Slashdot Mirror
Fewer Employees + Same Work = Higher Productivity
LiamRandall writes "Time magazine has an article discussing the effects that recent layoffs in corporate America has had on remaining workers. While I'm glad that I haven't been laid off (like 1/2 my group) I'm overloaded with all of my new responsibilities.
On one hand I feel very fortunate to still have a job- I feel some what guilty complaining given that the computer industry is second in layoffs. While some former coworkers of mine got the axe because upper management didn't understand what their contributions to the company were, others were dead wood anyway. The Chinese symbol for crisis is danger + opportunity; in these turbulent times do you find yourself rising to the challenge or being overloaded with responsibility? Is your to-do list growing exponentially? What new work are you faced with and how are you dealing with it?"
they dumped some wheat, and they dumped some chaffe.
but they dumped the wheat here that made this job fun. im the lone developer now, and upper managements lack of desire to understand and know the folks in development drove my friend away.
my productivity has gone down, tho my load has increased, only because i care less about my job now that the people that made it fun are gone.
thats my 2 cents
"Old man yells at systemd"
Right now, I am jobless myself. My company went chapter 7 when their software product did not sell.
I hear this a whole lot -- that the people who still have jobs have a lot of new work and that it is hard to keep up. They are being asked to work more hours on that salary pay, do more things than they ever did before. There is a big potential plus here in the recognition of doing that work -- you can add it to your resume and you gain experience from it.
The second thing that I am hearing from a lot of people is that as soon as things get better, or they get a break into another job that pays better, they are gone, zero notice, no regrets. They are being milked by the management, they know it, and they are going to split as soon as things get better.
Employee retention is going to be a big problem in the not so distant future in the technical fields. There is going to be a lot of people moving once the job market gets warmer. Unfortunately, I do not see that happening until sometime around 4th quarter 2003 or mid year 2004.
I have to go an interview in ten minutes, so I have to go. The Orlando Florida job market is TERRIBLE for technical people. This may be my only break. Bye bye!
Having just managed and just laid off an entire office of 35 engineers and then myself this hits a little close to home. I think the largest problem faced by managers are those how acutally do the day to day but arent visable. Usually those individuals are targeted along with the drift wood and those responsibilities land on the remaining staff adding to the work load and ususally undermining thier capabilites. I've seen it time and time again, where the corporate structure simply doesnt understand the dynamics of its own work force or its functionality and suffers for it in the long run.
In order for the company to survive, you have to survive. I look at my responsibilities at a job and decide whether they make sense. If they don't, I go to my boss. If I think they are requiring a level of responsibility that my pay does not compensate me for, I bring that up to the boss as well. If that doesn't sink in, I start sending out the resumes. If nothing else, the new responsibilities have given me experience the next boss is going to pay for.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
I don't think this has much to do with group dynamics. I think it is a classic case of our natural fight or flight response to stress. If you think your head is on the chopping block, you have two options.. power through, work hard and try to stay alive.. or you are going to go the other route and give up and start looking for the next opportunity because you figure this one is over.
Everyone is busy. What I don't like is when employees complain how busy they are and yet sit around playing games and looking at their fantasy football stats. Obviously there is a problem if an employee needs to work 10-12 hour days with no lunch and things aren't getting done. However, most of the companies I've been with have employees who get about 3-5 hours of work done in an 8 hour day. Ball parking it, most of these unmotivated employees could get a few extra weeks of work done a year. I know a guy who's company cut their department from 3 to 2. So the 2 guys were each working 20 hours of overtime a week at time and 1/2. It took them two years to realize they could save a fistfull of dollars and improve their worker morale by getting them back up to 3.
I work in an intelligent company that didn't hire 15 people to do 3 peoples job. I'm part of the IS group, even though I'm an application and server developer (New to this whole application development thing, releasing my first windows product soon.. thank you, QT) I have a pretty decent workload most of the time. There are 3 programmers here, and we're all kept pretty busy. The entire IS team is probably about 15 people, for thousands of computers, custom applications and servers.
I remember the last company I worked at had redundancy even in it's employees. It seemed every position was filled at least twice. Strangest thing. Each person did slightly different things, but if someone actually works the majority of an 8 hour day they can accomplish a lot of stuff.
Don't over-hire. Hire smart people. Hire people that work. 3 people can do what would otherwise take 15. The 3 of us do more than a development group of around 20 people at my old company.. but they aren't a good comparison, and that's why they are out of business now.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
in these turbulent times do you find yourself rising to the challenge or being overloaded with responsibility? Is your to-do list growing exponentially? What new work are you faced with and how are you dealing with it?"
Talk about asking the wrong crowd. Many of the people here (myself included) waste the day here simply because there is nothing else to do. See why we might not be the best ones to ask about overloaded responsibility??
Yes in the short term you can run lean and have better productivity... But this is bad business in my opinion...
If you have no training for your employees, not because of income, but because none of them can be spared, you are going to have to hire all of your talent new.
If you people are streched so thin, then your going to have burnout and have to replace those workers.
If your facing a 20-30% turnover rate... Your employees will have no loyalty to the company, because the company has no loyalty to them.
Personally, I think that companied that have been in business for a while, say 10-20 years minimum and have built up a staff of experienced employees. Don't really realize how much this will cost them... Traing new employees is expensive for anything except menial jobs...
If your company is dropping a lot of deadweight, that suggests managers that are not doing their jobs... But upper-management doing job cuts across the board are not doing their jobs properly either.
When the big name business schools changed over from teaching business from looking 5, 10, and 20 years into the future and started concentrating on quarterly income it was a sad day.
Trai
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
The US seems to like boasting to the rest of the world about how it keeps improving productivity. How is productivity measured? Are unpaid overtime hours taken in to consideration - I bet they're not. People seem to work more overtime, but companies don't pay for any extra hours (salaried) employees. Doesn't this make productivity gains just an illusion? Heh: I'm in danger of sounding like a unionist or something!
Greater Work != Greater Productivity
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
is top executive pay. What else is new...
Granted, times are lean, but during layoffs at my last company, I saw more top people still doing well. All us employees lost all our stock while the top execs got new stock and pay raises with the new company that bought us. My co-worker called it 'gift wrapping a turd'. How true.
I'm sure this is a very unpopular view, but I personally feel that if the belt needs to be tightened, we all need to do it. Not just a few.
My new company pays less and has me working more - like those in the article. I'm not sure how wise this is since this makes all of us here more stressed and burnt out. Sure, we're more productive, but people can only handle so much rhetoric, 50/60 hr weeks for 2/3 of the price before they just say 'screw this'.
One thing this has done for me is to galvanize my resolve to do something on my own. I personally still feel money is out there to be made. Epecially if you have good talents that Joe-first-year-college-dropout-100k-webmaster can't match. There will always be a need for people that know their stuff. Question is, will one be able to find it?
(pardon the Katzian reference)
Shortly after Sep11,2001, I wondered how soon it would be before people got over the genuine shock and horror of what happened, stop being friendly to each other in solidarity, and start in with the Bin Laden jokes. I knew it wouldn't be long. Sure enough, about 2 months after it happened, I saw my first Tshirt with Bin Laden's face in the crosshairs. Sure, there is natural bad sentiment towards someone who did something that tragic, but the REAL gravity of what happened dissipated quickly. It was back to NASCAR and lawsuits.
Granted, this isn't true of everyone, but overall we as a country are back to business as usual. (unfortunately) I think the same can be said of the tech industry, at least from my experience. Sure, we have trimmed budgets, and cut the work force, but I really don't see any difference in how people look at their jobs as a result of that. There are still lazy people who do just enough to get by. After a layoff, people scurry around, and try to prove that they are valuable, but that subsides quickly. No sooner has the sigh of relief that you still have a job been breathed than you just settle down in your chair and get back to same old routine.
Maybe I am a bit jaded, because I was able to get a job a month after the company I worked for went under. But that was 2 years ago, on the front side of the massive meltdown. I was lucky to get with a large company that has had only one layoff since then, and it was relatively small. But I see things going the same as they were when I got here. In general, people aren't worried about losing their jobs. Not that you need to be worried about losing your job in order to do a good job, but it doesn't seem like there is an urgency anymore. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Jeez, where am I going with this? Well, I kind of follow a Zen style of work. I do my job, I do it as good as I can. If I get laid off, I get laid off. I have confidence that I can do my job as good or better than my coworkers, and if not, then at least I did my best. I don't do just what it takes to get by, I try not to settle in for the long haul and cruise. I have been here 2 years, and I am still trying to improve myself and my skills. This skill is lost on a lot of people, and I think it is a valuable one. I think if you are working in a manner just to keep your job, then you aren't being genuine. Be genuine, and just be. There is no prize to keep your eye on. Develop yourself, improve yourself, because you are the asset, and others will see that.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I don't think that it is such a bad idea. I was laid off from a job (I don't blame the employer, i know I was dead wood and not the best.) I decided to move away from tech altogether. A better question is "How many people realized that there are unlimited opportunities to use you skills besides coding/admining/project managing/hardware devel. Serious. I had a very good friend, who had the brain the size of a small satelite who was laid off from hp. He designed high end micropocessors for hp/s multi processor iron boxes. He's going back to school now to get his masters in EE ( he was recruited in his sophomore year) While I decided to go the way of the anti-geek. Go figure. Anyway, how many decided to get out of tech altogether (be honest) because you didn't cut it, or you found something more fulfilling?
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
Do you love your job? A lot of slashdotters are bound to say they do, if they work with computers, so let me rephrase that - do you love your employer? Do you go to work each day because you love what your company does and you want to devote your life to forwarding their mission? If so, fine, then buckle in and do the extra work because you're working towards a goal you believe in.
If, however, you don't care too much what your company does, and you just need a salary, a paycheck - then why do you do it? You just need the salary, the paycheck, to pay bills and buy necessities, right? And to purchase some entertainment from time to time?
Then why do you need to pay those bills? OK, so you want some electricity. You need to eat. You want to enjoy some entertainment now and then. How much of this can you provide yourself? And how much entertainment (movies, DVDs, vegging out to TV, buying new CDs) do you *need*? I mean, do you buy any of this stuff to counteract stress from work? Then wouldn't structuring your life differently result in less need for entertainment?
So learn to become more self-reliant for those things. Grow some of your own food if you can. Install some solar panels, use an energy co-op instead of an energy company, learn some trade skills, the sorts of things that people need to build the necessities of life.
I'm not saying go back to the trees. I'm not even saying do everything I say. I'm just tossing out food for thought...
I think many people have a job they don't like just because they think "that's the way things are, that's the nature of work - work is dull and hard, a necessary responsibility." But I think work should enrich the spirit - work should not be that thing you have to do so that you can live when you get off work. Work should be your life! You should enjoy it! If you don't enjoy your work, the answer is not "well, I gotta earn a paycheck somehow". It should be "ok, so I don't enjoy my current employment - what might I enjoy instead?"
This is an old trick. Happened to my dad several times in the 80s (luckily, he was one of the ones that was left in the shop to do the work of two employees the company just laid off)
I'm not a reflex "Proud To Be Union"-bumper-sticker-posting moron, but Corporate Greed is the greatest of those two evils.
Corporate Greed knowns no shame. And since Enron, it knows no fear. Sure - this happened in the past, but they (being greedy corporate officers) had to at least hide it - which made it less noticable or insulting. Airlines in the 80s did similar things on a smaller scale. Today we have CEOs that lay-off thousands of employees just to "make the company more 'nimble'" (Jack Welsh, of General Electric) who then -on the way to his retirement mansion- starts stuffing his pockets with money while asking "You don't mind, do you?"
So - here's a bit of help for the greedy corporate butt-pirates out there:
Don't hire anyone to a permanent position. Get all your employees as contractors or, better yet, as "temps".
If possible, hire half to 2/3rds the employees you need, and then guilt/guile/corral/cajole them into doing the work of two people. Make it well known that they need the paycheck more than you need the job done.
Don't forget to line your pockets.
Make sure your HR person knows how to write the job description you post so that you can easily tell the few experienced applicants that they are overqualified (read that as "cost too much") and make the other applicants feel inferior, so they feel lucky to have the job, don't complain, and work harder for less money.
Quality? Fuck it. Honesty? Laugh at that, then fuck it. Quantity? Fuck it too. Employee moral? Fuck that hard. Money? Money is god. And you, being the High Priest, cannot suffer to allow anyone other than you to have god. So make sure you take god away from them and put god back in the temple (your pocket) where it belongs.
Oh shit, there goes the Karma.....
What happens is that they make a bunch of layoffs and in the short run their productivity goes up because the same amount of work is being done by less people. While that is true, this is a temporary phenomenon. What ends up happening is that people, who are now overworked, begin looking for other opportunities. In a tight market these may be hard to find, but they'll begin to trickle in.
Companies who don't overwork their employees in this manner will find that it's easier for them to find top notch talent as people seek to jump ship from companies that do overwork them. The companies who do overwork their employees discover in the meantime that they have a number of key defections and that these people end up being replaced by less qualified people, becuase the best people won't put up with them. So they go out and hire more people because the less qualified people can't do the job as effectively as one qualified person.
So, they eventually end up with a large work force, some of whom have, in the mean time, become quite good at their jobs. Then they realize that they've now got all this dead weight again. Layoffs happen.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Smart companies show their employees some loyalty in the bad times because it will be reciprocated in the good times. This leads to an overall more qualified and stable staff. That leads to increased productivity in the long run.
or so my theory goes...
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Management asks for cuts in the budget. Honest teams comply truthfully, accurately. Deceptive Teams cut 1/4 of what they could. Management is happy all around. Time passes. Management asks for more cuts. Honest teams already cut as far as they could. Deceptive teams have fat to spare. They cut 1/4 of their potential cuts again (1/2 of what the did before still leaving a huge margin for later cuts). Management is unpleased with honest teams. Management makes arbitrary cuts or layoffs to honest teams to cut costs. Deceptive Teams are rewarded. They still have spare cash AND full employment.
lesson learned:: do not be truthful about how much you can cut.
Management lays off people. Honest groups Survivors pick up the pieces and work harder to keep the company going. Deceptive groups people do not pick up the pieces and intentionally let projects slip and service quality drop. Management transfers people from Honest Teams into Deceptive Teams to cover their "losses" OR lays off people in honest teams so they can hire people back into the deceptive teams.
lesson learned:: do not pick up the pieces. Let management feel the pain of reductions.
This was also true in the good times.
A person who does exemplary work all the time is expected to always do exemplary work. The one day they come in with a cold and do average work they are criticized for laziness.
However, A person who always does the bare minimum on a day that they are unusually focused and produces average work (drank Jolt not water) gets praised for being a real go-getter! and gets a bonus for such wonderful work.
Every time we are asked to do our best and do so, we are punished. Every time other groups perform below average they are rewarded.
comment directly in my journal
It seems to me that a high quality of life is incompatible with high productivity, that all this productivity crap is making us lose our humanity. We are expected to be pleased that productivity is constantly increasing, but I'm not. Anthropologists claim that hunter-gatherers spent four hours a day "working" and the rest of the time they were goofing off, telling stories, having sex, etc. Oh, how far we have fallen from those days!
Pay based on seniority, not on merit
Merit shmerit. The commercial PHB's want young workers because they don't yet have families (overtime and distractions) and because PHB's pay attention to superficial things like icon-drags-per-minute rather than the things that experience helps with: long-term maintainability of complex software and the ability to spot bad vendor hype.
I don't know if unions are really the answer, but one thing I have noticed is that if you have no political power, you get stepped on by those who do. The big companies are lobbying like crazy to make it easier to hire or rent cheaper foreign workers. Congress is easy for them to buy.
If geeks don't find a political voice of some sort, we WILL get stepped on. It is simple as that. Be it jobs, digital/IP rights, etc. They are already stepping all over our digital/IP rights, what makes you think they won't somehow do the same to our careers? The writing is on the wall.
Table-ized A.I.