5 ms·

Normalizing pay to years experience is a bad move in general, IMO. You are going to have a distribution of high and low performers at all levels of experience.

by dolni 4y ago

Normalizing pay to years experience is a bad move in general, IMO. You are going to have a distribution of high and low performers at all levels of experience. If you pay all the senior people the same, you have less money to pay your high performers. And maybe they go get that pay from elsewhere. There's a difference between having 20 years of experience and one year of experience 20 times.

cyanydeez 4y ago
If your manages appropriately manage the employees, it'd require letting go poor performance.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  Even if you let go the poor performers, there's still a wide range of ability in the rest. It also means people will do just enough work to not get layed off (or appear to do that much work), because there's no benefit to doing better.
  - bjt 4y ago
    While I see your point, I'd argue with "there's no benefit to doing better." People are motivated by more than money. Mastery, autonomy, and purpose come to mind.
    - RHSeeger 4y ago
      I would expect the majority of people are more motivated by having some skin in the game than they are by the rewards of doing the work itself. I get great joy out of making my clients happy and solving hard problems (I enjoy rabbit holes), but even I get frustrated when there's no real advancement (financial or otherwise) for doing a better job.
lanstin 4y ago
The root of the promo and hiring problems is this focus on individual performance. The appropriate unit of analysis for most human efforts is the group level. Just have some livable base salaries, and then give everyone a big chunk of the profits each year. I don't know if it's always true for people, but my performance goes up and down quite a lot depending on how much I believe in the group mission and the group dynamic. I'll occasionally stay late working for some abstract metric that might impact 10% of my pay, but I'll stay up 48 hours working fanatically to make something work for my friends and co-workers and the dream of success in changing the world that the group is striving for together. And if that filters out the people that only do software for a princely salary, leaving the people motivated to transform the world for the better, so much the better. Greedy people are a bit demotivating to work with.
- dolni 4y ago
  > The root of the promo and hiring problems is this focus on individual performance. The appropriate unit of analysis for most human efforts is the group level. This is an awful idea. Rewarding individuals based on the group outcome is a great way to drive rockstars away from the team. Why would any high performer want to anchor themselves to lower performing team members? That is a surefire way to get a lower bonus. Why would I volunteer to take on a crummy or particularly hard task when I can just hope someone else does it and I reap the rewards? > I don't know if it's always true for people, but my performance goes up and down quite a lot depending on how much I believe in the group mission and the group dynamic. I'll occasionally stay late working for some abstract metric that might impact 10% of my pay, but I'll stay up 48 hours working fanatically to make something work for my friends and co-workers and the dream of success in changing the world that the group is striving for together. Peoples' performance changes for every reason under the sun from "I decided to stay out late and drink on a Wednesday" to "my boss is an asshole" to "I just don't feel like working today". Personally, I want control over my own destiny and my own bonus. I don't want to feel obligated to push myself harder for someone else's bonus. And just the same, I don't want someone else's shortcomings to tank my bonus. The actual answer here is to make sure that your review process accounts for how individuals impact the group dynamic. > And if that filters out the people that only do software for a princely salary, leaving the people motivated to transform the world for the better, so much the better. Greedy people are a bit demotivating to work with. This is a super ignorant take. Any person who has a family and works to support them wants to provide the best they can for their family. That's not greed. Kids are fucking expensive by themselves, let alone trying to send them to college.

by dolni 4y ago

cyanydeez 4y ago

If your manages appropriately manage the employees, it'd require letting go poor performance.

RHSeeger 4y ago
Even if you let go the poor performers, there's still a wide range of ability in the rest. It also means people will do just enough work to not get layed off (or appear to do that much work), because there's no benefit to doing better.
- bjt 4y ago
  While I see your point, I'd argue with "there's no benefit to doing better." People are motivated by more than money. Mastery, autonomy, and purpose come to mind.
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    I would expect the majority of people are more motivated by having some skin in the game than they are by the rewards of doing the work itself. I get great joy out of making my clients happy and solving hard problems (I enjoy rabbit holes), but even I get frustrated when there's no real advancement (financial or otherwise) for doing a better job.

lanstin 4y ago

The root of the promo and hiring problems is this focus on individual performance. The appropriate unit of analysis for most human efforts is the group level. Just have some livable base salaries, and then give everyone a big chunk of the profits each year. I don't know if it's always true for people, but my performance goes up and down quite a lot depending on how much I believe in the group mission and the group dynamic. I'll occasionally stay late working for some abstract metric that might impact 10% of my pay, but I'll stay up 48 hours working fanatically to make something work for my friends and co-workers and the dream of success in changing the world that the group is striving for together. And if that filters out the people that only do software for a princely salary, leaving the people motivated to transform the world for the better, so much the better. Greedy people are a bit demotivating to work with.

dolni 4y ago
> The root of the promo and hiring problems is this focus on individual performance. The appropriate unit of analysis for most human efforts is the group level. This is an awful idea. Rewarding individuals based on the group outcome is a great way to drive rockstars away from the team. Why would any high performer want to anchor themselves to lower performing team members? That is a surefire way to get a lower bonus. Why would I volunteer to take on a crummy or particularly hard task when I can just hope someone else does it and I reap the rewards? > I don't know if it's always true for people, but my performance goes up and down quite a lot depending on how much I believe in the group mission and the group dynamic. I'll occasionally stay late working for some abstract metric that might impact 10% of my pay, but I'll stay up 48 hours working fanatically to make something work for my friends and co-workers and the dream of success in changing the world that the group is striving for together. Peoples' performance changes for every reason under the sun from "I decided to stay out late and drink on a Wednesday" to "my boss is an asshole" to "I just don't feel like working today". Personally, I want control over my own destiny and my own bonus. I don't want to feel obligated to push myself harder for someone else's bonus. And just the same, I don't want someone else's shortcomings to tank my bonus. The actual answer here is to make sure that your review process accounts for how individuals impact the group dynamic. > And if that filters out the people that only do software for a princely salary, leaving the people motivated to transform the world for the better, so much the better. Greedy people are a bit demotivating to work with. This is a super ignorant take. Any person who has a family and works to support them wants to provide the best they can for their family. That's not greed. Kids are fucking expensive by themselves, let alone trying to send them to college.