Comments for Full Time Pay for Half Time Work? at http://www.stevenmsmith.com , comment 1 to 34 out of 20 comments http://www.stevenmsmith.com Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:36:50 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-69 Of course I'd hire him. I'm ABSOLUTELY baffled by those who think an Albert would undermine the motivation of others on the team. On the contrary--if I were on a team and saw that management was paying Albert for output and giving him the rest of his well-earned time off--just watch how fast I'd switch gears to gain 20 hours off per week. Management might find output considerably increased across the board. And if that happened, management might find everyone becoming so psyched toward company success that they all put that same hard work into 25 hours/week at the same high rate of output. Instead, most managers unwittingly DEmotivate their employees by refusing to reward good, hard work. In fact, managers effectively slow their hard workers down. Why work hard for 40 hours straight when there are no benefits for doing so? When the Albert's begin to realise they are pushing themselves for nothing (their mates are being paid the same wages and take it much easier), management will find the Alberts either becoming much more like Jane and John Doe, or leaving entirely as others have suggested for more entrepreneurial pursuits. - AG Jones Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:40:56 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-60 I first met Albert 25 years ago when he was a mainframe software debugger. I'll simplify the story to keep it short(-ish). He could take a 12 inch thick operating system core dump and skim through it and find any problem within minutes. That's all he did. That's all he wanted to do. All his previous managers had pulled out their hair trying to get him to do more. I offered to put him on permanent call out. Just come in when we have a problem and I'll pay you per call. It worked. His co-workers were happy because he didn't sit around refusing to do anything else, I was happy because we were clearing the really tough problems fast and he was happy because he made better money than a straight salary. After I left the group the incoming manager put him back on a regular regime ... and he left. I've had an Albert in most of my teams since then.. and happily managed them. I've also had the other extreme too and managed them too. People are people. If you treat them as individuals they deliver the best they can. Their methods vary. - John Oakley Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:21:28 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-59 I've felt like an 'Alberta' at work...particularly when I worked for a much larger organization than I'm working for now. Coming directly out of a competitive university with an accelerated program, I was used to cranking out a 20 page paper overnight. Suddenly, I was expected to have a rough draft of a technical report in a month. Could I have written a draft in a week? Of course. But when the expectations were established and everyone else was working at super slow speed, I found myself listless and distracted. TextTwist, Craigslist, and AOL Instant Messenger became my new best friends. Definitely not the way that an employee should be spending his or her time, but it was that or stare at the wall. It seems that the size of a company is inversely proportional to its speed of getting things done...though I'm sure there are exceptions. I have yet to understand why more businesses don't trust their employees more and allow them to work from home/other locations, or allow them to leave whenever they're finished for the day. Of course there will always be more work to do the next day, but as far as daily productivity, there is only so long one can focus before distraction sets in. By the time I leave at five, my eyes are aching and I feel tired and sluggish. If I were able to work in shorter bursts or to really buckle down for four straight hours and take off, not only would I be more efficient because of the shorter strain on my concentration, but I'd be motivated by the reward of going home earlier to enjoy the rest of my day. People who can accomplish the goals set forth by their managers in a shorter amount of time should be paid as much as their less competent peers. It sounds harsh, but it happens everywhere. You buy a better video card for your computer and pay more because it's faster and does the job better than your old one. You pay more for a gourmet meal than a hamburger because its quality is higher and more mastery was put into its preparation. I hope someday I won't be stuck feeling obligated to stay as late as everyone else. I'm ready to go home now! - An 'Alberta' Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:44:20 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-57 My reaction to the situation would be, "How can we make better use of Albert's skills and abilities?" If, after 5 years, Albert is still so unchallenged that he completes his work in half the time allocated, he deserves to get work more suited to his skill level. My biggest fear is that someone else would offer Albert more challenging work and he would leave. Can Albert teach the rest of the staff how to complete their work more efficiently? Why settle for one Albert when he might be to train a lot of almost Alberts? What more difficult work could be channelled Albert's way that would make better use of his skills. It would make no sense to keep Albert Einstein working in a patent office for 20 efficient hours a week, if he could be working as a physicist instead. Find work better suited to Albert's abilities and both you and Albert will appreciate it. - WayneM Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:04:37 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-54 One issue with an employee like Albert that I have yet to see mentioned is perceived equality among employees. Even if the other employees know that Albert produces great results in half the time that they do, there will inevitably be morale problems when other employees begin to feel that Albert is getting special treatment (i.e. coming into the office whenever they choose, getting more interesting and high profile projects). The Alberts of the world are probably best suited to consulting jobs or running their own business, IMO because the nature of corporations seem to value hours worked over actual results. Programmer productivity is a tough thing to measure, and many corporations still believe that hours worked equates with productivity. I worked with an Albert at my last job, and he eventually wound up consulting to get more freedom of schedule and a salary which more reflected his productivity. - John Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:03:59 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-53 Fascinating questions about hiring Albert. To me, it seems a no brainer - of course hire Albert. He produces. There is, however, something nagging me. It goes back to cases where almost all team members are working overtime to make a schedule. One person isn't working overtime. That person has to care for a dying parent. This works for a while, but eventually the 60-hour-a-week people resent the 40-hour-a-week person with the dying parent. I guess the 40-hour-a-week people will come to resent Albert, and the total team effort will drop. I think Albert's situation would work if he were an outside consultant. I have been in situations where we had an outside consultant who worked a few days a week, produced tons of work, and no body minded. I am not sure why people don't mind a consultant who works 20 hours but do mind a fellow employee who works 20 hours. Doesn't make sense to me, but it seems to be that way. - Dwayne Phillips Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:41:29 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-52 What do Albert's colleagues think of this arrangement? What happens when Derek (who isn't quite as bright) demands to do the same thing? How do you know that Albert is actually twice as good as the others - maybe he just got lucky on getting easy objectives? Maybe he is very good at saying things like "That's a DBA issue, you are wasting my time" and in fact the rest of the team are carrying him? The reason the people are wary of Albert is that the perception of fairness is paramount in managing, and unless you are doing piecework then unfortunately hours worked is one of the fairest measures of effort. - Tom Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:48:45 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-51 @george [quote] ...company or organization is paying him to complete a given set of tasks, however long it happens to take.[/quote] That's absurd. - Strelok Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:53:29 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-50 This man will start his own company. It's almost a given. It's what I've seen time and again with people who are competent; they get out of dead-end organizations. And if this man can do in twenty hours enough to get xx dollars, you can bet he's sharp enough to find a business which will allow him to make at least as much and likely much more with the same amount of time involved. This man has something which most people do not have loads of -- intelligence, drive, courage, inititive. His employer had best keep him happy or he's good as gone and they are the losers. - Stephen Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:28:39 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-49 I agree that the wording, or perhaps the specifics of the people you asked are whats wrong here. Depends on what Albert is being paid to do: If Albert is being paid for his time, then no way he should be working 20hrs only. People who are paid for their time are tech support or maintenance programmer for example. If Albert is being paid for results, then by all means I would continue to employ him. For example if he is a software architect or designer. What the managers in the above are no doubt thinking is that if he is that productive at 20hr, he must be that productive at 40hrs, and his failure to work fro 40hr is a sign of laziness or arrogance. This is a failure on the part of the interviewed managers to be rational. Where you might of fell down with the sales managers is in the 105% of quota. Most places I know of consider quota to be the absolute minimum required to remain working, and the best salesmen do well above that number. Greedy sales managers are probably thinking of waiting for the guy to come along who can do 200% above quota, even if he burns out soon, and the average income is no better than 105%. - ryan Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:13:51 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-48 The closest I have seen to "Albert"'s arrangement was a co-worker who used to negotiate a certain salary for himself, then asks for 80% of that in exchange for a 4-day work week instead of 5. And the only company where he's gotten it was a privately owned software dev house that, sadly, was bought by a large software company. Even as cool and as hip as ex-Work was, teamwork is a crucial component. On some projects, he was a team lead. On some, just a senior developer. He was needed as a mentor which he was really good at. But he was needed as a part of the development team that he was on and that would really only work if he was present most of the time. Occasionally, it was a bit annoying that it seemed like he wasn't around when you needed him, but for the most part, it was cool. I'm guessing that having a co-worker like "Albert" would seriously undermine a teamwork atmosphere in the office. It doesn't surprise me that no one wants that and I don't think it's such a terrible thing for a departmental unit to not want to hire someone like that. I'm not surprised that there would be a lot of conditions to hiring someone like "Albert". Set times when he was expected to show up every week. Clear definition of "wasting time". Clear goals and expectations for quality of work. I also guessing that in this day and age when we hire more for attitude and soft skills then train for hard skills, someone who "demands that you don't waste his time" sounds like a eccentric brilliant employee that has to work alone and that you can't put in a team. "Don't waste my time" (at least verbatim) doesn't sound like something you'd say if you had some people skills. That doesn't sound like someone who could mentor my junior staff or work with project stakeholders. -- J. - J. Lin Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:45:59 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-47 A friend of mine (no, really) used to work for a place part time. He was often high while working, and paid more than _all_ the other employees doing the same job (skilled manual labour with problem solving skills). His immediate boss _knew_ when he was high, but didn't care for one reason: his work output was two to three times that of the other employees in the same position, even when under the influence. He was the most valued employee there (in that job), and this was an accepted fact. (He used to own the branch of the company that did that particular work until he sold it to a larger company - he knew everything there reasonably was to know about that job) At least some managers get it. - NoName Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:19:05 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-46 I figure that he must have put in a lot of effort to be able to pull that off, and such skills should be rewarded somehow. I think the manager's answers exhibit an inability to fairly consider something outside of the norm, instead rejecting it out-of-hand, which seems to be an unfortuntately common trait. - James Cole Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:25:16 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-45 These results are not surprising. Most companies are far more interested in appearances than results. Alberts eventually find their way to companies that can handle high producers, or will found his own company. After dealing with these sorts of issues for years, I left the corporate world and founded my own small software firm. My revenue is now in the mid-seven figures and my products get glowing reviews and are considered the best in a crowded field. I work about 10 hours a week and I kick the butts of the guys who have whole teams of experts working 70 hours a week. - Scott Davidson Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:17:09 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-44 Its in the companies best interest for the employees time to never be wasted. These managers are thinking about company efficiency the wrong way. In a machine, why apply extra pressure to one gear when doing so results in the complete system wearing down? - Jujo Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:00:41 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-43 Let's analyze the managers' responses: > "What's preventing you from hiring Albert?" A manager sneered as he said, Sneering => a deeply emotional, gut-level reaction. > "The notion of him only working 20 hours per week is insulting to whom is it insulting? Obviously not the clients or coworkers. It's insulting to the manager though because it's an insult to his authority. Imagine here Eric Cartman screaming Respect my Authority! > and his demand that his time not be wasted is absurd. Absurd? Then this can only mean that productivity is irrelevant. That output is irrelevant. Otherwise it couldn't be *absurd*. > He is being paid to do what he is told. Respect my authority! Domination / submission. Subjugation. POWER! > And think of what he could produce if he worked a regular (40-60) hours. Wishful thinking, as someone has already pointed out. In any rationalization, there must always be some pathetic veneer of justification. This is it. It doesn't actually make sense since the justification is Social Darwinism which *empirically* doesn't work. They sure as hell didn't work for Enron. But never mind facts, they've got nothing to do with rationalizations. > If I can't motivate him to work hard, I don't want him" Work hard => slave, labour, toil, SUFFER. Not just dominance & submission but sadism & masochism. We have here a full-fledged (though repressed) BDSM fetishist. Well, maybe not so repressed. There's no telling what they get up to in their private time. - Richard Kulisz Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:38:41 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-42 If you think about it, a salaried employee is being paid for output, not hours. He might be asked to work 60 hours one week and 40 the next but the point is that the company or organization is paying him to complete a given set of tasks, however long it happens to take. So worrying about the number of hours is stupid, the output is what is important. The only exception would be if Albert's absence from the office (since he only works 20 hour weeks) somehow adversely impacted other people's work. Just goes to show why there are so few "good" managers about. - george Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:00:23 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-41 A number of thoughts come to mind: Shockingly, for the managers interviewed, time isn't money. If you could have the same results by Wednesday afternoon instead of end-of-day Friday, wouldn't you take it? ----- For management, it's never really about results. Oh, they say it is, but it really isn't. It's about having someone to "manage". In management's mind, results are merely a by-product of successful management. It's merely what you do in order to get what you want. If the employee isn't around, it's hard to justify the management layer. In my experience, results are produced in [i]spite[/i] of management, not because of it. ----- Mr. Smith leaves a large assumption in the reader's lap as to what "Albert" might mean by "don't waste my time". Any discussion of that portion of the post is speculation. The obvious solution for "Albert" is that he needs to be in business for himself, and contract to the company. The provisions for what constitutes a "time wasting activity" would be spelled out in the contract, and a potential employer could either choose to accept, reject, or negotiate those terms. ----- The problem is that the position is salaried, and not merely a linear function of results. Clearly, if he were getting paid by the widget, the amount of time it takes to produce the widgets is an optimization exercise for Albert. Management's only concern should be how to find more "Alberts". - Dennis Wurster Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:31:48 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-40 As long as he's working on what is being asked of him, of course I'd hire him. I'm guessing that the "don't waste my time" requirement is referring to the way we tend to waste about 20 hours of a 40 hour work week in meaningless meetings and useless paperwork... - hash Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:32:14 +0100 http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/management/full-time-pay-for-half-time-work.html#comment-39 fun case study. this is not about economics or results primarily however. it is about pyschology in the aggregate: ie sociology / org behavior. people in organizations are very uncomfortable with peer-based inequality. its fine for the organization to "hire an incompetent vp or ceo" or for a middle manager to "reward idiots" but the pecking orders comp and benefits must be equivalent when looking horizontally on the (incompetent) vp of hr's org chart. since time off is a benefit and salary must be equivalent at similar levels, such conversations will ALWAYS make the organization uncomfortable. as a contractor essentially doing what Albert is doing (though i doubt my results are as good), the first questions i get from rank and file are: who am i reporting to and who's paying me. the ceo knows so doesn't bother to ask. but vps and mid-managers, their interest is never in results, always in "indications of unfairness or equivalence". which again, has taught me: we don't mind hierarchy, just peer-to-peer inequality... and damn the results. effectiveness still has few places to stand in US organizations. - rob Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:52:35 +0100