Somewhat tangential but an acquaintance at a Fortune-500 level company mentioned to me they are converting tons of currently salaried employees to hourly. These are white collar desk jobs at corporate HQ. I have to infer theres some sort of cost-cutting (wage theft?) motive behind this. Are these types of tactics becoming more prevalent in the white collar world?
Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
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Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#22If I understand the article, I have seen the opposite happen. Someone is given manager duties without a pay increase or a new title.
But at my current company, they will eventually get the new title, not sure of a raise though. Maybe at that company it is kind of a trial.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#23I worked at a university in Florida that did this to me. I was being made to work overtime on a few software projects and making a nice little amount of extra money. Then one day I found out that I was being "promoted" to a manager title. No raise or any extra benefits, but I was no longer allowed to get overtime. It was part of a campus-wide initiative to cut costs. And now that I was a manager I was expected to work even more than before.
Year later, the day before I gave my two weeks, my boss told me I was becoming known as an 8 to 5 guy... I wasn't working enough extra hours. After I told him that he wasn't paying me enough to waste my life away at the job, he wasn't too surprised when I gave my notice the next day.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Banks hand out VP titles like candy so that the customers think they're hot stuff and being treated well.
People outside the finance industry really buy it too. I think it's because in most companies, VPs are above director. Only in finance, is it below.
> I think it's because in most companies, VPs are above director.
Every now and again someone whose spent a career exclusively in finance gets bitten by this when transitioning into the business world. A friend once told me a story about a deal with Amazon nearly getting tanked when I coworker chewed out an Amazon VP, saying they wanted to "talk to someone who could make decisions". Took a lot of massaging to salvage that deal.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#25I’ve noticed that in larger technology companies there has also been a trend towards getting a “Manager” title but leading a team of 1-2 people. Maybe there will be intent to grow this to 3-4 people or more in future years, but that hinders giving others a title and their own small team (which can be considered career progression).
Then you might see another leader (Manager of Managers, or “MoM”) who has 5 of these small-team managers, a different title, but a total organization size of 10-15 people.
This feels like a shift from a generation ago when the bigger technology companies wanted flatter organizations and most managers would have teams of 8-12 people, the MoM roles might be 50-80 people, and beyond that executive roles with 100s of people.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#26I worked for a restaurant that did this to me. To make sure I hit the "minimum hours" (when you start talking about hours vs tasks or responsibilities you probably aren't getting into a legitimate salary arrangement) they would have me clock in and out, and I'd get pay stubs with 40 hours (less if I worked less) and the overtime hours paid at $0. They withheld my last paycheck when I quit and stopped responding to my…
As a small government advocate, i have no issue with labor boards. the alternative is violence or unionization, neither of which are optimal in resolving disputes like these in a civilized and efficient manner.
> the alternative is violence or unionization, neither of which are optimal in resolving disputes like these in a civilized and efficient manner.
Unionization is a great way of solving disputes. Many big corporations need to be counter-weight with some other big organization.
To put violence and unions at the same level seems uncalled for.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#27Miss-classifying employees, earnings or costs are great ways for companies to cheat taxes and labor laws.
"Self employed" is used in the same way. Many people in the gig-economy are just employees that are not legally hired because companies want to avoid any responsibility while still profiting from employees.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#28Banks have been doing this for decades. If you're not a VP within 3 months some may wonder if something is wrong with you.
Some of the answers excuse this as "only a VP has signing authority."
That probably accounts for some of the VP titles. I kinda doubt that all the VPs in your average BofA office are always signing things, and couldn't possibly just go to their boss for a signature, like normal people do.
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#29I worked at a university in Florida that did this to me. I was being made to work overtime on a few software projects and making a nice little amount of extra money. Then one day I found out that I was being "promoted" to a manager title. No raise or any extra benefits, but I was no longer allowed to get overtime. It was part of a campus-wide initiative to cut costs. And now that I was a manager I was expected to wor…
An 8 to 5 guy is a 6 to 10 guy at home, and that's already pretty weak on the work-life balance scale!
Re: Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake “manager” titles
#30Unlimited time off is another gem they use.
Unlimited is such an absurd word. It should be "Flexible". It should be we will NOT fire you if you take 23.5 days instead of the ideal number of 22. Also, if you take 18 that is not a problem either.
It's not "flexible" either. It's "non-accrued". The only reason it's non-accrued is so that the company doesn't have to pay you left over PTO when you leave the company and gets it off their books. Everything else is a euphemism to make employees feel good about getting fewer benefits.
You could have this flexibility with accrued PTO. I've previously given employees additional, off-the-books time off because they needed and deserved it and when we all got laid off they still got the remaining PTO paid out.
Edit: add section on flexible alternative