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It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Man
by kmac_ 3y ago
It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval." Did developers go on a buying spree? No, the same amount of stuff was bought as before the policy. And it did make life easier.
- redditor98654 3y agoNetflix?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoDon’t hire idiots and assholes and this policy becomes pretty self policing.
- repeekad 3y agoThis is the reason bureaucracy exists, the more people at a company the higher probably one of those idiots or assholes slipped through the cracks, at large companies you just have to assume they got in
- sys_64738 3y agoThis rarely works as it requires a strong personality to set the standard. That's a lot of trust in developers otherwise.
- Unfrozen0688 3y ago[dead]
- olivierduval 3y agoActually, it's just considering books, licences and hardware as disposables like pen and papers... and it can usually be true for some "small" local software (like an IDE, provided that either you trust the devs with admin rights or that corp IT can allow software installation). You can give either a "small" bugdet for everybody (and you wont be a software the same year that you buy a new laptop) or managed by the team/department But it doesn't work when you need corp IT for corp IT integration
- wongarsu 3y agoLarge expenses like laptops could just be treated the same way accounting will treat them: if you spend $2100 on a laptop that's counted as $700 spent now, $700 in a year, and $700 the year after. Since you don't have to comply with tax codes for internal budgets you could even allow developers to choose (within reason) which deprecation period to use for each item.
- usrusr 3y agoI really like that idea and I don't want to suggest that it can't ever work, but the sudden purchase frenzy that did not happen is far from the only failure mode. Leave it running a decade or two and things might look very different. Slow, invisible expenses creep and in the end you have a culture where those who spend a little slower than others are shamed into buying stuff just to make the others not look wasteful. There are many subtle mechanism at play that all facilitate expenses creep and there needs to be something pushing in the opposite direction. I'd rate it an unsolved problem. Perhaps some generous budget limit, with a clear message that it's not intended to be fully consumed, and a clear rule that a certain percentage of whatever will be left at the end of the year is donated to some universally accepted good cause? Children and cute animals, please not religion. "You can get the book, no problem, but keep in mind that being the book means $5 less ponies!" (just don't make it manatees, you'd risk me working on a chromebook)
- bartonfink 3y ago> "leave it running a decade or two" What expense policy survives a decade or two completely unreviewed and unexamined? The rest of the bullshit you spewed isn't worth reading after that bizarre hypothetical.
- rendall 3y agoSimilar experience. Everyone got a credit card and was encouraged to use it.
- sys_64738 3y ago> Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval. This is the problem. Management inserting themselves into any and every decision. People think management are there to help but they cause more problems than they solve. They are truly incompetent at best and a better idea is to fire a few managers and use their salaries as the discretionary budget. Win-win.
- ghnws 3y agoMy current company just has a few HR type people that take care of purchases like that. I literally email them a link to hardware or software I need and they get it delivered to me. This is the best way I've seen it done. I don't have to know anything about the order/deliver process the company uses.