"We're a family here." - Corporations to their employees

[Secret Chief]

I'm not about to reply to every post, but my general observation is it seems that American employees have some very...er...different attitudes (compared to Brits) to employment. You seem to have the perspectives of employers. Maybe that's what you are.

 

[Secret Chief]

Your claim was people are only productive about 2 and half hours. I said research probably doesn't support that.

Yes, complete nonsense, based on a 40 year working life in various roles, both private and public sector.

 

[Arnaud1221]

Good way to create an union. I prefer the word team.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

That's a click bait article that doesn't really delve into the articles it's supposedly citing (a big red flag in itself) And, ultimately, America is the no vacation nation, we take work home on a regular basis, 50 is the new 40, and we work way more than other countries.

You certainly work way more hours. Than we do but I rather doubt that you get more done.

We have people who are always at their desks till every one else has gone home. They are usually the least productive.
I would rather have people who got things done promptly and we're able to leave early.
Clients just want things completed on time, they do not care how long you are at work.

However during my working life, while I usually left on time, I would always be prepared to work as long as necessary to meet a deadline.
I was never on the clock and never in a job that payed overtime.

My grand daughter is a solicitor working for a very large partnership. They log every minute and have to achieve a certain number of chargeable hours a month. I have known other companies working this way in the publications industry, but it would not be for me.

 

[JustGeorge]

Have you ever felt an ounce of remorse?

Once, but it was about something else.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I've seen it happen in several companies. Firing someone
is legally risky...the "broken gun syndrome", ie, they won't
work, & ya canna fire'm. And sometimes there's difficulty
in replacing a worker who's good enuf. But when times
are tough, the deadwood is & should be the 1st to go.

Story time...
I once worked for a company designing flow meter
calibration machines. They scheduled another week of
work for me, but I finished in a day, & I recommended
that they let me go because I saw no more work
worth paying me for. They took my advice.
Nice people. I enjoyed my time there.

I've heard of that practice.
Sometimes winning a suit is to lose.
(Legal costs exceed the amount in dispute.)

In the UK most cases taken up by a tribunal are won by the employee. An employer can win especially if he brings in a good barrister to take on the case. Which means you have to brief him through an equally expensive solicitor, and pay the expenses of witnesses, this takes a lot of company executive time, it is all not worth the hassle. Especially when everyone knows the maximum payout possible depending largely on the employees length of service and salary. It is usually a relief that they are gone, whatever the cost.

 

[Alien826]

That must've felt bad. It may be the supervisor knew something about the employees abilities which made him do that.

No, he was just a terrible manager. I could tell you a lot more stories ...

 

[Alien826]

Mrs Revolt's father was a manager at Voice Of America.
It was a government job. He was under direct orders
to give every employee a positive review. It was clearly
a very well run organization because everyone was
given high marks for their work.
One guy ran a real estate business out of VOA. He did
no actual VOA work at all. But he couldn't be fired because
his reviews were all positive.

Not directly to your point, but I was part of a group of managers (in the USA this time) that got instruction about, among other things, firing practices. We were told to never give a bad review unless we were ready to fire the person at once. This was because the fired person would go to the (whatever authority) to try to get paid as if he was laid off, and if you gave a bad review and kept the person on it could be seen as condoning the bad behavior.

Weird, huh?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I bet if it had been about the employers you would've happily agreed.

"31% waste roughly 30 minutes daily
31% waste roughly 1 hour daily
16% waste roughly 2 hours daily
6% waste roughly 3 hours daily"
Source

"Almost 90% of staff say that they waste time on the job every day. For the most part, it’s no more than an hour. However, more than a quarter of people in the UK have admitted to wasting in excess of two hours over the course of a standard workday." Source

"4% admit they’re texting or using their phones almost 35% just waste time online playing games or shopping 43% of employees admit that they’re chatting to their colleagues (instead of working)." Source

"Did you know the average employee wastes 260 hours every year?

That’s a significant amount of time that costs companies more money than just time.

In fact, In the United States, organizations lose $1.7 million in wasted time for every 100 employees." Source

There are people all over the world who take work home and guess what, it's their choice.

Jim Rohn told about a man who brought his work home everyday and his daughter asked her mother, why? The mother replied that her father couldn't finish all his work in the office so he had to bring it home. The daughter asked, "why don't they put him in the slower group?"

When I costed most jobs I would allow 20% unproductive time. This usually worked out to be somewhere near the truth. Lots of things can happen during the day that are not planned even if the workers are conscientious. And the job well planned. Some times you can get as low as 5% lost time, but it would be risky to bet on it. Jobs entailing lots of activity stops and starts will be worse still.

 

[Secret Chief]

Once, but it was about something else.

The ferret incident?

 

[Secret Chief]

When I costed most jobs I would allow 20% unproductive time. This usually worked out to be somewhere near the truth. Lots of things can happen during the day that are not planned even if the workers are conscientious. And the job well planned. Some times you can get as low as 5% lost time, but it would be risky to bet on it. Jobs entailing lots of activity stops and starts will be worse still.

Scientists discover humans aren't robots.

 

[JustGeorge]

The ferret incident?

Yeah...

The ferret didn't deserve that...

 

[Secret Chief]

Yeah...

The ferret didn't deserve that...

I got ptsd from witnessing that. I presume you had to replace the carpet?

 

[JustGeorge]

I got ptsd from witnessing that. I presume you had to replace the carpet?

No, I just used your good shirt to clean up the mess.

 

[Quintessence]

Maybe your workplace is special, but more than likely, you just "don't notice" indeed.

No, I'm just not sexist or into sexist stereotyping because its harmful and hurtful. I treat individual humans as... gee... individual humans. And notice a tremendous amount of diversity amongst all these individual humans regardless of what is or isn't between their legs.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You certainly work way more hours. Than we do but I rather doubt that you get more done.

The Scandinavian countries are about it. Granted America does tend to be worked to the point of over work, which makes work less productive, but lots of Americans, especially in Heartland/Flyover America, the only way they know how to live is work. Many even use work as a coping method by working as much as they can to not think about or deal with what's bothering them (this, of course, doesn't work and has a potential to add to the destruction).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No, I'm just not sexist or into sexist stereotyping because its harmful and hurtful. I treat individual humans as... gee... individual humans. And notice a tremendous amount of diversity amongst all these individual humans regardless of what is or isn't between their legs.

Yeah, but in general, widely and largely men and women behave differently. If that weren't true I do not believe gender dysphoria could exist, nor would we see gendered norms and behaviors in other species. Amd there's the reality that men amd women have differently structured brains (again, transgender people help demonstrate this by showing it can't just be a rigid social binary because some people are biologically inclined to gravite towards behaviors opposite of their birth sex).
At home, at school qnd even at work trying to be "gender blind" seems as terribly dismissive and self blinding as trying to be "race blind." From the start it's doomed to fail because it dismisses unique challenges faced by men amd unique challenges faced by women all under the guise men and women don't have differently. The very fact men are generally physically larger and stronger upfront changes things for both sexes, one who gets to be more carefree and one who must exercise a degree of caution because it's like playing Russian Roulette but where instead of a bullet in the chamber it's the odds that guy, though the odds are small, who could overpower the woman with one arm, is going to be safe like an empty chamber or a danger like that one chamber with the bullet.

 

[Revoltingest]

In the UK most cases taken up by a tribunal are won by the employee. An employer can win especially if he brings in a good barrister to take on the case.

I'd hate to face Horace Rumpole in court.

Which means you have to brief him through an equally expensive solicitor, and pay the expenses of witnesses, this takes a lot of company executive time, it is all not worth the hassle. Especially when everyone knows the maximum payout possible depending largely on the employees length of service and salary. It is usually a relief that they are gone, whatever the cost.

True dat.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not directly to your point, but I was part of a group of managers (in the USA this time) that got instruction about, among other things, firing practices. We were told to never give a bad review unless we were ready to fire the person at once. This was because the fired person would go to the (whatever authority) to try to get paid as if he was laid off, and if you gave a bad review and kept the person on it could be seen as condoning the bad behavior.

Weird, huh?

I don't like that advice. A friend's company fired
a gal for cause, but she was given good reviews
as encouragement. The good reviews were the
worst mistake ever.
Give honest reviews. Put'm on a PIP (performance
improvement plan). Monitor performance, & give
honest feedback. That's the way....IMO.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Good way to create an union. I prefer the word team.

How does it create a union when it's an upfront demand and expectation? There's the family you're born into and the family you choose. No one has a right or claim to upfront insert themselves.
And, in fact, it makes me think poorly of the company if they are telling me such basic pro-social things are their values. If you have to tell me you meet the bare minimums of decency it's probably because you're actions are less than that (like one company who said valued friendliness and integrity but what they did was illegally discourage unionizing).