3 ms·

That just sounds like an inability of Google to aptly scale work.

by tolbish 5y ago

rdtwo 5y ago
No it’s a benefits thing they can’t scale
- tolbish 5y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - sircastor 5y ago
    You can’t offer give someone an 80% health plan, or match 4/5ths of their 401k. The structures that exist around those benefits aren’t customizable at that level. They’re bought as a package.
    - kcplate 5y ago
      Exactly. A 32 hour employee with same benefits package as a 40 hour employee likely costs the company about 85% of the cost of the 40 hour employee. If you are giving the company 80% value for a 85% of FT investment, it’s a diminished return to the company.
      - tolbish 5y ago
        Would you agree then that those employees are systemically set up to be forced out?
        kcplate 5y ago
        No. I think it depends on the situation and people involved. If you intend by working 32 hours instead of 40 hours to deliver only 80% value to your org, you would be at a disadvantage. If that extra 8 hours off has value to you, you will likely make sure your employer stays happy and maximize your value for that 32 hours you work. Conversely, if that 8 hours of payroll savings is needed for them, they will likely provide some grace during evaluation. Now if you are an exempt salaried employee, all bets are off. Whether you work 20 hours or 80, you get paid the same and are expected to deliver 100% value.
        tolbish 5y ago
        > If you intend by working 32 hours instead of 40 hours to deliver only 80% value to your org, you would be at a disadvantage. Well you would be delivering 100% of the possible value you could in 80% of the time. The same as someone who works 6 days a week would have a comparably higher output than their peers working 5 days. Are the employees who work 48 or more hours a week being compared to those who work 40 hours as well?
        kcplate 5y ago
        You might be delivering 100% or you might not. You might be more productive at 32 than 40. It’s not necessarily linear. At the end of the day you need to provide a perceived value beyond whatever your rate of comp At 48 hours you have a similar situation, if you are hourly those 8 hours cost the company an extra 50% per hour so you better be providing appropriate value for the overtime rate they are paying you.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Like some of the other posters mentioned 401k and health care are typically not scaled. Also overhead/management/hr and facility costs are still payed out in full.
- wpietri 5y ago
  What percentage of a Google engineer's salary do you think is taken up by benefits that don't scale with time/compensation? Looking at the data I can find on the web, it looks to me like a pretty small number.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    I can tell you that my company (which is not Google) has a pretty good benefit package which I value is probably a 15-20% of what my salary is…so it it’s not peanuts.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      That's not quite what I asked. I asked which parts don't scale with time/compensation, which is the only bit that matters for shorter-than-full-time schedules. Google developers start at $191k per year. The market price of Platinum health care plans for a 30-year-old single person in Google's Zip code is ~$1000/month. So that's ~6%. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's also not huge. If they drop to an 80% schedule and 80% comp, health care's now ~8% of their salary. That's something that Google can surely handwave away. For companies that can't, I think there are reasonable solutions. The obvious one is that they scale their health care subsidy with the hours worked. In many places employees pay a percentage of their health insurance costs already; it's not hard to change those numbers for people on less-than-full-time schedules.
      - kcplate 5y ago
        You think health care is the only benefit that costs the company? LTD/STD, 401k matching, tuition matching, life, PTO, ESP…it adds up. Healthcare is probably a quarter of the package if it’s a company like google.

That just sounds like an inability of Google to aptly scale work.

rdtwo 5y ago

No it’s a benefits thing they can’t scale

tolbish 5y ago
Can you elaborate?
- sircastor 5y ago
  You can’t offer give someone an 80% health plan, or match 4/5ths of their 401k. The structures that exist around those benefits aren’t customizable at that level. They’re bought as a package.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    Exactly. A 32 hour employee with same benefits package as a 40 hour employee likely costs the company about 85% of the cost of the 40 hour employee. If you are giving the company 80% value for a 85% of FT investment, it’s a diminished return to the company.
    - tolbish 5y ago
      Would you agree then that those employees are systemically set up to be forced out?
      - kcplate 5y ago
        No. I think it depends on the situation and people involved. If you intend by working 32 hours instead of 40 hours to deliver only 80% value to your org, you would be at a disadvantage. If that extra 8 hours off has value to you, you will likely make sure your employer stays happy and maximize your value for that 32 hours you work. Conversely, if that 8 hours of payroll savings is needed for them, they will likely provide some grace during evaluation. Now if you are an exempt salaried employee, all bets are off. Whether you work 20 hours or 80, you get paid the same and are expected to deliver 100% value.
        tolbish 5y ago
        > If you intend by working 32 hours instead of 40 hours to deliver only 80% value to your org, you would be at a disadvantage. Well you would be delivering 100% of the possible value you could in 80% of the time. The same as someone who works 6 days a week would have a comparably higher output than their peers working 5 days. Are the employees who work 48 or more hours a week being compared to those who work 40 hours as well?
        kcplate 5y ago
        You might be delivering 100% or you might not. You might be more productive at 32 than 40. It’s not necessarily linear. At the end of the day you need to provide a perceived value beyond whatever your rate of comp At 48 hours you have a similar situation, if you are hourly those 8 hours cost the company an extra 50% per hour so you better be providing appropriate value for the overtime rate they are paying you.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Like some of the other posters mentioned 401k and health care are typically not scaled. Also overhead/management/hr and facility costs are still payed out in full.
wpietri 5y ago
What percentage of a Google engineer's salary do you think is taken up by benefits that don't scale with time/compensation? Looking at the data I can find on the web, it looks to me like a pretty small number.
- kcplate 5y ago
  I can tell you that my company (which is not Google) has a pretty good benefit package which I value is probably a 15-20% of what my salary is…so it it’s not peanuts.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    That's not quite what I asked. I asked which parts don't scale with time/compensation, which is the only bit that matters for shorter-than-full-time schedules. Google developers start at $191k per year. The market price of Platinum health care plans for a 30-year-old single person in Google's Zip code is ~$1000/month. So that's ~6%. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's also not huge. If they drop to an 80% schedule and 80% comp, health care's now ~8% of their salary. That's something that Google can surely handwave away. For companies that can't, I think there are reasonable solutions. The obvious one is that they scale their health care subsidy with the hours worked. In many places employees pay a percentage of their health insurance costs already; it's not hard to change those numbers for people on less-than-full-time schedules.
    - kcplate 5y ago
      You think health care is the only benefit that costs the company? LTD/STD, 401k matching, tuition matching, life, PTO, ESP…it adds up. Healthcare is probably a quarter of the package if it’s a company like google.