"While HR SaaS is never sexy" <---I disagree
Sorry you're being downvoted. It might help if you explain why you disagree.
The Modern Workforce
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: The Modern Workforce
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, it depends on leverage. If you've got the most leverage, the relationship will be pleasant. If you don't, the relationship will be abusive. Just like everything else in capitalism. Exactly. And it's not for nothing that "Workers of the world, unite!" is included in the Communist Manifesto, as uniting themselves against their employers was one of the few methods of gaining leverage for 19th-century workers. If i…
>not sure why it couldn't happen again. Drones. And you better believe the powers that be will criminalize any movement that might level the playing field. The window of opportunity for change is closing.
There's a significant difference between the middle east and the USA in the number of disenfranchised chemists/EEs/mechEs/biologists/programmers per capita. The continued efficacy of technology developed "over there" is far from guaranteed if it is applied "over here."
I really, really hope it doesn't come to that. Horrible and messy would be the understatement of the century. Everybody loses, just some more than others. But my imagination has been drawn to this scenario more than once and I don't think the fight would be universally one-sided.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core underlying problem is traditional society benefits have been pushed onto employers in the US. This is absurd and hurts everyone. Employers don't have the same societal incentives, are less efficient at delivering them, it isn't part of their business anyway, and puts them in a position of power. Workers have a choice of not much of a safety net, or having to pick the least worst employers. If those benefits…
The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. How about having unions, guilds and professional organizations provide the social safety net you cherish so much in the abstract. I am sure there would be many problems but at least there would be no doubt where the funding would come. "You deal with one of us, you deal with…
> The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits.
That's not necessarily a problem. One could cut the corporate tax rate and fund benefits through income/dividend/capital-gains/sales/VAT taxes.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
>not sure why it couldn't happen again. Drones. And you better believe the powers that be will criminalize any movement that might level the playing field. The window of opportunity for change is closing.
There's a significant difference between the middle east and the USA in the number of disenfranchised chemists/EEs/mechEs/biologists/programmers per capita. The continued efficacy of technology developed "over there" is far from guaranteed if it is applied "over here." I really, really hope it doesn't come to that. Horrible and messy would be the understatement of the century. Everybody loses, just some more than oth…
[deleted]
Re: The Modern Workforce
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
>not sure why it couldn't happen again. Drones. And you better believe the powers that be will criminalize any movement that might level the playing field. The window of opportunity for change is closing.
There's a significant difference between the middle east and the USA in the number of disenfranchised chemists/EEs/mechEs/biologists/programmers per capita. The continued efficacy of technology developed "over there" is far from guaranteed if it is applied "over here." I really, really hope it doesn't come to that. Horrible and messy would be the understatement of the century. Everybody loses, just some more than oth…
My point is merely that we are reaching an age where technology + capital is more than enough to compensate for lack of bodies.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#66Thanks for the StaffJoy shout-out, Jeremy!
We're finishing up our first week of deployment with a real workforce and finding that automated shift scheduling that better fits supply to labor demand can save about 10% on labor costs, which is a huge amount. Modern workforces get better margins through efficiency and automation, and that creates the opportunity for a new generation of mathematically-driven workforce management tools like OnFleet, Instacart, and AnalyticsMD.
We're entering alpha testing with customers in the bay in the next two weeks - if you're interested in trying our product, shoot me an email - philip at staffjoy.com.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. How about having unions, guilds and professional organizations provide the social safety net you cherish so much in the abstract. I am sure there would be many problems but at least there would be no doubt where the funding would come. "You deal with one of us, you deal with…
> The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. That's not necessarily a problem. One could cut the corporate tax rate and fund benefits through income/dividend/capital-gains/sales/VAT taxes.
Yes agreed, someone has to pay at the end of day. The original model we have for what we currently call "benefits" are workers associations pooling resources to hedge against catastrophic worst cases. And to be fair no one wants to pay any more taxes than strictly needed, not just businesses.
One big problem I see with this is that of corporate personhood. If you cut corporate taxes and raise taxes on dividends and capital gains, you are basically promoting investors to not leave their money inside the corporation. Once this happen, you have to ask the question of what corporations are for? If they do not provide benefits for their employees, and not provide dividends for their legitimate owners, and yet not provide tax revenue for the government (and indirectly, to overall society) under which they operate, then exactly why do they do what they do?
Re: The Modern Workforce
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core underlying problem is traditional society benefits have been pushed onto employers in the US. This is absurd and hurts everyone. Employers don't have the same societal incentives, are less efficient at delivering them, it isn't part of their business anyway, and puts them in a position of power. Workers have a choice of not much of a safety net, or having to pick the least worst employers. If those benefits…
The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. How about having unions, guilds and professional organizations provide the social safety net you cherish so much in the abstract. I am sure there would be many problems but at least there would be no doubt where the funding would come. "You deal with one of us, you deal with…
Businesses desire predictably in the future for things out of their control (eg tax rates won't have huge random swings, laws won't randomly hugely change, competitors won't suddenly be favoured by legislators, employees cost a predictable amount). It is also to everyone's benefit that things are equal and fair (eg their competitors have to play by the same rules). Virtually everywhere employers pay additional taxes on their employees to provide government controlled benefits - eg in the US your employer also pays social security, medicare, unemployment insurance and similar taxes as you do, and often a similar amount. Paying them is just the cost of paying an employee, and their competitors have the same rules.
Social safety nets were funded and provided by churches and similar organisations for quite a while. The problem with using unions, guilds and professional organisations is that different professions pay different amounts. For example fast food workers, teachers and developers are in very different brackets hence can pay different amounts into the system. Why should a fast food worker get less maternity leave than a developer? I have no problem with disparate groups providing services, but do strongly believe that a fair and just society requires centralisation of the funding.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, except (1) it's your obligation to change the law as a voter and (2) profit-maximizing companies have every obligation to act in their shareholder's best interests, within the bounds of the law . So really, it's up to us as citizens to decide what's fair, and get the appropriate legislation passed to change it.
>(2) profit-maximizing companies have every obligation to act in their shareholder's best interests, within the bounds of the law. is profit-maximization a law? because i don't see why for example a company can't be formed for the purpose of "betterment of humanity" and if it earns some profit on the way - great - and if not - it is ok too. As long as shareholders agree to that, ie. buy shares of such a company.
> is profit-maximization a law?
If we are talking about Public Companies, yes. Privately owned ones can do whatever they want, but in practice the ones that do'nt care about the bottom line tend to be driven out of the market by those who do.
> because i don't see why for example a company can't be formed for the purpose of "betterment of humanity"
Those are called NGOs.
Re: The Modern Workforce
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(2) profit-maximizing companies have every obligation to act in their shareholder's best interests, within the bounds of the law. is profit-maximization a law? because i don't see why for example a company can't be formed for the purpose of "betterment of humanity" and if it earns some profit on the way - great - and if not - it is ok too. As long as shareholders agree to that, ie. buy shares of such a company.
> is profit-maximization a law? If we are talking about Public Companies, yes. Privately owned ones can do whatever they want, but in practice the ones that do'nt care about the bottom line tend to be driven out of the market by those who do. > because i don't see why for example a company can't be formed for the purpose of "betterment of humanity" Those are called NGOs.
> > is profit-maximization a law?
> If we are talking about Public Companies, yes.
Please cite the relevant law.