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>I even proposed to have a results-based salary Do you realize how insane such a suggestion is? I know it probably sounds totally reasonable from a "the harde

>I even proposed to have a results-based salary Do you realize how insane such a suggestion is? I know it probably sounds totally reasonable from a "the harder you work the better you do" mindset, but companies abandoned that in the 1980s. There's a reason why even as technology has multiplied the productivity of employees by leaps and bounds average salaries have remained flat since 1980. If you want to understand managers/business people, read their books. Seriously, read the books they have on their shelf. Books written for managers are like something produced in a bizarre sociopathic universe. And they very consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the work an employee does.

danmaz74 13y ago
Maybe you missed the point where I said I was heavily involved in sales (actually I was both a project manager and a sales engineer). When you work with sales, it's not unusual to have part of your salary tied to those.
ishansharma 13y ago
> And they very consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the work an employee does. And that right there is my problem with management people. Most see people are "resources", and that too equal resources. What they fail to understand is that everyone is different and some people will be better than others. I'm still in college but the mindset here seems like any company. All students are treated similarly and have same rules. These rules are designed to get an average output. People who are lower than average get a bit of benefit because of this but people who are above average get dragged down in the process!
yangez 13y ago
Employee compensation is absolutely not associated with the value of the work the employee does. Instead, it's associated with the best replacement that the company could find. If Joe makes $2M a year for a company and gets paid $150k but Steve can do the same work at the same level for $100k, Joe's out and Steve's in. The initial $2M of value doesn't matter, except to lower the chance that a replacement could outperform you. Cynical and unfair? Sure. That's how it works, though. Start your own company if you don't like it.
- gringofyx 13y ago
  That's an interesting calculation. Using that formula, how would management like to compensate Joe given the following: * Steve is hired for $100k * A year passes * The company starts to lose money, let's say down to $1.5M a year. * It is decided that Joe's industry knowledge - and only Joe's knowledge - had been making extra money for the company. It was some non-transferrable knowledge. * Aside from the previous caveat, Steve and Joe had precisely the same skillset * Joe is happily employed somewhere else for $150k
- pekk 13y ago
  And now your company is full of bottom-dollar workers who just nominally fulfill management's probably quite flawed idea of what the work requires.
- digikata 13y ago
  That's a broken model for many reasons. For one is that it replacement omits or undervalues the cost to acquire and retrain a replacement to being a) competent in the context of the position, and longer term b) being truly integrated into the company and able to bring deeper value to the business. Time to a) can be short, particularly if the candidate is a good fit, but time to b) is typically three years. Early in my career, I took a little offense when a manager once told me that it would take three years to become useful. After some discussion, that wasn't a comment about my technical ability or level of work (they were actually very happy about that), but it was just a realistic timeline to get to b), the point that they could throw about anything at me and I could reliably pull resources and people together to get things done for the company in an independent and cost-effective manner. Depending on the work, time to (b) could be shorter or longer, but it's surprisingly long - longer than many want to admit to themselves. Over the years, I've looked at people in companies through this lens, and three years is typical. Companies with an employee "replacement cost" model often have churn rates so employees stay with the company well below (b). The "replacement cost" model also leads unwillingness to invest in employees, either by explicit training, or on the job training anticipating increased responsibilities. After all, they might be gone soon and we just have to go shopping for a replacement. Longer term employees (typically the mid-level management) are then stuck because they're managing details that they really wouldn't otherwise need to, masking time to take care of problems that they would otherwise should be the sole owners of. They're both subtle outgrowths of undervaluing people, leading to company underperformance.

danmaz74 13y ago

Maybe you missed the point where I said I was heavily involved in sales (actually I was both a project manager and a sales engineer). When you work with sales, it's not unusual to have part of your salary tied to those.

ishansharma 13y ago

> And they very consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the work an employee does. And that right there is my problem with management people. Most see people are "resources", and that too equal resources. What they fail to understand is that everyone is different and some people will be better than others. I'm still in college but the mindset here seems like any company. All students are treated similarly and have same rules. These rules are designed to get an average output. People who are lower than average get a bit of benefit because of this but people who are above average get dragged down in the process!

yangez 13y ago

Employee compensation is absolutely not associated with the value of the work the employee does. Instead, it's associated with the best replacement that the company could find. If Joe makes $2M a year for a company and gets paid $150k but Steve can do the same work at the same level for $100k, Joe's out and Steve's in. The initial $2M of value doesn't matter, except to lower the chance that a replacement could outperform you. Cynical and unfair? Sure. That's how it works, though. Start your own company if you don't like it.

gringofyx 13y ago
That's an interesting calculation. Using that formula, how would management like to compensate Joe given the following: * Steve is hired for $100k * A year passes * The company starts to lose money, let's say down to $1.5M a year. * It is decided that Joe's industry knowledge - and only Joe's knowledge - had been making extra money for the company. It was some non-transferrable knowledge. * Aside from the previous caveat, Steve and Joe had precisely the same skillset * Joe is happily employed somewhere else for $150k
pekk 13y ago
And now your company is full of bottom-dollar workers who just nominally fulfill management's probably quite flawed idea of what the work requires.
digikata 13y ago
That's a broken model for many reasons. For one is that it replacement omits or undervalues the cost to acquire and retrain a replacement to being a) competent in the context of the position, and longer term b) being truly integrated into the company and able to bring deeper value to the business. Time to a) can be short, particularly if the candidate is a good fit, but time to b) is typically three years. Early in my career, I took a little offense when a manager once told me that it would take three years to become useful. After some discussion, that wasn't a comment about my technical ability or level of work (they were actually very happy about that), but it was just a realistic timeline to get to b), the point that they could throw about anything at me and I could reliably pull resources and people together to get things done for the company in an independent and cost-effective manner. Depending on the work, time to (b) could be shorter or longer, but it's surprisingly long - longer than many want to admit to themselves. Over the years, I've looked at people in companies through this lens, and three years is typical. Companies with an employee "replacement cost" model often have churn rates so employees stay with the company well below (b). The "replacement cost" model also leads unwillingness to invest in employees, either by explicit training, or on the job training anticipating increased responsibilities. After all, they might be gone soon and we just have to go shopping for a replacement. Longer term employees (typically the mid-level management) are then stuck because they're managing details that they really wouldn't otherwise need to, masking time to take care of problems that they would otherwise should be the sole owners of. They're both subtle outgrowths of undervaluing people, leading to company underperformance.