Lesser Google employees to be switched to hourly wages

[Syringer]

http://valleywag.com/tech/trouble-in-pa...ogles-second+class-citizens-245992.php

But try telling that to those employees who will on April 1st be recategorized as hourly workers; ordered to take at least 30 minutes off for lunch so that they don't rack up billable time while grabbing a sandwich in their cubicle; and made to get approval for expensive overtime. What?

Very interesting, particularly for such a modern "hip" company, you'd think they'd be all about flex hours, instead of reverting back to checking in on the clock.

This was also verified by a friend of mine..

 

[Minjin]

Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

 

[Miramonti]

Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.


(/edit: as Zemmervolt posts below, this is probably not what's happening.)

 

[SpanishFry]

Originally posted by: Minjin
Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

made to get approval for expensive overtime

 

[mzkhadir]

Originally posted by: Minjin
Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

only if you can get approval

 

[SSSnail]

I guess they're shifting their paradigm to have a more synergistic working environment.

 

[R Nilla]

April 1st?

 

[txrandom]

SELL SELL SELL. THIS IS THE DOWNFALL OF GOOGLE. THIS IS MADNESS.

 

[Snakexor]

Originally posted by: txrandom
SELL SELL SELL. THIS IS THE DOWNFALL OF GOOGLE. THIS IS MADNESS.

THIS IS FVCKIN SPARTA!!!!!!!

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I guess they're shifting their paradigm to have a more synergistic working environment.

They should have had a fullsome discussion with all stakeholders to create a robust solution so they could go forward harnessing those synergies.

 

[J0hnny]

Well, it makes sense that there should be a heirarchy of tasks. In order to properly budget a project, there needs to be some sort of billable time!

 

[Linflas]

And, in announcing the change internally, Google took pains to tell workers they were all created equal in the eyes of Larry and Sergey.

Spin worthy of a pol.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Yeah, I think the confusion here comes from the fact that qorkers who qualify to be salaried tend to be higher-paid. But they aren't higher-paid because they're salaried.

I can see this being bad for the employees, because it may be cheaper to hire new staff than pay up OT for the existing ones (always depends on the business), but I'm betting google didn't have a choice here.

 

[SSSnail]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Yeah, I guess they haven't looked up the new synonym for salary = slavery.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: SSSnail

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Yeah, I guess they haven't looked up the new synonym for salary = slavery.

Funny thing at my company:
Big project. They asked the salary people to work weekends, they didn't ask the hourly. When the project was done, they got flex time for only about 1/5th of the weekends that they worked.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Good post, thx for the insight.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Just curious but this is from the DOL site:

Exemptions from Both Minimum Wage and Overtime Pay
(1) Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools), outside sales employees, and employees in certain computer-related occupations (as defined in Department of Labor regulations);
(2) Employees of certain seasonal amusement or recreational establishments, employees of certain small newspapers, seamen employed on foreign vessels, employees engaged in fishing operations, and employees engaged in newspaper delivery;
(3) Farm workers employed by anyone who used no more than 500 "man-days" of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year;
(4) Casual babysitters and persons employed as companions to the elderly or infirm.

I always thought that the piece I bolded about professional employees was how they determined this for most people. Is there somewhere in the minutia of that bill where they actually detail exactly what qualifies for that? I guess my simplistic view of it was if the job required a college education it was likely to be classified as professional.

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Minjin
Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

only if you can get approval

Right. And if you don't get approval, you don't work. It's not that they'll be working more than 40 hours if they don't get approval. They just have to finish their work the next day.

You're working on something and realize it will take 4 more hours to finish but you leave in one hour. You call your supervisor and ask for approval to work 3 hours of OT. They say Yes, you work, you get paid. They say No, you work one hour and go home and finish it the next day. That how hourly pay works... You get paid for every hour you work...

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: Minjin
Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

only if you can get approval

Right. And if you don't get approval, you don't work. It's not that they'll be working more than 40 hours if they don't get approval. They just have to finish their work the next day.

You're working on something and realize it will take 4 more hours to finish but you leave in one hour. You call your supervisor and ask for approval to work 3 hours of OT. They say Yes, you work, you get paid. They say No, you work one hour and go home and finish it the next day. That how hourly pay works... You get paid for every hour you work...

They aren't going to get the same hourly wage as their theoretical 40-hour-week salary is based on. (well, I mean if they are, then they should shut up!).

A pay cut is a pay cut, and I don't know many places that pay professional-level wages for someone who wants to work "about 10 hours a week (but not if their other job asks them for OT)". Google may have no choice, but it's understandable that people would bitch.

 

[Steve]

There was a big discussion on slashdot about this yesterday, more insight there.

 

[buck]

Originally posted by: Minjin
Hourly is a great position for a tech worker. Its all about the OT.

Not when you need approval everytime....

 

[uhohs]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: SSSnail
I guess they're shifting their paradigm to have a more synergistic working environment.

They should have had a fullsome discussion with all stakeholders to create a robust solution so they could go forward harnessing those synergies.

lolol

 

[RU482]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jjsole
Didn't take long for them to start bending over for the sake of their stock price.

This is NOT a business-preferred move. Salaried workers are less expensive.

These are positions that the Federal Government's "Fair Labor Standars Act" classifies as hourly positions. Google would face HUGE fines if the government audited them and found them to be classifying "hourly" positions as salaried. Trust me, as someone who works in HR, a company would much rather have everyone salaried than hourly. Hourly workers cost more in terms of overtime, plus there are a lot more administrative costs associated with payroll processing for hourly workers as well.

ZV

Hmm, my boss made everyone salary..even the shipping guy

 

[rivan]

I love my hourly position. The people who work here, apparently the same as everywhere else, get the shaft. Some of them have higher base salaries than I'd end up with if I only worked 40 hours a week every week. If I worked the 50-60 they do every week, I'd have yearly income MUCH higher.