have some incentive to improve, but not sure putting all the burden on individuals is the right answer. What if you had to pay the cost of every bug you created? I'm sure a lot of us developers would be digging ditches instead. :)

Drdrdrq 8y ago
True. Collective responsibility is a much better solution - then it is in bosses' best interest to create such environment that mistakes have as low impact as possible. And it's up to the whole team to make that happen. Similar to how it is done in (properly managed) software development companies.
rabidrat 8y ago
There are many jobs for which the doer is personally liable. They are required to be bonded and insured so that if anything happens, they don't go bankrupt or otherwise avoid compensating for damages. And there are still people to do the work. Not sure that's the best solution here, but the assumption that "no one would do the work" is likely not correct.
- allannienhuis 8y ago
  Good point. Although if they're required to be bonded as part of the job requirements, that means they still don't feel the full effect of the cost of their mistakes which is what I think was being proposed. That said, it's a lot closer along that spectrum because I assume their ability to be bonded/insured will be affected by subsequent claims against the bond. I'm also not sure exactly how bonding would work in jobs where blame is hard to determine, or not attributable to a single individual (ie systemic issue). Perhaps that's one of the reasons it's not done more commonly.

Drdrdrq 8y ago

True. Collective responsibility is a much better solution - then it is in bosses' best interest to create such environment that mistakes have as low impact as possible. And it's up to the whole team to make that happen. Similar to how it is done in (properly managed) software development companies.

rabidrat 8y ago

There are many jobs for which the doer is personally liable. They are required to be bonded and insured so that if anything happens, they don't go bankrupt or otherwise avoid compensating for damages. And there are still people to do the work. Not sure that's the best solution here, but the assumption that "no one would do the work" is likely not correct.

allannienhuis 8y ago
Good point. Although if they're required to be bonded as part of the job requirements, that means they still don't feel the full effect of the cost of their mistakes which is what I think was being proposed. That said, it's a lot closer along that spectrum because I assume their ability to be bonded/insured will be affected by subsequent claims against the bond. I'm also not sure exactly how bonding would work in jobs where blame is hard to determine, or not attributable to a single individual (ie systemic issue). Perhaps that's one of the reasons it's not done more commonly.