Work ethic vs pay/work

[Lithium381]

i get paid salary, they assume i work 40 hours a week.... it's typically 50 or more :-(

 

[purbeast0]

i get paid salary, they assume i work 40 hours a week.... it's typically 50 or more :-(

i would never work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis if i went into the job being paid at a rate of 40 hours a week. all that does is make you worth less. would definitely leave a job where that happened regularly, but i do understand that sometimes during crunch time it may have to happen, especially in the industry i'm in (software dev).

 

[Leros]

My work ethic doesn't really change depending on how I'm paid. I'll work just as hard for a minimum wage job as I would for a job paying 6 figures.

What drives me to work is my work ethic, not my paycheck.

 

[mattpegher]

My work ethic doesn't really change depending on how I'm paid. I'll work just as hard for a minimum wage job as I would for a job paying 6 figures.

What drives me to work is my work ethic, not my paycheck.

But its not the wage that drives work ethic. I contend that it is the presence or absence of incentive. The incentive could be in the form of pay or promotion or even respect. Without some reward (even intangible ones) people will do the minimum.

 

[Leros]

But its not the wage that drives work ethic. I contend that it is the presence or absence of incentive. The incentive could be in the form of pay or promotion or even respect. Without some reward (even intangible ones) people will do the minimum.

I guess you could say that my incentive is self-recognition and also peer-recognition.

 

[Bignate603]

i would never work more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis if i went into the job being paid at a rate of 40 hours a week. all that does is make you worth less. would definitely leave a job where that happened regularly, but i do understand that sometimes during crunch time it may have to happen, especially in the industry i'm in (software dev).

You can take that mindset and just get by or you can go a bit farther and get ahead. I do my best to go above and beyond what's expected of me and my income's gone up 21% over 3 years because of it. During one of those years everyone was told that there weren't going to be any raises but I still got one.

 

[Jeff7]

You can take that mindset and just get by or you can go a bit farther and get ahead. I do my best to go above and beyond what's expected of me and my income's gone up 21% over 3 years because of it. During one of those years everyone was told that there weren't going to be any raises but I still got one.

Nice.

I've had a single pay raise in a little over 2.5 years, and believe me, it had fewer digits in it than yours. Many at the company have gone longer than that. Things weren't going too well a few years back, during the worst of the downturn, but sales have picked up significantly since then. (And despite a darn good year in sales, even ahead of projections thus far, the weekly meetings always seem end with "...but, we need to work harder.":\ I don't know if they're saving up money for something, or in preparation of possible slow times ahead, or what's going on. Even just cost-of-living raises would be nice. The only things that seem to go up are the expense rates on the 401k plan, and health insurance deductibles.)


On the plus-side, there's plenty of overtime available.

 

[Patranus]

some jobs are more about what you know than what you 'do'


a ditch digger gets paid for digging
his supervisor gets paid to make sure the job gets done
the engineer that plans the ditch gets paid partly for his knowledge of how to plan to dig the ditch, and prepare the work order or whatever
the architect gets paid for his knowledge of where the ditch needs to be dug
the owner of the ditch digging company gets paid for, you know, putting all his capital into running a company etc etc

it just isn't as simple as it was 500 years ago when everbody was a dirt farmer

Except now the ditch diggers have unionized and cannot be fired for taking 2x the agreed time or diving up the costs.

 

[Stuxnet]

For an hourly person, incentive-based pay/compensation may work. For salaried people, "work ethic" is just a term companies use to measure how much work you'll do on weekends and evenings because they aren't willing to pay for a properly sized/skilled staff.

In other news,

Incentive pay considered harmful:
http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html

 

[purbeast0]

You can take that mindset and just get by or you can go a bit farther and get ahead. I do my best to go above and beyond what's expected of me and my income's gone up 21% over 3 years because of it. During one of those years everyone was told that there weren't going to be any raises but I still got one.

heh sticking to my work ethic, my salary has gone up 44% in less than 2 years. and that wasn't just job hopping, it's switching from one in january 2010 to my current position.

again, it's not about how many hours you work, it's about what you produce and how you produce it. being good at what you do, you can get work done that could take someone else 50 hours, finished in about 20. i see it a lot in the development world. (maybe not that significant, but that is just an example).

 

[JEDI]

When I was younger, I thought people would attempt to do their job to the best of their ability. But as I gain more experience, I think people will tend to do the minimum necessary to get paid. I have become a strong proponent of incentive programs.

I am paid a base hourly wage with an incentive package that rewards me for the volume and the quality of work I do. I think this should be a consideration when ever evaluating the pay of any position. I recently suggested that a new program be incentivized and the administration chose not to, thus those in this program routinely avoid and delay work.

I was interested to see what people here think. Do you think people want to do the best they can or are people inherently going to attempt to do the least amount of work unless paid to perform.

in this down economy where layoffs happen often, you bet people around me are working.

i'm a contractor. even tho i have a guarenteed contract (tho that expires in 2012 ), i still work as hard as possible.
it's a different mindset when i'm not actually an employee of the company, but just loaned to them. my health insurance is different. my 401k matching is different. etc

i really dont care if everyone else around me is lazy. i do my job as best i can.

can people relate to this about a different mindset when you're not a real employee and not care if they're lazy asshats?

 

[warr666]

.....

 

[CRXican]

Having not been there long, I don't know all of the details of my "small" employer's bonus structure but I've been told that EVERYONE gets the same amount based on the yearly profit figures. I don't quite think that's fair at all since some of us bust our asses to make it happen and others don't give a shit. It's not my company to decide but it does make me think about not working so hard though.....

People who call in sick often and don't earn their pay (IMO - even though it is much lower than mine) get a bigger and bigger bonus the more that I (and others) work and perform.

The ole "how do you reward your best workers?....with more work!" phrase comes to mind.

Agreed. I have a strong work ethic but experience the good worker, more work thing. I liked the people I worked with and liked my bosses. Eventually took a big chunk of work from my supervisor which left me wondering what exactly she had left to do.

I had to ask for/demand a raise after that and I did get it. They thought it would be cool to just give me her work and that was that. NOPE!

 

[Sonikku]

I can't stand lazy workers that try to do the bare minimum. If you want to do the bare minimum, prepare to get paid the bare minimum. When raise time comes, don't even open your mouth about, "where is my raise?" You did the bare minimum, so don't expect anything extra.

The inverse of this logic suddenly presents itself in an America where wages for the lower 90% of citizens has remained flat since the 60's when accounting for inflation. When executive pay is seemingly rising proportionately with their ability to run a company into the ground and with the grunts below asked to make the sacrifices to pick up the slack, one need not wonder why so many Americans just don't give a shit any more about filling the wallets of their corporate overlords.

 

[Bignate603]

heh sticking to my work ethic, my salary has gone up 44% in less than 2 years. and that wasn't just job hopping, it's switching from one in january 2010 to my current position.

again, it's not about how many hours you work, it's about what you produce and how you produce it. being good at what you do, you can get work done that could take someone else 50 hours, finished in about 20. i see it a lot in the development world. (maybe not that significant, but that is just an example).

I agree it's not always about the hours you work. However, I often see work from other people that is ok but could have been awesome with just a little bit more effort. Many times it only takes a tiny bit more work to take something from "ok" to "great".

 

[Imp]

Agreed. I have a strong work ethic but experience the good worker, more work thing. I liked the people I worked with and liked my bosses. Eventually took a big chunk of work from my supervisor which left me wondering what exactly she had left to do.

I had to ask for/demand a raise after that and I did get it. They thought it would be cool to just give me her work and that was that. NOPE!

Ha, at my old office, I have a friend who started the same time I did, and knows his shit incredibly well. Supervisors/managers recognized that and started sticking him with everything, but didn't promote him because his seniority was low. Eventually, they were forced to promote him because he inferred that he would leave; this pissed a lot of people off. His office has one guy who shows up for work twice a month, another who has no grasp of the English language and is collecting a paycheck until retirement.

 

[JimmiG]

Incentive doesn't have to mean "more money". Getting some appreciation for the work you do and feeling like it matters can go a long way.