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Loyalty and Layoffs

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Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#111

Post by chris_wot »

SilliMon wrote: post #87
dredmorbius wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. Th…

Not necessarily; few employees are willing to take a pay cut - that is why 5% of staff are laid off, rather than everyone in the company taking a 5% cut. The latter would probably be more efficient for the company. However many workers would start looking for a better job.

Rubbish. The entirety of EMC got a 5% pay cut two years ago, and there were people who actually thanked EMC management for doing so.

A week later they made a billion dollar acquisition, and they still made a good profit.

Don't tell me that folks won't take a paycut. They'll take one, and be grateful!

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#112

Post by lmm »

lutusp wrote: post #107
Xylakant wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks are only worth anything if a) you're allowed to sell them. b) somebody is willing to buy them or c) you get a dividend and own a significant portion. The value of most stocks in companies is overrated. Yes, your company might be the next google and you'll hit gold but most companies shares are worth little to nothing. Depending on the company structure they might have some interesting rights attached - such as…

> The value of most stocks in companies is overrated. If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is true (it's certainly approximately true), then most stocks, most of the time, have exactly the value they ought to have. So no, on average, stocks aren't overrated and investors aren't fools.

The secondary market in private stocks is far from efficient, as can be seen by how much IPO valuations tend to differ from the level the relevant stocks were previously trading at.

Also most people's utility functions are not linear in money - but those of rich people/institutions are much closer to linear, and rich people/institutions dominate the market.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#113

Post by yummyfajitas »

dredmorbius wrote: post #74
chasing wrote: post #20

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Ever…

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. Th…

Adam Smith might have been right about his era, but his reasoning does not apply in our era.

It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so. Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions. Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.

(Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#114

Post by Millennium »

Neither employer nor employee is inherently owed loyalty, but the only way to earn loyalty is to give it in return. Sooner or later, one party is going to have to act irrationally if it wants that kind of relationship with the other.

A company that wants 1950s-style loyalty from its employees should be giving them 1950s-style loyalty. If you as a corporation would prefer layoffs to bankruptcy protection, then you do not measure up to that standard.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#115

Post by jcater »

gknoy wrote: post #92
lotsofpulp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, in the US, there is no legal mandate to pay severance. However, getting their employees to resign probably saved them a lot of money on their unemployment insurance by making the employees ineligible for unemployment benefits (that's why I try to get my employees to resign) and/or they may have gotten their employees to sign release forms for liability from wrongful termination or discrimination or…

> making the employees ineligible for unemployment benefits (that's why I try to get my employees to resign) Am I the only one that finds this utterly and totally horrific? Why would you do that? What do you gain by someone who leaves being unable to collect unemployment benefits? Does it directly affect you? I thought that was something that all taxpayers put money into. It reads like "I take pleasure in ensuring th…

Unemployment insurance doesn't work like you think it does, at least in the states I've run companies in.

He could be 100% liable for unemployment benefits made against his company in the form of increased benefit charges.

Here's a quote from Georgia's handbook:

"Experience rating is a system which relates employer taxes to the cost of providing unemployment benefits to its employees. Lower rates are earned by employers whose unemployment experience costs are less, and higher rates are assigned to employers whose experience indicates greater costs.

"Under experience rating, benefits paid are charged to the claimant's separating/most recent employer, provided the employer has paid wages of at least 10 times the claimant's weekly benefit amount and the separation was under allowable conditions as defined by the Employment Security Law. The employer most directly related to the claimant's unemployment will be charged for benefits paid and thus reflect a true experience rating. This system helps to maintain an adequate reserve fund from which future benefit payments will be made.

"No employer's account will be charged more than the amount of wages that employer paid the claimant and the employer will pay only for the period of unemployment attributable to the separation from his employ."

Employers directly pay for state unemployment benefits; it does not come from the public tax pool.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#116

Post by rwallace »

dredmorbius wrote: post #74
chasing wrote: post #20

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Ever…

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. Th…

Bear in mind, however, that a 21st-century programmer is in a much stronger bargaining position than an 18th-century workman. I've seen people in the former category let their lives get screwed up by following subservience instincts more appropriate for the latter, and as a way to avoid that, regarding yourself as the peer of your employer is a decent first approximation.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#117

Post by mathattack »

chasing wrote: post #20

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Ever…

It's good and healthy to be skeptical about talk like "This is one big family" because the economy is littered with public companies that operated like families until they laid everyone off.

Saying, "Only be loyal to yourself" can be short sighted too. People remember. If you refuse to renew your contract mid-project because someone else away is offering $50/day more, people will remember. If you quit your company because you don't want to do any overtime for a month, people remember. More importantly, your immediate boss remembers.

The best work out there is never advertised. It appears by word of mouth. This is true for both full time employees and contractors. The best work at the highest wages come when a prior boss says, "This is very important, and only YOU can do it for me." This isn't corporate loyalty, but it's having someone know that you'll be in the foxhole with them.

One last thought on the OP - I can't imagine a company laying off the folks who "finished first" staying in business for very long. It's very Dilbertesque.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#118

Post by antihero »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #113
dredmorbius wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. Th…

Adam Smith might have been right about his era, but his reasoning does not apply in our era. It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so. Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions. Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work. (Most workers don't value stability, and ch…

In the UK, unions have been utterly castrated by the Thatcher government.

> Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.

Nope, most workers here are living paycheck to paycheck.

> (Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)

Savings? You must be joking.

Let's see. Minimal level of enjoyment, a roof over one's head, food, heating, savings. Choose three, depending how skilled you are, for many, choose two.

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#119

Post by antihero »

Surely a better scheme would be to have a company baseline wage. Before any lay-offs are made, all staff must have their wages reduced to that baseline. Once this allows growth, wages can be increased again?

Re: Loyalty and Layoffs

#120

Post by pseut »

chasing wrote: post #20

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Ever…

Viewing it that way can be a huge help when you're approaching job interviews too. When you see an interview as, "I'm a professional; they're professionals in my field; let's talk to see if there are projects that we'd like to work on together," it takes away a lot of the anxiety.
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