Slashdot Mirror
High Tech Wages - Salary or Hourly?
cremes asks: "I'm a technology manager (not a PHB) at a Financial Services firm, and I've recently bumped my head against another dreaded management issue. Most of my employees are salaried with a rather weak "overtime" compensation package. I've asked them if they want to go hourly, but there is resistance. I promised them I would Ask Slashdot what the country & world are doing about high tech wages and the feelings about flat salary versus hourly (+ time and a half). So, how are most of you paid? Salary or by the hour?" We've discussed the amount that you think is fair compensation for this industry, so it's only fitting we talk about how that amount should be earned.
While it has a few drawbacks, I like being salary. If anybody asked me to punch a clock, or fill in a timesheet, I'd quit that job immediately. I'm salaried with NO bonus for overtime except for the fact that I'm very well compensated to begin with, given my workload and such.
I like getting the same amount in my paycheck. I like the comfortable feeling knowing that 'if i work 30 hours for 2 weeks after putting in 4 70 hour weeks, it won't hurt my paycheck.'
Honestly, if you put me on hourly, I'd put my resume out to a recruiter, even if it were equivalent. Hourly pay feels very temporary.
The thing that can make salary a pain is when management starts to view your marginal cost as zero. In other words, they can heap as much work on you as they like, and it costs nothing extra. This is an obstacle to efficient management. Too often, they'll have you work on some old hardware that could be cheaply replaced, but to their eyes, you can fix it for free. You end up maintaining things that aren't worth maintaining. In the short run, they save some cash, but it inevitably means that something else gets dropped or delayed, and it's lousy for marale. But many PHB's think they're smart because it looks like they're getting something for nothing.
Hourly with a guaranteed minimum has always provided the proper incentives and delivered the best results, both for me and for the employers.
I work as a "contractor" according to UK practice. Hourly paid freelance, but hired out on 3 month+ terms for fairly static contracts. If I wourk 41 hours, I typically bill it as the agreed 40, because there's management pressure not to have worked the extra hour in the first place. If I work 50-60 hours for weeks at a time, I bill it and get rich and exhausted.
Do I care between salary and hourly ? Not a bit of it -- I care far more about the other issues; the staff management culture, the project management culture, the nerd interest in the work and the quality of the office coffee. I often have great difficulty in finding my next contract; it's easy enough to find "a contract" and it's pretty easy to find the best paid contract (because that's all that the agencies see as significant). It's much, much harder to find a contract I'll be happy with; one that has a good atmosphere and interesting technical aspects.
As for security, salaries aren't secure anyway (these days). My security comes from a month's living expenses in the bank and a skillset that I keep up to date. I've worked in plenty of offices where the employed staff expressed horror at my "insecurity", then have found themselves downsized a month later.