4 ms·

Obvious solution is just give people more money for doing the same thing.

by Tycho 7y ago

rhizome 7y ago
I think people would probably prefer that as well, rather than the accepted standard of companies offering only cost-of-living raises unless you hustle your way to a new title (or company).
jldugger 7y ago
Apparently no management ever wants to be paid less than their employees.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Which is ridiculous. I'm sure there are plenty of people who could be effective managers and would gladly do it for less than the people they manage, if it weren't for the fact that they would have to be hired by other managers for whom neither of these qualities are actually desirable.
  - Tycho 7y ago
    It’s not so ridiculous... an organisation will want the decision makers to be the people with the most skin in the game, and the easiest way to achieve this is pay them more money. Maybe the answer is for more people to work as contractors rather than employees, maybe as part of guilds with which firms can strike long-term contracts. But many office jobs are so amorphous, hard to think how a guild could supply the labour.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
      This assumes that the managers are the decision makers. Very often their role is just to manage the team, i.e. to make sure everyone is doing their job properly and there are no problems on the way. Personally I would have no problems taking orders who earns less, heck I don't even know how much my manager earns so I don't really see the problem.
      - corysama 7y ago
        In the games industry, we have the "Producer" role which, when executed well, is someone dedicated to organizing the troops, but does not make strategic decisions. So, the producer might sit down with the lead engineer and lead designer and help make sure that the implementation of changes proposed to the design are scheduled realistically. Even though producers are in a management-like role, they are generally considered on the same tier as other workers (engineers, designers, artists). Their pay grade skews lower than engineering, higher than art and design. There are still highly-paid product leads and corporate officers all over gaming. But, I wonder if something like the producer role is present elsewhere in the software industry (I've only worked in gaming). Or, if it should be...
        jldugger 7y ago
        > the "Producer" role which, when executed well, is someone dedicated to organizing the troops, but does not make strategic decisions. That's a project manager, as opposed to like, 'people managers.' PMs are the unfortunate dotted line in org charts, with zero power but massive responsibilities -- shipping on time and under budget!
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Asooka 7y ago
      Past a certain point increasing your compensation decreases your skin in the game, because you have so much money saved up, you can live off comfortably off investing, real estate management, etc. This is usually about the level of a top individual contributor, so management is way above that level anyway. You can't have very much skin in the game if you already have as much skin as you want on yourself.
      - Tycho 7y ago
        We’re talking about management all through the layers of the company. Vast majority of managers don’t have so much wealth that they are indifferent to the many years of future earnings.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > an organisation will want the decision makers to be the people with the most skin in the game, and the easiest way to achieve this is pay them more money. Paying them more money (in the form of a higher fixed salary) gives them less skin in the game; skin in the game is what is value at risk; because of declining marginal utility, the more is given unconditionally, the less is at risk, ceteris paribus.
      - Tycho 7y ago
        But it’s not given unconditionally, they can be fired at any time. Highly paid employees typically face a huge switching cost and have every incentive to do whatever ensures they will keep collecting the pay cheque, long term, letting them maintain the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. Of course, if we are talking about earning massive bonuses from hidden/delayed risks, that’s a different matter.
- friedegg 7y ago
  Not a corporation, but that is the structure for most major athletes and actors. Managers can make significant money, but if they're not taking advantage of their client, then it's usually less, sometimes significantly less.
- k__ 7y ago
  Maybe remove manager positions and replace them with something less top-down-like?
- shawndumas 7y ago
  at Google managers often have a lower salary than the people that directly report to them.
  - jldugger 7y ago
    A) how do you know this B) there's a few ways for this to be only technically true: i. salary versus equity compensation can be different yet still higher ii. 'often' can mean a variety of different things, such as 'occurring more times than I can count on my hands', rather than say 'more than 50 percent of managers'.
    - shawndumas 7y ago
      a) I am an eng manager at Google b) i. yes, total comp is very dependent on RSUs which are pegged at when they were awarded. but salary too; imagine a newly hired L6 manager that has a 15 year IC at L6. ii. it’s common enough that no one would be surprised (does that help?)
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  I see it all the time: sales people making monster salaries, far more than management. It is effective at retaining and keeping sales people. Unfortunately it introduces a different set of distortions because the short term value of making the next deal can derail long term health and goals.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    I was a junior presales engineer at this one company, which was very, very sales oriented. At one point I realized that I had more latitude to expense a meal for a business meeting than the VP in charge of engineering, who had 30 people under him.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Playing devil's advocate - it's because they are ultimately more responsible for anything their employees do, than are the employees themselves, so the manager has the most to lose when things go awry.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  When I was attending grad school, the star professor was this guy who had defected from communist Hungary. He had an office twice as big as the department head's office, and I suspect he might even have been paid as much or more. The guy was awesome, though. I don't think anyone begrudged him any of that.
- visz 7y ago
  Not really true. Tom Brady makes $20m/year and his manager makes $10m/year. Both are arguably the best in their position and it would be hard to gauge which adds more to the overall team success.
- zach_garwood 7y ago
  And that sort of gets at the heart of the problem: We think of managers has having "employees" instead of having "teammates." Authority shouldn't come (solely) from hierarchy, it should come from being good at what you do. If the only reason people do what you say is because you're higher up the hierarchy than they are, then you're just not a good manager.

Obvious solution is just give people more money for doing the same thing.

by Tycho 7y ago

Obvious solution is just give people more money for doing the same thing.

I think people would probably prefer that as well, rather than the accepted standard of companies offering only cost-of-living raises unless you hustle your way to a new title (or company).

jldugger 7y ago

Apparently no management ever wants to be paid less than their employees.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Which is ridiculous. I'm sure there are plenty of people who could be effective managers and would gladly do it for less than the people they manage, if it weren't for the fact that they would have to be hired by other managers for whom neither of these qualities are actually desirable.
- Tycho 7y ago
  It’s not so ridiculous... an organisation will want the decision makers to be the people with the most skin in the game, and the easiest way to achieve this is pay them more money. Maybe the answer is for more people to work as contractors rather than employees, maybe as part of guilds with which firms can strike long-term contracts. But many office jobs are so amorphous, hard to think how a guild could supply the labour.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    This assumes that the managers are the decision makers. Very often their role is just to manage the team, i.e. to make sure everyone is doing their job properly and there are no problems on the way. Personally I would have no problems taking orders who earns less, heck I don't even know how much my manager earns so I don't really see the problem.
    - corysama 7y ago
      In the games industry, we have the "Producer" role which, when executed well, is someone dedicated to organizing the troops, but does not make strategic decisions. So, the producer might sit down with the lead engineer and lead designer and help make sure that the implementation of changes proposed to the design are scheduled realistically. Even though producers are in a management-like role, they are generally considered on the same tier as other workers (engineers, designers, artists). Their pay grade skews lower than engineering, higher than art and design. There are still highly-paid product leads and corporate officers all over gaming. But, I wonder if something like the producer role is present elsewhere in the software industry (I've only worked in gaming). Or, if it should be...
      - jldugger 7y ago
        > the "Producer" role which, when executed well, is someone dedicated to organizing the troops, but does not make strategic decisions. That's a project manager, as opposed to like, 'people managers.' PMs are the unfortunate dotted line in org charts, with zero power but massive responsibilities -- shipping on time and under budget!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Asooka 7y ago
    Past a certain point increasing your compensation decreases your skin in the game, because you have so much money saved up, you can live off comfortably off investing, real estate management, etc. This is usually about the level of a top individual contributor, so management is way above that level anyway. You can't have very much skin in the game if you already have as much skin as you want on yourself.
    - Tycho 7y ago
      We’re talking about management all through the layers of the company. Vast majority of managers don’t have so much wealth that they are indifferent to the many years of future earnings.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > an organisation will want the decision makers to be the people with the most skin in the game, and the easiest way to achieve this is pay them more money. Paying them more money (in the form of a higher fixed salary) gives them less skin in the game; skin in the game is what is value at risk; because of declining marginal utility, the more is given unconditionally, the less is at risk, ceteris paribus.
    - Tycho 7y ago
      But it’s not given unconditionally, they can be fired at any time. Highly paid employees typically face a huge switching cost and have every incentive to do whatever ensures they will keep collecting the pay cheque, long term, letting them maintain the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. Of course, if we are talking about earning massive bonuses from hidden/delayed risks, that’s a different matter.
friedegg 7y ago
Not a corporation, but that is the structure for most major athletes and actors. Managers can make significant money, but if they're not taking advantage of their client, then it's usually less, sometimes significantly less.
k__ 7y ago
Maybe remove manager positions and replace them with something less top-down-like?
shawndumas 7y ago
at Google managers often have a lower salary than the people that directly report to them.
- jldugger 7y ago
  A) how do you know this B) there's a few ways for this to be only technically true: i. salary versus equity compensation can be different yet still higher ii. 'often' can mean a variety of different things, such as 'occurring more times than I can count on my hands', rather than say 'more than 50 percent of managers'.
  - shawndumas 7y ago
    a) I am an eng manager at Google b) i. yes, total comp is very dependent on RSUs which are pegged at when they were awarded. but salary too; imagine a newly hired L6 manager that has a 15 year IC at L6. ii. it’s common enough that no one would be surprised (does that help?)
WillPostForFood 7y ago
I see it all the time: sales people making monster salaries, far more than management. It is effective at retaining and keeping sales people. Unfortunately it introduces a different set of distortions because the short term value of making the next deal can derail long term health and goals.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  I was a junior presales engineer at this one company, which was very, very sales oriented. At one point I realized that I had more latitude to expense a meal for a business meeting than the VP in charge of engineering, who had 30 people under him.
stronglikedan 7y ago
Playing devil's advocate - it's because they are ultimately more responsible for anything their employees do, than are the employees themselves, so the manager has the most to lose when things go awry.
stcredzero 7y ago
When I was attending grad school, the star professor was this guy who had defected from communist Hungary. He had an office twice as big as the department head's office, and I suspect he might even have been paid as much or more. The guy was awesome, though. I don't think anyone begrudged him any of that.
visz 7y ago
Not really true. Tom Brady makes $20m/year and his manager makes $10m/year. Both are arguably the best in their position and it would be hard to gauge which adds more to the overall team success.
zach_garwood 7y ago
And that sort of gets at the heart of the problem: We think of managers has having "employees" instead of having "teammates." Authority shouldn't come (solely) from hierarchy, it should come from being good at what you do. If the only reason people do what you say is because you're higher up the hierarchy than they are, then you're just not a good manager.