teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 14, 2015 19:44:35 GMT -5
Ha! No, it would not work for my employer. We are way too understaffed at the moment. Supervisor passed away last winter, her replacement is still settling in, the intern who only worked evenings is getting married so quit. The sub was a snowbird all winter and spring, and when she returned she was supposed to take over those evenings, some Saturdays, and cover vacations. Except she didn't want to do Saturdays, and couldn't work the exact weeks another employee had scheduled vacation. Then her local house sold unexpectedly quickly, so she resigned 2 weeks ago. So we are down to 3! Only supervisor is salary, rest are hourly, very part time, and since we serve the public we have to keep certain hours. I'm often working alone, either scheduled or effectively when supervisor has training/outreach/conferences/programs. Oh, yeah, we have no PTO at all - you don't work, you don't get paid.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 15, 2015 12:30:10 GMT -5
It really should be about performance and productivity rather than how many hours a person's butt sits in a seat. One employee who reports to me has scaled back to 36 hrs per week because he started pursing his MBA this past January. It has been six months and his work hasn't suffered at all. Meanwhile, another employee (who has been at the organization for 16 yrs) stays until 10PM some nights and is highly unproductive. It should be based on performance and productivity, but there are many cases where that is easier said than done. When everyone has a unique job description, and the boss doesn't really know what is difficult vs what is easy, or how long things really take - it is hard to judge on productivity, so you have to judge on effort. I know I had my boss apologetically ask me for something that took like 5 minutes, and then throw a 4 day grenade on my desk and wonder why it was taking me so long. He just doesn't understand our systems well enough to know what is easy and what is a chore. Heck - even I get myself in over my head by saying "no problem - easy peasy" and then every step is ten thousand times harder than I thought because of unexpected complications. So, do I get punished for lack of productivity because this brand new thing is a nightmare, or should I just say that everything will take a month, and then be the hero when things take an hour?
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 17, 2015 8:03:52 GMT -5
The simpler solution to that would be to simply stop vacation accrual and payout. Personally I think it's a lot more about implementation in instances where you have highly motivated employees who will take less time off than they otherwise would in a limited time-off environment. By accounting rules, you can't "simply" stop vacation accruals and payouts. GE did this for monetary gain. This was the most legal/safe/compliant way to get rid of vacation expense on their P&L. According to my source at GE, this has nothing to do with convincing hard working employees to take more vacation time. At no point were managers told to encourage workers to utilize the new policy. It was a wink-wink, track their time and keep it "reasonable." They were told that they expect no material increase in the number of vacation days utilized per year. You can stop it as simply as you can go to an unlimited PTO system. You can't stop your previous accruals from being paid out, but you can absolutely simply change your company rules to start prohibiting accruals to a "use it or lose it" system.
The only affect it SHOULD have it that if you allowed payouts to happen that you could get rid of that. If you simply move to a policy where you don't payout for unused PTO if an employee leaves then you haven't effectively changed anything. Or move to an annual use-it-or-lose-it. The only way the unlimited PTO would help is if they basically screwed everyone who had a bunch of time banked by making it disappear since now they could take any PTO they wanted. If they just wiped the books clean of all old accrual and payout, which might be what they did. That's more about getting rid of old "debt" than current process though...current process you could just stop the accrual/payouts as a matter of company policy.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 17, 2015 8:05:53 GMT -5
But you can reward performance. If someone wants to take more vacation than the others, fine. But you won't get as big a raise, you won't get as big of bonus, you won't get a promotion, unless you are still managing to outperform & get more done than the others that take less vacation. Our top salesperson leaves early and takes long weekends, a lot. He bikes in races. Nevertheless, he brought in over 300k in sales last year and besides his salary got a 60k bonus. DH doesn't care if he ever comes in as long as he performs and he does. It's all about the numbers. The loser I fired put in plenty of hours, just accomplished nothing while he was there. Hiring? I'd kill to work in a place where bringing in $300k in sales meant a $60k bonus. Even assuming salary is $0 means that's a 20% commission.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 17, 2015 8:21:20 GMT -5
By accounting rules, you can't "simply" stop vacation accruals and payouts. GE did this for monetary gain. This was the most legal/safe/compliant way to get rid of vacation expense on their P&L. According to my source at GE, this has nothing to do with convincing hard working employees to take more vacation time. At no point were managers told to encourage workers to utilize the new policy. It was a wink-wink, track their time and keep it "reasonable." They were told that they expect no material increase in the number of vacation days utilized per year. You can stop it as simply as you can go to an unlimited PTO system. You can't stop your previous accruals from being paid out, but you can absolutely simply change your company rules to start prohibiting accruals to a "use it or lose it" system.
The only affect it SHOULD have it that if you allowed payouts to happen that you could get rid of that. If you simply move to a policy where you don't payout for unused PTO if an employee leaves then you haven't effectively changed anything. Or move to an annual use-it-or-lose-it. The only way the unlimited PTO would help is if they basically screwed everyone who had a bunch of time banked by making it disappear since now they could take any PTO they wanted. If they just wiped the books clean of all old accrual and payout, which might be what they did. That's more about getting rid of old "debt" than current process though...current process you could just stop the accrual/payouts as a matter of company policy.
Maybe one of our CPAs can clarify - but wouldn't a 'use it or lose it' still have an accrual during the year? Plus: So, you would have to accrue at least for those states. I suspect GE doesn't feel like it can get away with paying out vacation time in some states but not others. I bet the old policy could cost them $20M+ per year. www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/paid-vacation-what-are-rights-33485.htmlwww.law360.com/articles/584643/singing-the-siren-song-of-unlimited-vacation-policies
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 17, 2015 8:25:45 GMT -5
:: In some states, it is illegal for employers to impose "use it or lose it" policies, by which employees must forfeit vacation time they have already accrued unless they take it by a certain time. In these states, vacation time is considered a form of compensation, which must be cashed out when the employee quits or is fired (as explained below). A policy that takes vacation time away is therefore seen as illegally failing to pay employees compensation that they have already earned. Although the difference may seem fairly technical, an accrual cap is legal in these states because it prohibits the employee from earning vacation time in the first place, rather than taking away vacation time after the employee has earned it. To find out your state's rules, contact your state labor department.::
My understanding might be wrong, but my understanding is that "vacation" time does in fact need to accrue. PTO is treated differently from vacation time though in that it is a combination of sick time, vacation, etc. Companies with specific vacation and sick time which are distinct have different rules than companies which operate on a purely PTO method (I think). That's been my understanding of why so many companies are now going to a PTO system rather than a vacation/sick time system.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 17, 2015 8:45:23 GMT -5
Interesting. Cashed out PTO was definitely a boost to DH's annual pay, even at 50%. They weren't allowed to carry more than one year's accrual forward, anything over was cashed out in the new fiscal year. Sick time, however, did accrue.
When DH resigned last year, he had a five figure payout of all his accrued sick time (after the 50% haircut) plus a bit of PTO. A few weeks later he learned his employer added a new policy: sick time payout was capped at $2500. I don't think it was coincidence.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 17, 2015 8:47:47 GMT -5
Our top salesperson leaves early and takes long weekends, a lot. He bikes in races. Nevertheless, he brought in over 300k in sales last year and besides his salary got a 60k bonus. DH doesn't care if he ever comes in as long as he performs and he does. It's all about the numbers. The loser I fired put in plenty of hours, just accomplished nothing while he was there. Hiring? I'd kill to work in a place where bringing in $300k in sales meant a $60k bonus. Even assuming salary is $0 means that's a 20% commission. That IS on top of his salary which I can assure you, is not chump change.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 17, 2015 9:01:23 GMT -5
You must have huge margins to pay someone that much for $300k sales (unless over $300k meant WAY over $300k). Even with $0 salary that seems like a lot, even more when you figure in a reasonable salary.
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ArchietheDragon
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Post by ArchietheDragon on Aug 17, 2015 9:07:59 GMT -5
You must have huge margins to pay someone that much for $300k sales (unless over $300k meant WAY over $300k). Even with $0 salary that seems like a lot, even more when you figure in a reasonable salary. hard to tell without out knowing the industry. It could be a software type business (or something similar) where every dollar of new sales is essentially all profit and you get the customer on the hook for annual maintenance fees.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 17, 2015 9:28:53 GMT -5
We take into account potential bonuses in our pricing model.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Aug 17, 2015 14:06:32 GMT -5
The problem with this is that once you cloud the definition of vacation / pto / sick time etc and call it unlimited, you can't credibly accuse someone of abusing it. The only thing you can track of any consequence is performance. But you can reward performance. If someone wants to take more vacation than the others, fine. But you won't get as big a raise, you won't get as big of bonus, you won't get a promotion, unless you are still managing to outperform & get more done than the others that take less vacation. I haven't spent that much time as an employee- I think my last job was when I was 33 give or take a year. That being said, coming in early and staying late is a form of laziness. I consistently outperformed people like that, and the problem was that in an office environment irrelevant things like "face time" matter, while production and results in general do not. I guess that's why I never played the game well. Even now on contract work, I perform far better in my industry because I rarely, if ever, meet face to face with anyone, and ZERO work happens in an office environment. It's all remote / field work.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Aug 17, 2015 14:08:53 GMT -5
Obviously it doesn't work for every sort of work, but for those positions where it does, think of it not as "unlimited vacation" - though that is sexy and gets headlines-- but as "results only work environment" or ROWE. It has been tried with mixed reviews.
My personal opinion from experience is that the world is heading off in two distinctly different directions. One side sees the potential for technology to be liberating; enabling intelligent, autonomous self-starters the ability to work and collaborate anywhere; a means of attracting the top talent from around the world without geographic limitations. The other sees it as a means of controlling a workforce full of little more than apes, and ensuring they never leave the electronic plantation. One side sees the amazing potential of using technology to analyze data to measure bottom line results, spot problems, identify opportunities, and explore new horizons. The other side sees it as a means of knowing where every employee physically is, counting minutes at desk, in bathroom, or at lunch; a means of creating additional work for work's sake and never asking if the information is meaningful in terms of the bottom line.
ROWE doesn't work for every position, especially lower level positions where face-time is critical given their job duties. However, I also think there is a third type of employer. The ones that embrace a lot of the new technology, but don't trust their rank and file employee. Where I work, our senior staff (the equivalent of our C-suite) have the option to work from home, telecommute, and the other perks that technology has provided. However, everyone else is still chained to their desk during normal business hours, because the same staff who enjoys those options are old school enough that they don't believe anyone else can be trusted to get their work done (despite the fact we have many high performers) unless it's a weekend or vacation. i suspect that a lot of that thinking is generational. The majority of our senior staff are baby boomers, and most will be retiring in the next five or six years. I think when they leave some of their outdated policies will leave as well. I think you're right. I don't think millenials are going to put up with it. They're used to doing everything online / with their devices. They're not going to sit at a desk- because there's not going to be anything actually ON the desk- and thus, no real need for it.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 17, 2015 21:11:49 GMT -5
We had our team scattered over many locations and did everything remotely. Then, we had some personnel changes and we were all in the office. I was amazed at how much better we worked as a team with us all in one place. We were all working toward the same things, and we could sort of understand where everyone else was coming from. In my 20+ years, less than 10 of them my actual boss was in the same state as me, and that was okay, because of the type of work I do. But, being with the team I support is so incredibly helpful. I can see when people are stressed, or if they are under control. I get so much more casual information when I'm in the break room, or the bathroom. "Hi, how is it going?" turns into a problem solving session. I know when people are on web-ex meetings they aren't really paying attention - doing other work, or playing solitaire or whatever. When we are all in the same room, you can see when you are losing someone - and they have to at least pretend better.
I am not against remote working - but I do think with the technology we currently have, we have lost something. Communication seems like it should be easier, because we have ten thousand ways to get a message to someone. But, it just become more muttled because everything is typed, rarely verbal, and you get 200 emails a day, so reading them doesn't really happen - people just breeze by them. Meetings are ineffective. Something is lost, and I am not sure what the next great technology will be that will be able to substitute for a face to face conversation.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 17, 2015 21:41:30 GMT -5
everyone makes good money, no doubt about that
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Aug 17, 2015 22:24:34 GMT -5
We had our team scattered over many locations and did everything remotely. Then, we had some personnel changes and we were all in the office. I was amazed at how much better we worked as a team with us all in one place. We were all working toward the same things, and we could sort of understand where everyone else was coming from. In my 20+ years, less than 10 of them my actual boss was in the same state as me, and that was okay, because of the type of work I do. But, being with the team I support is so incredibly helpful. I can see when people are stressed, or if they are under control. I get so much more casual information when I'm in the break room, or the bathroom. "Hi, how is it going?" turns into a problem solving session. I know when people are on web-ex meetings they aren't really paying attention - doing other work, or playing solitaire or whatever. When we are all in the same room, you can see when you are losing someone - and they have to at least pretend better. I am not against remote working - but I do think with the technology we currently have, we have lost something. Communication seems like it should be easier, because we have ten thousand ways to get a message to someone. But, it just become more muttled because everything is typed, rarely verbal, and you get 200 emails a day, so reading them doesn't really happen - people just breeze by them. Meetings are ineffective. Something is lost, and I am not sure what the next great technology will be that will be able to substitute for a face to face conversation. I guess it depends on the person. I have a friend that can't work from home because he says he is too distracted. I found the office a veritable black hole of distraction. So much that happens in the office from breaks, to birthday parties, holiday parties, to worrying about the traffic and the commute time in inclement weather (last job I had was in Chicago), to the just plain old "look busy" when the boss was in to "cats away" when the boss wasn't in. I found it to be a roller coaster. The morning drive in could set the tone- good or bad- for the entire day. Then there was the morning drive in, itself-- that right there was a complete waste of my time and resources-- all of it un-reimbursed before tax dollars from my salary. I pray I never have to go back to that hell again.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 18, 2015 7:12:33 GMT -5
I work in an environment where for the most part schedules really don't matter. I haven't kept normal business hours at work in 15 years. But, I can also make it work. If I had a differently personality, I totally couldn't.
I'm salaried. I've had some years where I made my job more efficient and there wasn't extra work for me. So, I worked less than 40 hour weeks and used work time to pursue a certificate. Now, there's more work than folks know what to do with, and well, it's evening out now.
It's interesting about having face-to-face time. On some informal peer reviews, I've gotten "dinged" because I don't share every cute/stupid/asinine/wonderful thing my kids do, or ask everyone what others did over the weekend. I'm just not social enough, apparently, during work hours. I totally know it's off-putting. Part of it, though is age and circumstance. Most of my department are 50 and over. Most of them are emptynesters or grandparents. They aren't balancing two jobs and younger three kids. If the were, they wouldn't fart around at work, either.
Flexibility is really the only perk my employer can offer. My boss really can't control my salary. Public sector workers in my state have taken a beating in the last decade. Which means, a good year is a 1% raise, and you are feeling lucky if there's no furloughs. There's no such thing as a bonus. Like everyone else, my portion of benefits like health care have been increasing. Flexibility is the only perk, left, really.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Aug 19, 2015 18:23:19 GMT -5
We had our team scattered over many locations and did everything remotely. Then, we had some personnel changes and we were all in the office. I was amazed at how much better we worked as a team with us all in one place. We were all working toward the same things, and we could sort of understand where everyone else was coming from. In my 20+ years, less than 10 of them my actual boss was in the same state as me, and that was okay, because of the type of work I do. But, being with the team I support is so incredibly helpful. I can see when people are stressed, or if they are under control. I get so much more casual information when I'm in the break room, or the bathroom. "Hi, how is it going?" turns into a problem solving session. I know when people are on web-ex meetings they aren't really paying attention - doing other work, or playing solitaire or whatever. When we are all in the same room, you can see when you are losing someone - and they have to at least pretend better. I am not against remote working - but I do think with the technology we currently have, we have lost something. Communication seems like it should be easier, because we have ten thousand ways to get a message to someone. But, it just become more muttled because everything is typed, rarely verbal, and you get 200 emails a day, so reading them doesn't really happen - people just breeze by them. Meetings are ineffective. Something is lost, and I am not sure what the next great technology will be that will be able to substitute for a face to face conversation. Just out of curiosity, did they move everyone to the same city? My company has done the same thing, but we're all still scattered. So being back in the office is totally useless and a complete waste of time and money. Nobody collaborates, problem solves or communicates any better because we're still on our web-ex meetings all day with the people we need to work with. I'm left feeling exactly like Paul described in his post and it's horribly detracting and unproductive being back in an office.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 20, 2015 8:07:34 GMT -5
We had our team scattered over many locations and did everything remotely. Then, we had some personnel changes and we were all in the office. I was amazed at how much better we worked as a team with us all in one place. We were all working toward the same things, and we could sort of understand where everyone else was coming from. In my 20+ years, less than 10 of them my actual boss was in the same state as me, and that was okay, because of the type of work I do. But, being with the team I support is so incredibly helpful. I can see when people are stressed, or if they are under control. I get so much more casual information when I'm in the break room, or the bathroom. "Hi, how is it going?" turns into a problem solving session. I know when people are on web-ex meetings they aren't really paying attention - doing other work, or playing solitaire or whatever. When we are all in the same room, you can see when you are losing someone - and they have to at least pretend better. I am not against remote working - but I do think with the technology we currently have, we have lost something. Communication seems like it should be easier, because we have ten thousand ways to get a message to someone. But, it just become more muttled because everything is typed, rarely verbal, and you get 200 emails a day, so reading them doesn't really happen - people just breeze by them. Meetings are ineffective. Something is lost, and I am not sure what the next great technology will be that will be able to substitute for a face to face conversation. Just out of curiosity, did they move everyone to the same city? My company has done the same thing, but we're all still scattered. So being back in the office is totally useless and a complete waste of time and money. Nobody collaborates, problem solves or communicates any better because we're still on our web-ex meetings all day with the people we need to work with. I'm left feeling exactly like Paul described in his post and it's horribly detracting and unproductive being back in an office. We were in many cities, and then all but one of us was in the same city - same office, all sitting near each other. Then a few people moved away - one because his wife got transferred, one because when he took the job he said he would spend 1 year here, and then move to be with his aging parents, and one I am not sure what her reason is - but now lives far away. Those are our top 4 people. The last remaining leader of our group has a very long commute, so now that there are no other execs in the office, he just started working at home. We are left with a handful of mid-level professionals and a bunch of admin staff. The mid-level people are now disjointed and the admin staff is definitely less effective (less motivated?)
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Aug 20, 2015 19:06:29 GMT -5
The second job I had, I had unlimited sick time and unlimited vacation time. Like The Captain said, the consensus was that as long as you did your work, they had no problem with you taking the time. In the 5 years that I worked there, I don't ever remember it being abused. The company I worked for did not have a large number of employees, maybe about 200 max. I think that it depends on whether you are a whilte collar environment or a blue collar environment. I worked in a plant where we decided to offer sick days to our production. If you didn't use your sick days, at the end of the year you'd get paid for the sick days you didn't use. The second year, 85% of the available sick days were used by the end of the second month. People now had another way to take a day off work and still get paid. Agreeing to do this was one of the biggest mistakes I made. Increased overtime cost because people would call in sick 30 minutes before their shift was supposed to start. Caused problems for other production emloyees because they would get held over for half of the next shift to cover for the person that called in sick. And caused problems for the supervisor because they had to call people from the shift after the shift the "sick" employee was on and get them to come in to work four hours early. Can't see "all the vacation you want" working in such an environment.
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8 Bit WWBG
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Post by 8 Bit WWBG on Aug 22, 2015 17:18:43 GMT -5
I worked with some contractors whose previous company had unlimited leave, and repealed it. Surprise surprise, one person abused it, and ruined it for everyone.
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