3 ms·

Employees have a say in the direction of the company. It depends on the bylaws, but employees will vote on certain things. There's a lot of talking it up here,

by oooyay 3y ago

Employees have a say in the direction of the company. It depends on the bylaws, but employees will vote on certain things. There's a lot of talking it up here, but it can also suck. I worked for one that was very blue collar as a systems engineer and watched as our IT infrastructure decayed and our contractual promises would not be met because employees voted for bonuses rather than refreshed infrastructure.

wavefunction 3y ago
Sounds like white collar IT other than the bonuses
bruce511 3y ago
With any sufficiently large group there will be a variety of opinions when making any decision. Voting is one way to get a majority opinion, but of course that doesn't make it right. Since everyone is in a different place in life what may be good for one (maximising income before retirement) may conflict with another (ensuring job stability and sustainability for the next 20 years.) This is all true regardless of the decision making group - board of directors, c-suite, or employees. So sure, some employee groups would make decisions not aligned with my goals. But equally other decision making groups do that all the time too. This is a hard problem because, as a decision group you "can't make everyone happy." So it helps if the employee group are mostly on the same goals page, and if there are leaders who understand the decisions in terms of the agreed goals. Meaning, that regardless of profit share, its a good thing if you work at a place where your goals, and the leadership goals are aligned.
astura 3y ago
>Employees have a say in the direction of the company. It depends on the bylaws, but employees will vote on certain things. No, this is not necessarily true - what you're describing is more akin to a co-op, not an employee owned company. An employee owned company just means there is an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). So employees own some or all of the company's stock. That's it, it's an ownership structure, not a management structure. It says absolutely nothing about day-to-day operations or how decisions are made. The vast majority of employee owned companies are still run like a dictatorship. Source: I've worked for multiple employees owned companies. Both were effectively dictatorships. Literally zero voting whatsoever.
- oooyay 3y ago
  It was maybe a bit of both based on the corporate bylaws, but it was and is an employee owned company. What I described (bonuses over reinvestment) is a decision shareholders (employees) get to make.
  - astura 3y ago
    That's why I said "necessarily." >What I described (bonuses over reinvestment) is a decision shareholders (employees) get to make. Sure, My only point is there's nothing about being employee-owned that requires or even encourages allowing employees to vote on how money is spent, or anything at all for that matter. A privately owned company is just as likely to consider input from employees as an employee-owned company is. Both employee owned companies I worked for the board made those sorts of decisions without any say from employees.
    - eep_social 3y ago
      An ESOP requires that employees certain voting rights but they’re narrow and if I am reading right, may also vary with state law. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/epchd804.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/epchd804.pdf
    - pbourke 3y ago
      > A privately owned company is just as likely to consider input from employees as an employee-owned company is. > Both employee owned companies I worked for the board made those sorts of decisions without any say from employees. If there was 100% (or majority) employee ownership, would the employees not have the ability to use the general meeting process to eject board members they didn’t like? Aren’t employees voting for nominees to the board, allowing them to use a write-in process to bypass a hostile board?
      - astura 3y ago
        Both were 100% employee owned. >would the employees not have the ability to use the general meeting process to eject board members they didn’t like? Lol, no. Trust me, it would have happened if it were possible at one, the board was public enemy #1 among rank-and-file employees. >Aren’t employees voting for nominees to the board, allowing them to use a write-in process to bypass a hostile board? Lol, no. The board itself selects board members. I'm not exaggerating, we literally had zero input on anything.
MichaelMoser123 3y ago
Interesting. Wikipedia has a list of employee owned companies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_compani... Some of the US based companies in this list have something to do with tech and exist for quite some time. Interesting how these are run (i mean they would probably have closed shop if they were to hand out bonuses instead of investing) /i am just asking, as I don't know much about the subject/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_Technologies a defense contractor with 519$ million revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematica_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematica_Inc. (the last dot is part of the link, HN doesn't handle these) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graybar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graybar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics they have 293$ m revenue
- spydum 3y ago
  It's curious to note just how many of the US-based employee owned companies are in the grocery/food/bev industry
  - MichaelMoser123 3y ago
    maybe because some of them grew from a family business, but somehow managed to keep a similar ownership structure.

by oooyay 3y ago

wavefunction 3y ago

Sounds like white collar IT other than the bonuses

bruce511 3y ago

With any sufficiently large group there will be a variety of opinions when making any decision. Voting is one way to get a majority opinion, but of course that doesn't make it right. Since everyone is in a different place in life what may be good for one (maximising income before retirement) may conflict with another (ensuring job stability and sustainability for the next 20 years.) This is all true regardless of the decision making group - board of directors, c-suite, or employees. So sure, some employee groups would make decisions not aligned with my goals. But equally other decision making groups do that all the time too. This is a hard problem because, as a decision group you "can't make everyone happy." So it helps if the employee group are mostly on the same goals page, and if there are leaders who understand the decisions in terms of the agreed goals. Meaning, that regardless of profit share, its a good thing if you work at a place where your goals, and the leadership goals are aligned.

astura 3y ago

>Employees have a say in the direction of the company. It depends on the bylaws, but employees will vote on certain things. No, this is not necessarily true - what you're describing is more akin to a co-op, not an employee owned company. An employee owned company just means there is an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). So employees own some or all of the company's stock. That's it, it's an ownership structure, not a management structure. It says absolutely nothing about day-to-day operations or how decisions are made. The vast majority of employee owned companies are still run like a dictatorship. Source: I've worked for multiple employees owned companies. Both were effectively dictatorships. Literally zero voting whatsoever.

oooyay 3y ago
It was maybe a bit of both based on the corporate bylaws, but it was and is an employee owned company. What I described (bonuses over reinvestment) is a decision shareholders (employees) get to make.
- astura 3y ago
  That's why I said "necessarily." >What I described (bonuses over reinvestment) is a decision shareholders (employees) get to make. Sure, My only point is there's nothing about being employee-owned that requires or even encourages allowing employees to vote on how money is spent, or anything at all for that matter. A privately owned company is just as likely to consider input from employees as an employee-owned company is. Both employee owned companies I worked for the board made those sorts of decisions without any say from employees.
  - eep_social 3y ago
    An ESOP requires that employees certain voting rights but they’re narrow and if I am reading right, may also vary with state law. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/epchd804.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/epchd804.pdf
  - pbourke 3y ago
    > A privately owned company is just as likely to consider input from employees as an employee-owned company is. > Both employee owned companies I worked for the board made those sorts of decisions without any say from employees. If there was 100% (or majority) employee ownership, would the employees not have the ability to use the general meeting process to eject board members they didn’t like? Aren’t employees voting for nominees to the board, allowing them to use a write-in process to bypass a hostile board?
    - astura 3y ago
      Both were 100% employee owned. >would the employees not have the ability to use the general meeting process to eject board members they didn’t like? Lol, no. Trust me, it would have happened if it were possible at one, the board was public enemy #1 among rank-and-file employees. >Aren’t employees voting for nominees to the board, allowing them to use a write-in process to bypass a hostile board? Lol, no. The board itself selects board members. I'm not exaggerating, we literally had zero input on anything.

MichaelMoser123 3y ago

Interesting. Wikipedia has a list of employee owned companies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_compani... Some of the US based companies in this list have something to do with tech and exist for quite some time. Interesting how these are run (i mean they would probably have closed shop if they were to hand out bonuses instead of investing) /i am just asking, as I don't know much about the subject/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_Technologies a defense contractor with 519$ million revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematica_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematica_Inc. (the last dot is part of the link, HN doesn't handle these) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graybar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graybar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics they have 293$ m revenue

spydum 3y ago
It's curious to note just how many of the US-based employee owned companies are in the grocery/food/bev industry
- MichaelMoser123 3y ago
  maybe because some of them grew from a family business, but somehow managed to keep a similar ownership structure.