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Would You Bid for a Job?
Roland Piquepaille writes "Several U.S. hospitals have found an innovative way to deal with nursing shortage. They post shift openings and the highest hourly rate they're willing to pay on their internal networks. Then, the nurses bid online for these extra shifts. The lowest bidders get the shifts and are notified by e-mail. This bidding process is almost certainly a good thing for the hospitals, but is it good for the nurses? Or safe for you? And what will happen if other industries also adopt auction systems? Imagine a company telling you, "Hey, you want to make some extra dollars by building this car or writing this piece of software? Name your price, and you'll make some more cash." What do you think of this bidding process? Read more before posting your comments."
Scam! Yeah like I'm going to pay you to hire me or provide me with extra work if I'm employed with you. That is exactly what low-bid hiring amounts to -- corporate kickbacks. This is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of and I hope all the companies involved get exactly what they have coming to them -- loads and loads of malpractice suits. That's about as much as they'll get from hiring low-bidders. The job market is tough enough on job hunters to have to undercut your own salary in order to have an advantage in job hunting. Many employees take back from the company in order to offset low enough salaries! If the rest of the job market decides to follow suit, this could be a catastrophe.
Why don't they have online queues for hospital waiting rooms? That's because they *want* you to bleed out in the Emergency room so that the hospital can help ensure they get better funding, or at least that's the way it is in Canada. They spend all kinds of money on eShift to get it running and all the nurses buy into it because they are either too tired to realize they're being screwed by the system, or they have no choice. *sigh*
This reminds me of some shady business practices in the petroleum industry. Once a project I was bidding on went to the competition because we refused to kickback a large diamond to the guy in charge of purchasing for this huge company. Yes, he wanted a diamond. Not sure why but I'm guessing he was going to tie a fob to it and use it for office-oriented bling-bling. Either that or he wanted to cut a safe open...
eShift == eShit
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
are the bids silent/undisclosed, so that noone knows what the current bid is?
Nurses are unique creatures in that they require a four year education and above-average intelligence, but are managed like factory workers. It won't take long for peers to figure out who the low bidders are and to educate them as to the protocol to be followed, i.e. a minimum bid.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
This most certainly is an innovative solution for determining the "fair value" of work... but it seems quite dangerous for a hospital to be trying it out. What happens if a shift gets left on the board with nobody willing to bid under the max posted?
This kind of system is great to use when there's more labor supply than demand, but seems dangerously close to a colapse should the staff decide they want to cause a problem... no need to give two weeks notice or even to quit, just refuse to bid on the designated day and therefore nobody will be assigned to work that day.
Having an unmanned checkout at Wal-Mart is one thing, having not enough nurses to cover all of the patients in a hospital is quite another.
We keep playing the game like it's an open system, and it never was, and now we are quickly discovering the end stops.
Designing an economic model which awards wealth to those who grow, is doomed when a company, any company reaches market saturation.
The American economy no longer exists, American business is multinational, global, and not limited to our borders. It finds cheap labor and brings the saving in production back to the U.S. where American consumers rejoice at the low cost of service and goods. Sadly it's all a sham. It's as unsustainable as a constant diet of junk food. It tastes good while you're eating it, but it's slowly killing you. It's all take and no give, the dollars fly out of the country faster and faster, until the nations fundamental wealth is gone, and the citizens of the nation notice they are now the collective bag holders.
* Money that leaves never supports U.S. economy and infrastructure. * Money that leaves undermines U.S. labor, costing jobs and quality of living. * The growing gap between haves and have nots in the U.S. suggest a growing economic instability. Loss of jobs starting with manufacturing, but now quickly moving up through intellectual "white collar" professions, points to a growing joblessness with no end in sight. As the government services fail (and if you haven't been reading the paper or watching the news at 11:00, local government everywhere in this country is on the verge of collapse), the means to manage and provide basic life needs to the growing disenfranchised evaporates. The middle class vanishes. We are all reduced to the same level of living enjoyed by billions of starving people all over the world. Already 3% of our population owns 75% of the wealth, this is the greatest desparity in wealth in our history. And still the insanity accelerates. This is just the beginning ladies and gentlemen. What will you do, when your kids fresh out of college, with hundred thousand dollar college loans to pay, can't find work. What will you do, when you haven't received a raise in 4 years, and the boss says "Sorry, the work is heading to China."
I've personally spent the last 6 months looking for work, I've had my resume tuned, I have 25 years of technical experience, and I've made it clear I'll do almost anything, and I have not had a single interview. I'm not alone, I have a couple hundred friends and acquaintances who've been unemployed for between 2 and 3.5 years.
I keep hearing neocons mouthing the lines of Scrooge from a Christmas Carol... "the surplus population shold just get on with the business of dying...", or some variation of that. It's not bad yet. It may well get there. If it does, our government, is going to have a very bad time. Our society is going to have a very bad time. We need to begin addressing sustainable business practice from an economic, environmental, and ethics based context. To simply let the train go where it will is to insure a crash none of us will walk away from.
bw
It doesn't seem that the nurses are "paying" for the extra hours, but more like bidding a lower price for their labours - I suppose in the same vain that contractors bid for government contracts*. A little difference, but a difference nontheless.
*Of course, this only isolates the lowest bidder, not the person/entity best suited for the job, a major flaw in this system that I see. Of course, all of the bidding nurses are employees already, and this shouldn't affect the quality of care.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Isn't that basically market forces at work?
IMHO probably; doesn't make it right or wrong- it may well work better than a fixed price though. But it's going to be vulnerable to all the normal market problems.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Actually, graveyard is prefered by many. My mom hates daytime shifts- she doesn't have to deal with doctors at night.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Anyone who knows his/her quality of work will seldom undersell. If I charge more, it's probably because my quality of work speaks for it.
By making people bid, they are literally making them demean themselves - and those that offer their services low are probably not going to be the better ones.
Ofcourse, this will make others bring down their rates too, and everyone loses -- well, everyone except the top management who make a shitload of money at the expense of their employees.
This is just wrong and absolutely disgusting. I'm a PERSON - not a thing. My services will be charged what I feel are appropriate, and not being forced to BID like a slave. Sheesh.
I especially don't see how this is a problem as it appears to be a "who wants to work overtime for the lowest amount of money" contest. How bad do you want the extra money? Maybe applicant number 1 needs a new car and will do it for 30 bucks an hour but applicant number 2 has 4 kids at home and his wife just got laid off so he will do it for 25.
Next thing you know companies will just ask, "Ok, before we hire you we need your salary requirements and the salary requirements of 4 of your peers."...Just like Progressive car insurance.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
I dare to stand against the prevailing mythos of anti-corporatism and say that this is an economically efficient solution for nurses who want overtime and hospitals who are often in financial distress, not to mention keeping all of our health care costs lower.
This just lets the poor lady who works nights get a little more compensation relative to her peers...why not?
As for you being a "person"...well, don't get too involved in being very sick in the US, you will find out quickly it is a business, and yes they basically will let you die in favor of a better funded or insured patient. If you have HMO, they must clear every procedure. This means your treatment is waiting on a claims agent who dropped out of high school in Alabama. Don't think people haven't died while waiting on treatment clearance.
If you were going to stay a hospital for a few days for a surgery or illness, Would you rather have a nurse that values her skills at $10/hour or one that thinks she is worth $50/hour. Also, a nurse that works for less will put in longer hours to maintain the same standard of living. She is more likely to be tired and overworked.
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"This bidding process is almost certainly a good thing for the hospitals, but is it good for the nurses?"
Unless you do more than wave hands, yes. They get extra income for doing what they're trained for.
"Or safe for you?"
Why not. It's not like a nurse will be doing a job for which they're untrained.
"And what will happen if other industries also adopt auction systems?"
Software already does. It's called asking for hourly rate. Same for plumbers, carpenters, lawyers, accountants, etc. Pretty pandemic, if you ask me.
"Imagine a company telling you, 'Hey, you want to make some extra dollars by building this car or writing this piece of software? Name your price, and you'll make some more cash.'"
I don't have to, because that doesn't make sense. Nurses aren't being asked to do something they aren't trained for, why pretend that's the case?
"What do you think of this bidding process?"
Reasonable, what rational reasons would you have against it?
Where the median wait for radiation therapy is 6 weeks and people regularly give up waiting years for replacement hips or other major care and so fly to the USA to pay for it themselves?
That sort of health care?
Clear, Dark Skies
Bidding is fine except for one thing: it shifts power to the employer. You can always find some desperate yet competent person to do a job. A good example of people in these categories are newly graduated students, immigrants with huge debts/penalties to pay or people with lower cost of living (eg. in rural areas in other states/provinces). These people will always undercut others (of course, I am assuming the job can be done by them--which is true for the vast majority of tech jobs (only a small percentage are senior, architect/designer/etc jobs requiring experience). Now, if you enter a bidding proces and are undercut then that will make you look badly to the employer. The employer might at some point ask 'why shouldn't I do everything through the bidding process?'.
The root problem is that the employer is a large aggregate body while the employee is just a small ant. This is the key reason for having unions in the first place. You don't have unions in the tech industry because the salaries are high enough that employees aren't being marginalized (i.e. employees actually have a lot of power, relative to most jobs).
Having said this, bidding for jobs in already here and will simply spread. It is inevitable! Business contracts (not talking about job contracts) are generally won through some bidding process. Therefore, it wouldn't be unusual to have job contracts also won through bidding. Already employees in certain industries work by bidding all the time (an example is artists and the art industry in general).
I think the key change that will occur as bidding gains prominence is that salary will matter more than "skill" in the future. Right now, "skills" are what get you hired but I imagine salary will start to play a major role under bidding (since modern capitalist bidding is all based on price; no way to quantify skills). This is not to say that someone who can't do the job will be hired but that the difference between getting hte job and not getting it will depend far more on the salary than now...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Loss of jobs starting with manufacturing, but now quickly moving up through intellectual "white collar" professions, points to a growing joblessness with no end in sight.
The loss of US manufacturing jobs essentially started in the '70's and finished in the '80's. You might as well be wringing your hands about the "loss of jobs" in agriculture in the 1940's. Guess what: those manufacturing workers haven't just been sitting around unemployed for 20 years. They have gotten into different careers, relocating if need be.
To put things in perspective, the recent tech downturn is MUCH smaller in its impact on employment than were the end of manufacturing and agriculture. Both of those fields shed 10's of percentages of the country's total population in employees in just a few short decades, and yet the 20th century in America was hardly one of starvation and rampant joblessness. The move from agriculture to manufacturing, and from manufacturing to services, were profound shifts in the nation's output. What has happened in tech, on the other hand, is kind of a sidenote. It's comparable in scope to what happened on Wall Street in the '80's. In both '90's tech and '80's Wall Street, a media-propelled hoard of prospectors crowded into a field that was perceived as "lucrative", creating a glut of workers for relatively specialized fields. This glut, coupled with an eventual market down-cycle, made the field less lucrative than many had hoped, and lots of people lost their jobs. But guess what: both the computer industry and finance have carried on, and just as the world isn't crowded with unemployed bond traders who lost their jobs in 1988, I strongly doubt 2020 will see us with a surfeit of unemployed web developers who just never found anything else to do.
That was quite possible the scariest comment I have ever read on slashdot.
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
Wrong. An opportunistic hospital in many cases has a monopoly. Many emergencies can not wait 30 minutes to ge to the next county, let alone 1 hour to get to the market with competition. That assuming the market is truly competitive, not some major health block (like in Cincinatti, Ohio). Oh, yeah, and assuming your insurance company will let you go to someone they are not in bed with.
The only way you could actually get around this is if you had the medical expertise to diagnose and know the treatment required of the person you are taking to the ER. In which case, why are you not doing the care yourself (timlieness is the most important determinant in the outcome in an emergency).
The only way you can get competition in is to find an investor who has a multi-decade long outlook, can invest many hundreds of millions (if not several billion) dollars (US) to build, hire maintain, and defend (malpractice) their medical center. In the end in many communities, there would still only be one standing (not enough business). All businesses are based on profit. What do you think the new kid on the block will do with the amount of debt the hospital will have had to assume to get itself going. These things are far from cheap. You really do not want a "cheap" medical care facility. You think certain restaurants are bad, wait until you find out about all the stuff that can happen with really substandard medical care.
Innerweb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
These kinda things only work when there are people willing to undercut the rest and think they can make a living that way. In a world where you gotta work with the people you undercut that might not be to enjoyable. Especially if you consider that there always is someone willing to work for less.
I also see another problem. The old army joke tells you to remember that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder. Now your life is in the hands of the lowest bidder far more directly.
Nurses have a lot of power and responsibilty. Why do you think we keep hearing these stories about a nurse getting away for years killing 20+ patients?
All that the nurses need to do is to make sure no-one undercuts the organized bid. Good job america, you just invited the mafia into your hospitals.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That argument is crazy, if you don't mind my sayin'.
./ think are crazy (myself included).
No, I don't mind you saying. I'm presenting my point of view (as someone who works in a mixed public/private healthcare system in Australia). You get to make your own mind up.
An opportunistic hospital that charged emergency patients an exorbitant amount would find that, aside from those very emergency patients, it had no business. If I had been charged like that during a time when I was helpless, I know I'd go well out of my way to avoid ever paying them for anything in the future. And thus, the "invisible hand" of the market would force them out of business, leaving only the hospitals who don't use such shady practices. See? Nothing beyond free market necessary.
I would like to think its that simple, and certainly things like the internet do equalise the relationship between health providers and consumers. However, I can assure you that health care requires more than a free market.
The original inventors of the obstetric forceps were the Chamberlen family, back around 1650. They kept the invention a secret for 50 years by using the instrument within a black box. No I'm not making this up: See this link During that 50 year period thousands of women died horrible deaths from prolonged labour and exhaustion. The family did well however.
This isn't so different from what we see today in patent laws, which most people on
But by free market principles, if a company invents a better process, great, more profit for them. In health care you want to publish this stuff to remove your monopoly. Status and respect aren't economically rational goals, but its better to be famous for publishing something in a medical journal (for your competitors to use freely) than get rich exploiting a secret.
I really believe that health care (particularly when it relates to emergencies, psyciatric illness and other areas when judgement is impaired) should not be driven by market forces, at least in any society that wants to call itself civilised.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
He's not talking about the procedure in an ER, he's talking about what happens when he's one of two ambulance crews first arriving at the site of a plane crash where there are 180 passengers, half apparently dead, and with 50 critically wounded.
You're damn right it's scary, but the scary part is the disaster that's already happened, not the cold calculus of triage. Spock would understand - the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one.
If you're one of the walking wounded, go find some black-tagged person and give CPR if you are able.
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