How Has The Balance Of Power Changed For Employee - Employer Relationship Compared To 50 Years Ago? (3 Viewers)

[MTskibum]

letting people go

Thanks. Do you think an employer should be allowed to determine how many employees are required to do the work?

Of course. Employees will purposely work slower in factory environments when they know the work is low just to try and fool mgmt. It doesn't work though.

In any case, I did vote there is more power to the employees. The lack of loyalty on both sides has made it this way in my opinion. It's often hard to hire and retain people so employers give in to more things for the employees.

Although a good manager turns the other way to keep his staff safe and has their back to upper management.

At least that is what I have done during major downturns when it was difficult to keep my software engineers working more than 20+ hours a week.

 

[MTskibum]

I voted much more power to employers. There is no loyalty by employers and they will mass layoff at a whim.

I work for fortune 500 company, maybe it is different at small businesses.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

I can go on and on and on about this topic...my wife is an executive at a non-profit and has to lead/direct a number of folks

-My wife had an employee when she started that was very unhappy about having to come in from "work at home" and tried to go around my wife and lied to HR, etc...
And that woman is no longer there, didn't take too long but the PEP-performing enhancing plan which is actually a royal PIA for the manager/exec but it does push them out the door because they don't really want to improve or learn anything so they can advance and get ahead, they just want promotions for showing up to work or logging in at home, it's preposterous

-We have shown these entry level types that we can basically do their job in 4-5 hours a week whereas they are provided 40! No joke, what do these folks do at home all day?
Down side is you do that for 8-10 employees, now you have no time for your own work
And that's why we like to simply "dissolve" or rename positions, redo the job description for the ones who give us the hardest time and that usually sends a message to the others.
The whole deck is stacked to the employee, they can get time off for just about anything including stress from their boss...we have one right now who managed to get a 6-8 week work by remote so she can take care of her sick mother, of course this only happened right after she and my wife had a major conflict involving HR where this employee bold faced lied to the HR clerk. Infuriating

This non profit is a University so I would say they bend heavily to the inmates running the asylum, you have to try really hard in order to get fired from this place. I would imagine its similar at a lot of non profits and fundraising entities.

A lot has changed over the last 25 years, cannot imagine behaving the way I see others in these work environments and moving ahead the way my wife and I have over the last 2-3 decades, and we were wild as **** in the 90s, heavy into the underground dance scene from ages 18-25 I'll say and yet we figured out at some point that we had to do the things others would not in order to have some things others might not in the future, and that's not just material things...peace of mind

-Bottom line these days, you have to beg folks to do things at work and even then it's 50/50 it actually gets done. So you just do it yourself

 

[PIK95]

There is a HUGE difference in union versus non union jobs for this exercise. It's horrible to be a 1099 worker in 2024 on top of that imo.

 

[PIK95]

Kind of depends which jobs we are talking about.

Ate at a cafe rio for lunch today. Had to practically scream my selections to both workers because they both had airpods in and couldnt hear.

They are in no danger of losing their jobs and are being paid 16 bucks an hour plus tips.

Don't hate the player...

 

[UncleZen]

letting people go

Thanks. Do you think an employer should be allowed to determine how many employees are required to do the work?

Of course. Employees will purposely work slower in factory environments when they know the work is low just to try and fool mgmt. It doesn't work though.

In any case, I did vote there is more power to the employees. The lack of loyalty on both sides has made it this way in my opinion. It's often hard to hire and retain people so employers give in to more things for the employees.

Although a good manager turns the other way to keep his staff safe and has their back to upper management.

At least that is what I have done during major downturns when it was difficult to keep my software engineers working more than 20+ hours a week.

For certain positions, I agree 100%. People that are well trained and good at what they do, you make it work. People in the mfg world where you can invest <10 hours of training for someone new, you get rid of them.

 

[MTskibum]

For certain positions, I agree 100%. People that are well trained and good at what they do, you make it work. People in the mfg world where you can invest <10 hours of training for someone new, you get rid of them.

But they are still people who want to show up and and want to work and get a paycheck, regardless of whether they are highly skilled. It typically sucks even more for a factory worker than a software engineer.

Ideally if they were showing up and busting their butt working overtime when there was an excess of work they are rewarded with keeping their job when the work slows down to where they are working 30 hours a week.

Typically in the manufacturing world this is when you catch up on preventative maintenance. Keep them busy painting the building, etc.

 

[UncleZen]

For certain positions, I agree 100%. People that are well trained and good at what they do, you make it work. People in the mfg world where you can invest <10 hours of training for someone new, you get rid of them.

But they are still people who want to show up and and want to work and get a paycheck, regardless of whether they are highly skilled. It typically sucks even more for a factory worker than a software engineer.

Ideally if they were showing up and busting their butt working overtime when there was an excess of work they are rewarded with keeping their job when the work slows down to where they are working 30 hours a week.

Typically in the manufacturing world this is when you catch up on preventative maintenance. Keep them busy painting the building, etc.

That depends on the type of manufacturing world you are in. My career was mostly spent in contract manufacturing so margins were low. When the business isn't there, you cut staff. It's always unfortunate but that's the way it is. Now, I work in the OEM world and yeah, the margins are better so you do more preventive/process improvement type activities when it's slow.

 

[Joe Bryant]

For certain positions, I agree 100%. People that are well trained and good at what they do, you make it work. People in the mfg world where you can invest <10 hours of training for someone new, you get rid of them.

But they are still people who want to show up and and want to work and get a paycheck, regardless of whether they are highly skilled. It typically sucks even more for a factory worker than a software engineer.

Ideally if they were showing up and busting their butt working overtime when there was an excess of work they are rewarded with keeping their job when the work slows down to where they are working 30 hours a week.

Typically in the manufacturing world this is when you catch up on preventative maintenance. Keep them busy painting the building, etc.

That depends on the type of manufacturing world you are in. My career was mostly spent in contract manufacturing so margins were low. When the business isn't there, you cut staff. It's always unfortunate but that's the way it is. Now, I work in the OEM world and yeah, the margins are better so you do more preventive/process improvement type activities when it's slow.

Yes. And it's a balance. Most every manufacturer I know personally works hard to avoid layoffs. They're bad all around.

I think lots of people don't realize how much of a factor labor is on producing many products. For many, labor is a huge component of the cost of product.

So to say if orders fall off and production drops to 80% of normal, a manufacturer can keep employment at 100% and eat the 20% for a while. But not indefinitely. Sure, there a few busywork things employees might do. But asking an upholstery person to paint a building only works for so long.

At some point, the manufacturer isn't able to just eat an extra 20% in production costs without end. So at some point, layoffs happen and the workforce gets back in line with what has to work to make the business function.

And for sure, a few businesses have so much profit built in they take the loss. But a great many businesses, especially restaurants, don't have that much extra margin to play with. At least in my experience.

 

[Tau837]

I voted more power to the employer. I'm getting a peek behind the curtain on how defense contractors create and submit their manpower bids to the government. Employees are a commodity in these transactions. Pay structures are generally agreed on between all the companies and the bid differences tend to come down to overhead and operating costs. This ensures an analysts with X amount of years would get paid in the same 10% range regardless of company/contract just so these companies aren't constantly taking people from each other.

I have worked in DoD contracting for more than 25 years in my career and currently manage a large DoD business unit (~$300M annually). I participate in and approve a large volume of proposals.

What you seem to describe here is collusion, which is unethical at best and illegal at worst, depending on the details. My company does not agree on "pay structures" with competitors, though because we compete for the same talent in an open market, it may tend to be true that salaries and benefits are similar (not identical), and cost burdens (overhead, benefits, etc.) are what largely differentiate bid prices. It is also true that my company loses employees to competitors frequently, and, because we hire a lot of personnel, we inevitably hire employees away from competitors when they apply for our jobs.

So I think I generally disagree with your post as written.

 

[fantasy stud]

in my line of work having an extra curricular activity is mandatory.

Can you explain this?

Education.

So some type of math club, robotics, fun run, chaperoning dances, pick up lines, lunch monitors.

While one is mandatory. I can't think of a single teacher I oversee that does less than 2.

I'm in education in Florida for over 20 years. I feel that teachers are being treated worse than ever which is crazy because they can't find enough good ones. Back in the day, I felt that quality teachers had more privileges. Now all decisions are top-down. They move your room, change what you teach, don't listen to any input on school decisions.

 

[Max Power]

I voted more power to the employer. I'm getting a peek behind the curtain on how defense contractors create and submit their manpower bids to the government. Employees are a commodity in these transactions. Pay structures are generally agreed on between all the companies and the bid differences tend to come down to overhead and operating costs. This ensures an analysts with X amount of years would get paid in the same 10% range regardless of company/contract just so these companies aren't constantly taking people from each other.

I have worked in DoD contracting for more than 25 years in my career and currently manage a large DoD business unit (~$300M annually). I participate in and approve a large volume of proposals.

What you seem to describe here is collusion, which is unethical at best and illegal at worst, depending on the details. My company does not agree on "pay structures" with competitors, though because we compete for the same talent in an open market, it may tend to be true that salaries and benefits are similar (not identical), and cost burdens (overhead, benefits, etc.) are what largely differentiate bid prices. It is also true that my company loses employees to competitors frequently, and, because we hire a lot of personnel, we inevitably hire employees away from competitors when they apply for our jobs.

So I think I generally disagree with your post as written.

I don't want to accuse people of doing inappropriate things without full knowledge of their situation. I will say I see plenty of these mid-level companies who have program managers and operations directions who all came up through the military ranks together. The amount of prior military in these major roles is very large. They were a brotherhood before and are still in close contact, even though their paychecks may be signed by different companies.

Granted my perspective is from a regional lens.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I can go on and on and on about this topic...my wife is an executive at a non-profit and has to lead/direct a number of folks

-My wife had an employee when she started that was very unhappy about having to come in from "work at home" and tried to go around my wife and lied to HR, etc...
And that woman is no longer there, didn't take too long but the PEP-performing enhancing plan which is actually a royal PIA for the manager/exec but it does push them out the door because they don't really want to improve or learn anything so they can advance and get ahead, they just want promotions for showing up to work or logging in at home, it's preposterous

-We have shown these entry level types that we can basically do their job in 4-5 hours a week whereas they are provided 40! No joke, what do these folks do at home all day?
Down side is you do that for 8-10 employees, now you have no time for your own work
And that's why we like to simply "dissolve" or rename positions, redo the job description for the ones who give us the hardest time and that usually sends a message to the others.
The whole deck is stacked to the employee, they can get time off for just about anything including stress from their boss...we have one right now who managed to get a 6-8 week work by remote so she can take care of her sick mother, of course this only happened right after she and my wife had a major conflict involving HR where this employee bold faced lied to the HR clerk. Infuriating

This non profit is a University so I would say they bend heavily to the inmates running the asylum, you have to try really hard in order to get fired from this place. I would imagine its similar at a lot of non profits and fundraising entities.

A lot has changed over the last 25 years, cannot imagine behaving the way I see others in these work environments and moving ahead the way my wife and I have over the last 2-3 decades, and we were wild as **** in the 90s, heavy into the underground dance scene from ages 18-25 I'll say and yet we figured out at some point that we had to do the things others would not in order to have some things others might not in the future, and that's not just material things...peace of mind

-Bottom line these days, you have to beg folks to do things at work and even then it's 50/50 it actually gets done. So you just do it yourself

I could walk you from building to building on my campus and personally introduce you to a dozen or more people who are basically just not doing their jobs. That's not technically true of course. They're doing just barely enough to stay employed, because as you correctly note, firing these people is a giant PIA. Low performers figure that out, and they take full advantage of it. TBH, it is one of the most frustrating parts of my job. It is incredibly dispiriting to sit here and watch people do next to nothing for years - to the point that the rest of us have to work around them - with no consequences of any kind. It makes me feel foolish for ever going out of my way when I don't have to.

 

[Tau837]

I voted more power to the employer. I'm getting a peek behind the curtain on how defense contractors create and submit their manpower bids to the government. Employees are a commodity in these transactions. Pay structures are generally agreed on between all the companies and the bid differences tend to come down to overhead and operating costs. This ensures an analysts with X amount of years would get paid in the same 10% range regardless of company/contract just so these companies aren't constantly taking people from each other.

I have worked in DoD contracting for more than 25 years in my career and currently manage a large DoD business unit (~$300M annually). I participate in and approve a large volume of proposals.

What you seem to describe here is collusion, which is unethical at best and illegal at worst, depending on the details. My company does not agree on "pay structures" with competitors, though because we compete for the same talent in an open market, it may tend to be true that salaries and benefits are similar (not identical), and cost burdens (overhead, benefits, etc.) are what largely differentiate bid prices. It is also true that my company loses employees to competitors frequently, and, because we hire a lot of personnel, we inevitably hire employees away from competitors when they apply for our jobs.

So I think I generally disagree with your post as written.

I don't want to accuse people of doing inappropriate things without full knowledge of their situation. I will say I see plenty of these mid-level companies who have program managers and operations directions who all came up through the military ranks together. The amount of prior military in these major roles is very large. They were a brotherhood before and are still in close contact, even though their paychecks may be signed by different companies.

Granted my perspective is from a regional lens.

Well, relationships are a big part of all kinds of business in my experience. Having ex-military personnel who have relationships with other ex-military personnel who work at other companies does not equate to price fixing or collusion. It can often facilitate teaming, which is a positive thing.

Every population of humans will have a percentage who act unethically or illegally, I'm not saying that doesn't happen. But it is rare in my experience, not the norm.

 

[Joe Bryant]

One thing I think some companies miss: A good company finds out what an employee wants.

And it's not always money.

Money of course is the main thing usually. But different people put all kinds of different values on things like Title, Hours required, Flexibility, Work from Home, Work from Office, Insurance, Benefits, Retirement, Can you bring your dog to work and a million more things.

None of those are right or wrong or good or bad. But they all have a value. And they're not the same for everyone.

When a person quits a job it's usually triggered by bad management/manager.

Almost all non management jobs have comparable starting pay (within that field), benefits,
and set pay raises. The difference is your lower tier management with how hard they get
"pushed" and does it get pushed onto you.

For sure bad managment causes people to quit. But I'm not sure it's "usually". I see it more often as a bad fit. Management and employee often try their best to make it work but in many cases, it's just not a fit. Cutlture or work type or compensation just can't aligned. I've learned over the years to try and be a little more quick in recognizing that fine line of doing all you can to make it fit but also realizing it's often best to save everyone some time and trouble when it's just not going to work.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I could walk you from building to building on my campus and personally introduce you to a dozen or more people who are basically just not doing their jobs. That's not technically true of course. They're doing just barely enough to stay employed, because as you correctly note, firing these people is a giant PIA. Low performers figure that out, and they take full advantage of it. TBH, it is one of the most frustrating parts of my job. It is incredibly dispiriting to sit here and watch people do next to nothing for years - to the point that the rest of us have to work around them - with no consequences of any kind. It makes me feel foolish for ever going out of my way when I don't have to.

I've often thought that was a benefit / problem of a small company. In small companies, there's not much place to hide. If you're underperforming, it's obvious to everyone. And starts to cause the whole company pain.

The upside is if you perform well, it's more obvious and easier to recognize and reward the people excelling.

I've never worked in a large company, partly for that reason. I can see how it would be dispiriting to see what @IvanKaramazov is describing.

 

[nightmare]

One thing I think some companies miss: A good company finds out what an employee wants.

And it's not always money.

Money of course is the main thing usually. But different people put all kinds of different values on things like Title, Hours required, Flexibility, Work from Home, Work from Office, Insurance, Benefits, Retirement, Can you bring your dog to work and a million more things.

None of those are right or wrong or good or bad. But they all have a value. And they're not the same for everyone.

When a person quits a job it's usually triggered by bad management/manager.

Almost all non management jobs have comparable starting pay (within that field), benefits,
and set pay raises. The difference is your lower tier management with how hard they get
"pushed" and does it get pushed onto you.

For sure bad managment causes people to quit. But I'm not sure it's "usually". I see it more often as a bad fit. Management and employee often try their best to make it work but in many cases, it's just not a fit. Cutlture or work type or compensation just can't aligned. I've learned over the years to try and be a little more quick in recognizing that fine line of doing all you can to make it fit but also realizing it's often best to save everyone some time and trouble when it's just not going to work.

I think we have different viewpoints from different companies.
My experience is big companies and a smaller company with "This is the job, take it or leave it" stance.
The about to be ex employee isn't going to straight out tell them "This isn't working because of a bad boss or bad management".
They've decided to leave and are looking for the quickest exit. I'm looking at this from the "average" workers point of view.

 

[Joe Bryant]

My experience is big companies and a smaller company with "This is the job, take it or leave it" stance.

Yes. And like most things, the nuances around this are the real story. Every job has some sort of boundaries about what is required. Finding the right balance is key with both sides being reasonable and flexible.

 

[Grahamburn]

My experience is big companies and a smaller company with "This is the job, take it or leave it" stance.

Yes. And like most things, the nuances around this are the real story. Every job has some sort of boundaries about what is required. Finding the right balance is key with both sides being reasonable and flexible.

The employee is typically only going to look at things from one perspective. Theirs. The employer/manager has to look at things from everyone's perspective including what's best for the company as a whole.

Doesn't necessarily mean it's bad management. But, as you said, bad fit.

 

[cheese]

My experience is big companies and a smaller company with "This is the job, take it or leave it" stance.

Yes. And like most things, the nuances around this are the real story. Every job has some sort of boundaries about what is required. Finding the right balance is key with both sides being reasonable and flexible.

The employee is typically only going to look at things from one perspective. Theirs. The employer/manager has to look at things from everyone's perspective including what's best for the company as a whole.

Doesn't necessarily mean it's bad management. But, as you said, bad fit.

Your first sentence is probably most of what drove my vote if I’m being honest. When my primary role was employee, it felt like the employer had all the power. Now that my primary role is employer, it feels like the employees have all the power.