Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#31

Post by jpdoctor » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

chime wrote: post #8

* If you want low performance, give me low money. * If you want high performance, give me high money. * If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing. You can buy my performance i.e. time with money. You can buy my passion i.e. commitment with reciprocation. If you give me typical market wages without profit sharing, don't expect anything beyond typical performance without commitment.

> If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing.

This tactic works only until the employee knows a sufficient number of people that have been screwed out of their equity. Usually, that takes some time and experience.

In a related note, ever notice that most passionate employees are younger?

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#32

Post by div » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

cema wrote: post #22

chime wrote: post #8

* If you want low performance, give me low money. * If you want high performance, give me high money. * If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing. You can buy my performance i.e. time with money. You can buy my passion i.e. commitment with reciprocation. If you give me typical market wages without profit sharing, don't expect anything beyond typical performance without commitment.

On the surface, sounds logical. But somehow does not quite match my experience. Good professionals tend to perform better than the (ostensible) level of compensation they get.

A professional working at 50% of his capacity will often trump a junior working at 50% of his capacity.

Edit: I Don't know why I can't reply to the replies of this post.

What I meant to infer is that the parent to my post may have seen 'professionals' perform better than he would have expected them given their pay.

What I tried to reply is that this level of performance may still be the professional working at only 50% of capacity.

I was assuming that the amount the professional was being paid was relative to what that company would be paying everyone else. Which would lead me to conclude everyone was probably working at 50%.

Maybe that was a bit of a stretch on my behalf though :)

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#33

Post by molecule » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

If the market supports it.

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#34

Post by citricsquid » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:38 PM UTC

div wrote: post #32

cema wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the surface, sounds logical. But somehow does not quite match my experience. Good professionals tend to perform better than the (ostensible) level of compensation they get.

A professional working at 50% of his capacity will often trump a junior working at 50% of his capacity. Edit: I Don't know why I can't reply to the replies of this post. What I meant to infer is that the parent to my post may have seen 'professionals' perform better than he would have expected them given their pay. What I tried to reply is that this level of performance may still be the professional working at only 5…

I think you meant to say junior working at 100% of his capacity; 50% to 50% makes no sense.

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#35

Post by bugsy » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

"can't make decent payments as salaries"

Conversation doesn't really need to go beyond this point. It's like asking "Should my woman cook and clean for me even though I beat her each day?" Really, the cooking and cleaning is not the issue in that conversation.

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#36

Post by ChristianMarks » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:52 PM UTC

I was passionate myself. Then a new non-technical VP was hired, and three of six directors were moved under the non-technical director the VP promoted. My title, and those of the others, went from director to Zweiter Beauftragter fur Administrative Fragen. Our job descriptions changed beyond recognition, for "flexibility", we were informed. My new supervisor informed me that I "solved my own problems"--a bad thing, apparently--and that I was "limited by what I know." I was required to attend unbelievably boring "change management" meetings, in which the entire department got to listen to the ephemera of Windows system administurbation and discuss the cleaning of digital bed pans. Whatever passion I had evaporated. I left a couple months later.

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#37

Post by grayrest » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 7:58 PM UTC

crikli wrote: post #19

I think it depends on whether an employer views passion as a character trait or a byproduct. The distinction is very important. I'm an employer (and a programmer) and I view passion as a byproduct of developers being properly incentivized to do something they find fascinating. That incentive varies from programmer to programmer. Incentives can be cash, equity, profit sharing, flexible hours, encouragement and recogni…

> Incentives can be cash, equity, profit sharing, flexible hours, encouragement and recognition, kick-ass equipment, a steady supply of new tech toys to play with, paid time and travel to conferences, etc.

Autonomy, autonomy autonomy...

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#38

Post by danellis » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 8:02 PM UTC

mirkules wrote: post #30

chime wrote: post #8

* If you want low performance, give me low money. * If you want high performance, give me high money. * If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing. You can buy my performance i.e. time with money. You can buy my passion i.e. commitment with reciprocation. If you give me typical market wages without profit sharing, don't expect anything beyond typical performance without commitment.

There's a great quote: Money is not a motivator. But lack of money is a demotivator. (Unfortunately, I don't remember who said this. Anyone?)

Sounds like something Spolsky would say.

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#39

Post by rush-tea » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 8:04 PM UTC

If you are hiring in a 3rd world country, be careful as the law is not with you. A competitor can buy your developer code and run away with it without you are not being able to do anything about it.

so yeah, in 3rd world country, to be passionate and motivated, money mostly talks. Sad but true

Re: Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

#40

Post by vladd » Sun, Jul 31, 2011, 8:13 PM UTC

Being a good manager in the startup field is an extraordinary difficult thing to do.

Here's an awesome TED talk that you can watch which is a good introduction in the field - http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html - it shows that performance in creative fields can decrease when the payout is greater.

Salary is just one factor in job satisfaction, there are lots of other ways, most of them cheaper from a costs perspective, which can improve the "mood". Here's a list:

  - equity
  - 20% time (autonomy to work on self-driven projects)
  - a perceived notion of fairness (i.e. no bozos as managers,
  promotions done right on merit and payout/hierarchy that
  correlates with the actual job performance, not politics)
  - free drinks/food/catering (or at least joint cafeteria area
  for lunch bonding/discussions)
  - awesome hardware
  - high employee/manager ratio to avoid micro-management
  - a tech ladder allowing growth without becoming a manager