5 ms·

Something is weird with this article, it's like the main goal is to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful.

by mt42or 6y ago

nerdponx 6y ago
it's like the main goal is to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful. This is just how business works. It's how market (and many non-market) economies work. It's how much of human society is structured. Also, sometimes people need external motivation. "You are a jerk and you need to stop being a jerk" is not enough sometimes. This happens in many contexts, not just the workplace.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Caring about the employees and making the enterprise successful can be one in the same. That’s the point. Businesses require success and profit to continue to exist. There’s no point in pretending that what the business does isn’t ultimately motivated by profit. I know there’s a trend to pretend that companies are doing things for selfless reasons or purely to do good things for their employees, but that’s usually obscuring a hidden profit motive (increase recruiting, motivate employees to work harder, create goodwill among customers). It’s better when the companies are simply honest about their intentions.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
The #1 job of any manager (and employee), as far as the company is concerned, is to represent/forward the goals of the corporation. "forward the goals of the corporation" can mean a lot of things. As any parent knows, it's dangerous to let kids have everything the want. Same with pets. If you let your dog eat all your chocolate chip cookies, I hope you have an animal emergency room nearby. Same with a corporation. In one or two cases, I deliberately took a risk, and disobeyed orders/policies, because I knew that they would be eating chocolate chip cookies. That's a big risk, because there's usually quite a bit more behind policies and orders than an individual can see, and what I did could have been destructive. I am happy to report that these were not destructive, but it isn't a practice that I can recommend. But "forward the goals of the corporation" can also be in direct conflict with the goals of the employee, which, if they are healthy, may start with things like "my kids, my spouse, etc." Balance needs to be had, and it's a mistake to look to a corporation to provide that balance. Usually, the best source of balance is the direct-report manager. They need to be "in tune" with their employees, and be able to negotiate the competing priorities. In any case, a manager that puts their own, personal goals ahead of those of the corporation, and of their employees is (IMNSHO) negligent in their duties. I was a manager for 25 years. I think I did a decent job of it, and I kept senior-level employees for decades (not an exaggeration -when they finally wound up my team, after 27 years, the employee with the least tenure had ten years). My experience, is that whenever I have discussed my philosophies and methodology, I'm attacked for either being a "wimp" (other managers), or being "two-faced" (other employees). None of these attacks have come from people that have actually worked with/for me. When I became a manager, I assumed a different role. I had to make the commitment to put aside my personal aspirations, in favor of those of the corporation, then my employees. My own goals came behind those. But that was just my experience. YMMV.
- user5994461 6y ago
  What is the geographic area? How is the pay band of the company compared to local competitors? How are the perks? I don't expect managers in a tech hub to be able to keep younger employees for many years, when they can jump ship after 1-3 years to get a huge pay raise somewhere else. Then there's the grade of the company, if you're at a lower grade company (low pay, mediocre projects, no pension, bad health insurance) good luck keeping people around. They will figure out soon enough the grass is greener elsewhere. The few people I met with 10+ years of tenure were mostly in large companies with benefits and comfortable positions. They've changed roles internally a few times over the years.
  - Xylakant 6y ago
    The parent specifically mentioned keeping senior level employees. Juniors can easily jump ship for pay raises, but as you get senior, other values start to becomes more important. Your wage level is likely “good enough” and so stuff like stable working hours, a team that you can rely on, stability etc. become more of a deciding factor, especially once you start settling and having a family. 10 years + doesn’t sound implausible, especially if you had 27 years to build the team. The ones that stick around for longer than the initial period tend to stick around long.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    NY. Mediocre pay. Conservative corporation. It was also important to keep employees for a long time. I worked for a Japanese corporation, and my boss was 7,000 miles away, and didn't speak English. So, for me, keeping my employees happy, and feeling valued, was important. Since these were fairly senior (C++ programmers that had been coding around 30 years or so), I gave their families and personal space a lot of respect. This was appreciated, and I was rewarded with personal loyalty. The risk to the corporation was that it was personal loyalty. I have no doubts, whatsoever, that, if I had left, the entire team would have left quickly behind me. My management was not as respectful of my personal life, as I was of my employees, but I enjoyed a pretty remarkable level of trust, as I have some fairly well-considered personal Principles.
edoceo 6y ago
"is this good for the company?"

Something is weird with this article, it's like the main goal is to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful.

by mt42or 6y ago

Something is weird with this article, it's like the main goal is to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful.

nerdponx 6y ago

it's like the main goal is to care about employee only to make the entreprise successful. This is just how business works. It's how market (and many non-market) economies work. It's how much of human society is structured. Also, sometimes people need external motivation. "You are a jerk and you need to stop being a jerk" is not enough sometimes. This happens in many contexts, not just the workplace.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Caring about the employees and making the enterprise successful can be one in the same. That’s the point. Businesses require success and profit to continue to exist. There’s no point in pretending that what the business does isn’t ultimately motivated by profit. I know there’s a trend to pretend that companies are doing things for selfless reasons or purely to do good things for their employees, but that’s usually obscuring a hidden profit motive (increase recruiting, motivate employees to work harder, create goodwill among customers). It’s better when the companies are simply honest about their intentions.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

The #1 job of any manager (and employee), as far as the company is concerned, is to represent/forward the goals of the corporation. "forward the goals of the corporation" can mean a lot of things. As any parent knows, it's dangerous to let kids have everything the want. Same with pets. If you let your dog eat all your chocolate chip cookies, I hope you have an animal emergency room nearby. Same with a corporation. In one or two cases, I deliberately took a risk, and disobeyed orders/policies, because I knew that they would be eating chocolate chip cookies. That's a big risk, because there's usually quite a bit more behind policies and orders than an individual can see, and what I did could have been destructive. I am happy to report that these were not destructive, but it isn't a practice that I can recommend. But "forward the goals of the corporation" can also be in direct conflict with the goals of the employee, which, if they are healthy, may start with things like "my kids, my spouse, etc." Balance needs to be had, and it's a mistake to look to a corporation to provide that balance. Usually, the best source of balance is the direct-report manager. They need to be "in tune" with their employees, and be able to negotiate the competing priorities. In any case, a manager that puts their own, personal goals ahead of those of the corporation, and of their employees is (IMNSHO) negligent in their duties. I was a manager for 25 years. I think I did a decent job of it, and I kept senior-level employees for decades (not an exaggeration -when they finally wound up my team, after 27 years, the employee with the least tenure had ten years). My experience, is that whenever I have discussed my philosophies and methodology, I'm attacked for either being a "wimp" (other managers), or being "two-faced" (other employees). None of these attacks have come from people that have actually worked with/for me. When I became a manager, I assumed a different role. I had to make the commitment to put aside my personal aspirations, in favor of those of the corporation, then my employees. My own goals came behind those. But that was just my experience. YMMV.

user5994461 6y ago
What is the geographic area? How is the pay band of the company compared to local competitors? How are the perks? I don't expect managers in a tech hub to be able to keep younger employees for many years, when they can jump ship after 1-3 years to get a huge pay raise somewhere else. Then there's the grade of the company, if you're at a lower grade company (low pay, mediocre projects, no pension, bad health insurance) good luck keeping people around. They will figure out soon enough the grass is greener elsewhere. The few people I met with 10+ years of tenure were mostly in large companies with benefits and comfortable positions. They've changed roles internally a few times over the years.
- Xylakant 6y ago
  The parent specifically mentioned keeping senior level employees. Juniors can easily jump ship for pay raises, but as you get senior, other values start to becomes more important. Your wage level is likely “good enough” and so stuff like stable working hours, a team that you can rely on, stability etc. become more of a deciding factor, especially once you start settling and having a family. 10 years + doesn’t sound implausible, especially if you had 27 years to build the team. The ones that stick around for longer than the initial period tend to stick around long.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  NY. Mediocre pay. Conservative corporation. It was also important to keep employees for a long time. I worked for a Japanese corporation, and my boss was 7,000 miles away, and didn't speak English. So, for me, keeping my employees happy, and feeling valued, was important. Since these were fairly senior (C++ programmers that had been coding around 30 years or so), I gave their families and personal space a lot of respect. This was appreciated, and I was rewarded with personal loyalty. The risk to the corporation was that it was personal loyalty. I have no doubts, whatsoever, that, if I had left, the entire team would have left quickly behind me. My management was not as respectful of my personal life, as I was of my employees, but I enjoyed a pretty remarkable level of trust, as I have some fairly well-considered personal Principles.

edoceo 6y ago

"is this good for the company?"