4 ms·

because I pay you for 40h of productivity per week, not a fixed amount of output? for the latter, consulting/freelance exists. if you get paid for 40h per week

because I pay you for 40h of productivity per week, not a fixed amount of output? for the latter, consulting/freelance exists. if you get paid for 40h per week, the expectation is to devote those hours to the benefit of the employer. do your tasks, if you have time to spare, think of other benefits - improvements, better ideas, learn, etc. people that finish a task and then wait to be given another are the bane of the workplace. you never hire them at startups, but at some size they creep in and kill, kill, kill any company. walk into HP, Oracle, IBM today and you'll see them, in droves. that is why you can lay off 30% workforce at that size with no sizeable impact on your customers.

matt_s 11y ago
There is likely a certain organization size where many sub organizations or groups exist and work gets to a mode of waiting on so-and-so to do that thing. Big companies like to organize around what they perceive as efficiency - putting common workers together and having common practices, etc. This leads to a waterfall delivery model where in order to x, y and z you need three different groups and they all have requests coming in all directions. Small companies, including startups, simply don't have that org structure so you would never see that behavior since it isn't needed. This isn't a type of person, it is a type of organization structure. That is why you hear it being so common across completely different businesses of similar size. There is a good model in larger companies where you have entire vertical areas of responsibility as a group or organization. They are held accountable for delivering something in total and don't have many other groups to interact with for delivery. Kind of like a startup or small company inside a company. Many upper management types don't like this because they are seen as something they can't control. I've heard the Virgin companies are organized in this manner.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Are you paying hourly or salary? If salary, you are paying for what should be able to be done in 40 hours a week, but if it takes 45, you expect it to still be done, no? So if one can get it done is 35, why do you expect 5 more hours to given free?
- pinaceae 11y ago
  No, I pay for 40h of your attention. for things that don't fit into 40h there is either (paid) overtime or hiring, depending on frequency.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    So you don't hire exempt employees?
digikata 11y ago
So why do we all set the nominal bar at 40h for a 5 day week, why not 32h and 4 days or some other mix?

matt_s 11y ago

There is likely a certain organization size where many sub organizations or groups exist and work gets to a mode of waiting on so-and-so to do that thing. Big companies like to organize around what they perceive as efficiency - putting common workers together and having common practices, etc. This leads to a waterfall delivery model where in order to x, y and z you need three different groups and they all have requests coming in all directions. Small companies, including startups, simply don't have that org structure so you would never see that behavior since it isn't needed. This isn't a type of person, it is a type of organization structure. That is why you hear it being so common across completely different businesses of similar size. There is a good model in larger companies where you have entire vertical areas of responsibility as a group or organization. They are held accountable for delivering something in total and don't have many other groups to interact with for delivery. Kind of like a startup or small company inside a company. Many upper management types don't like this because they are seen as something they can't control. I've heard the Virgin companies are organized in this manner.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Are you paying hourly or salary? If salary, you are paying for what should be able to be done in 40 hours a week, but if it takes 45, you expect it to still be done, no? So if one can get it done is 35, why do you expect 5 more hours to given free?

pinaceae 11y ago
No, I pay for 40h of your attention. for things that don't fit into 40h there is either (paid) overtime or hiring, depending on frequency.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  So you don't hire exempt employees?

digikata 11y ago

So why do we all set the nominal bar at 40h for a 5 day week, why not 32h and 4 days or some other mix?