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"I guess it depends on what employees are looking for in their career - to be the best they can be, or live a laid back lifestyle." You're not being the best w
by normloman 13y ago
"I guess it depends on what employees are looking for in their career - to be the best they can be, or live a laid back lifestyle."
You're not being the best when you burn out. You're killing yourself and your productivity with it. We have decades of research concluding that productivity falls when you're overworked.
"The company (in this case, Amazon) got great results from its employee, the employee had a good experience"
The employee does not have a good experience when they're working themselves to exhaustion.
"If an employee puts in a solid 2-3 years and delivers great results for a company, "burns out", and then moves on to a new role or company, is that really that bad?"
Yes, because companies shouldn't have to work their employees to the bone to extract value from them. A long time ago, we decided that it's cruel, and created labor laws. Where have you been?
- turnip1979 13y agoI think what is missing from the discussion so far is german work ethic. I am in awe of it. During work hours, people work. That's it. But when they are off, they are off. This strikes me as balance. There is a BBC documentary called "How to make a German". I highly recommend watching it. After I watched it, I changed my own personal working style to be more efficient. It shocked me how much a difference it made. Since I am posting on HN during work hours, I can't say I'm doing it perfectly :p
- tedks 13y ago>Yes, because companies shouldn't have to work their employees to the bone to extract value from them. A long time ago, we decided that it's cruel, and created labor laws. Where have you been? Who is 'we'? You're wearing clothes and using a computer and probably exclusively using products that were made in nation-states that have virtually no labor laws. Where were you when globalization happened? Regardless of moralizing in Western countries, you have decided it is not cruel to work employees to the bone and discard them when they break. You decided that when you bought the shirt you're wearing and the computer you're using. Whether or not the status quo is right is one question; but you are wrong about what it is.
- eru 13y agoThey have lots of crazy labour laws in poor places. What makes you think they haven't?
- normloman 13y agoMy comment was about the west. It's tragic that such poor working conditions exist in developing nations. But that should not excuse western companies when they over work their employees, as the original commenter implied.
- tedks 13y agoWhy not? Are people in the west somehow worth more than people in "developing nations"? (Besides their dollar value, obviously.) If you're willing to condemn a Honduran to sweatshops, but not an American, that says something about you in more than one way.