Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

financialpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 55 posts

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#21

Post by naasking »

cnity wrote: post #20
neom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost, this is a pretty easy way to get them in the habit of thinking that way. Doesn't have to be forever, just long enough to change the culture. As you said "The cost of a meeting is the last thing I care about" That's a pretty awful attitude to take in a business. I also think it's a pretty privileged position to take. If you NEED your jo…

Ah, rules for thee but not for me. Does the CEO receive digital warnings every time they extract bonuses from the company account?

You don't have to warn about things that happen rarely, not for things whose costs are already closely tracked. The point of warning about meetings is that they happen too often and go on too long.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#22

Post by cnity »

naasking wrote: post #21
cnity wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, rules for thee but not for me. Does the CEO receive digital warnings every time they extract bonuses from the company account?

You don't have to warn about things that happen rarely, not for things whose costs are already closely tracked. The point of warning about meetings is that they happen too often and go on too long.

My point is on the uncultured lowly employees who don't understand the costs of running a business: indeed, if they only knew who the most expensive employee was (by a long margin).

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#24

Post by neom »

cnity wrote: post #22
naasking wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to warn about things that happen rarely, not for things whose costs are already closely tracked. The point of warning about meetings is that they happen too often and go on too long.

My point is on the uncultured lowly employees who don't understand the costs of running a business: indeed, if they only knew who the most expensive employee was (by a long margin).

You're sure reading a lot into my comment.

I actually tried to get this implemented at a startup I worked at a long time ago. We were building a new office and I tried to get the cost of meetings in progress implemented on the digital door signs because half the directors and VPs spent all their time in meetings. It got shot down by the COO because I'm sure he would have been embarrassed at the price of our exec groups meetings, but I didn't care.. we spent way to f'ing long in meetings and not enough time building things. Many did, from the kids fresh out of art school to the MBAs running go to market.

As I said, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost... but I did, I was partly responsible for making sure hundreds and hundreds of people still had a job a year down the line and, myself and the rest of the over paid exec team included.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#25

Post by josiahpeters »

mustafabisic1 wrote: post #4

The title makes it seem like a bad thing, but it makes total sense to me to want to cut unnecessary meetings down and use "different tactics" of getting there. I work in a company right now where we have 1 meeting at the start of the week and that's it (unless something comes up - it rarely does) It's a game-changer for my output and productivity.

Was this single meeting decision stumbled upon or iterated into or are you following a formalized system like EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) or something similar?

I’m curious as to how that came about.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#26

Post by shmatt »

neom wrote: post #19
shmatt wrote: post #14

This is pretty terrible, if I cared that much about my employers bank account, why don't we do * WARNING: 26 weeks parental leave will cost us $xxx,xxx * WARNING: Buying team lunch this week will cost $x,xxx * WARNING: Offering laid off workers 20 weeks severance will cost $xx,xxx,xxx * WARNING: Offering your direct reports raises will cost the company money! And while we're at it. Should we do performance reviews wh…

Thing is, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost, this is a pretty easy way to get them in the habit of thinking that way. Doesn't have to be forever, just long enough to change the culture. As you said "The cost of a meeting is the last thing I care about" That's a pretty awful attitude to take in a business. I also think it's a pretty privileged position to take. If you NEED your jo…

Should I ask my boss to shut down the free coffee bar and fire the barista?

This sushi we're having for lunch must also cost a fortune

Jokes aside, this screams of an org that isn't able to judge its employees by what they deliver, so they have to go chase processes

Either Shopify employees are delivering what they're expected to or they're not. It feels like executives aren't able to figure out if they are

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#27

Post by addisonl »

subpixel wrote: post #11
unmole wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email threads?

These are perceived to be worse than meetings, again mainly by non-technical teams who have never seen email (tied to a web-based mailing list, specifically) used to drive decisions.

I think this is entirely based on your company and it’s silly to make that broad generalization since we’ve all heard the common mantra: “this could have been an email”.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#28

Post by Daviey »

10+ years ago I worked for a major US investment and financial services bank. We had a tool that did exactly this, it was connected to the telephone system and would give you a running cost of the call. On outage calls, we'd often have 30+ people on the call and the numbers were insane.

It wasn't used to shame people, just useful for awareness... and I don't believe it was official endorsed by the firm.

Re: Shopify discourages meetings by shaming employees with cost calculator

#30

Post by neom »

shmatt wrote: post #26
neom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, a lot of staff just don't have a sense of how much things actually cost, this is a pretty easy way to get them in the habit of thinking that way. Doesn't have to be forever, just long enough to change the culture. As you said "The cost of a meeting is the last thing I care about" That's a pretty awful attitude to take in a business. I also think it's a pretty privileged position to take. If you NEED your jo…

Should I ask my boss to shut down the free coffee bar and fire the barista? This sushi we're having for lunch must also cost a fortune Jokes aside, this screams of an org that isn't able to judge its employees by what they deliver, so they have to go chase processes Either Shopify employees are delivering what they're expected to or they're not. It feels like executives aren't able to figure out if they are

Well you're certainly asking the wrong guy that, as I think hiring a barista and serving sushi at any business is unnecessarily, but I can be a little ruthless about that stuff. ;)

Anyway, Shopify stock has taken a SHARP hair cut over the past 2/3 years 160 bucks to 60 bucks is no fun. Sounds to me like their signaling to the market they're getting things under control (as basically every public market business is right now).

Their stock popped pretty hard today. If a meeting cost calculator saves me laying people off, bring on the meeting cost calculators!!

Post reply on HN