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

The one-salary experiment, ten years in

iwantmyname.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 309 posts

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#201

Post by mcv »

willnz wrote: post #37
JohnGB wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands, if you have a child under 9 years old (it could be 8), your company is required, by law, to let you work 4 days a week if your want. It's actually really common with something like 28% of working men taking a "papadag" ("Daddy day" in English). I wouldn't even consider a job that didn't allow me time to spend with my kids. Money is definitely not the primary driver for a lot of people.

Do you accept a lower salary if you opt to work four days a week?

80% of a good salary is still good. I have rejected one job recently because it turned out they were talking about a full-time salary while I assumed it was for my normal 4-day work week, so in the late stages of the talks, salary suddenly dropped 20% from my perspective. It wasn't the only problem with the job (it was a bit further away than I'd like), but it was the drop that made me look elsewhere. (I'm now doing something similar that's closer and pays better.)

I don't think a 4 day work week is 20% less productive than a 5 day one, but generally 80% of a full-time salary in this line of work is still more than enough.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#202

Post by auslander »

michaelt wrote: post #186
auslander wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ..found it strange that companies don't give raises Because you'll tell your buddies about it, and they will try to get it too, having you as a proof it is feasible. New hires don't pose this threat to company coffins.

FYI a 'coffer' is a a strongbox or small chest for holding valuables. So a "threat to company coffers" is a threat to the bank account / bottom line. A threat to coffins is presumably https://youtu.be/KZ_7br_3y54?t=57

Lol! Typo of course, i meant coffers. Wait ..

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#203

Post by mcv »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #198
Confusion wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there’s some confusion here. There are two distinct benefits you are entitled to when you become a father. One is that you get exactly 1 week of paid leave. The other is the right to take 26 weeks of unpaid ‘parental leave’ during the first 9 years, which is often used to e.g. start working 4 days a week (the leave is used at a rate of 1 day per week then; you could also use it for taking half a year off at once)…

So "only" 2.5 years of 4-day weeks, with reduced pay.

My wife's job pays 75% percent for parental leave days, but that's not a requirement.

Personally, I only apply for jobs that let me work 4 day weeks permanently; I hate having to count how many days I've got left for whatever. (It's the main advantage of being a freelancer to me: no limit on how many vacation days I take.)

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#204

Post by mcv »

leesec wrote: post #25
JohnGB wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands, if you have a child under 9 years old (it could be 8), your company is required, by law, to let you work 4 days a week if your want. It's actually really common with something like 28% of working men taking a "papadag" ("Daddy day" in English). I wouldn't even consider a job that didn't allow me time to spend with my kids. Money is definitely not the primary driver for a lot of people.

Had never heard of this. Wow.

It's one of the reasons why the Dutch are world champions at part-time work. Most women work part-time, and quite a lot of men do too. Not even just for kids; my brother is single and has never worked more than 4 days a week. Gives him more time for his hobbies.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#205

Post by eloisant »

zdragnar wrote: post #91
issa wrote: post #84

I've always found it strange that companies don't give raises to current employees. A team I am on just lost a good engineer to another company offering him a $30k+ raise. He would have stayed if our company had even given him half of that. Instead, they let him go, and how will have to hire someone else, probably at that higher salary. So weird, and seems to happen a lot.

I've heard from multiple managers that offering someone money to stay typically buys another 9 months or so of their employment. They'll soon find other reasons to be looking for a job. There are, of course, exceptions; it's just a general rule.

This is true if the reason to leave was something else than money to start with. If someone asks a raise because he feels like he's not getting paid what he's worth, giving a raise will definitely help him stay.

Or, if he has regular raises, he'll be less likely to get in the "why am I not paid my worth" mentality.

Typically I've seen companies paying high salaries for newly hired senior developers because the market was favorable, but not giving raises to developers hired in a less favorable time or acquired seniority internally. Those are typically people who left because of money (and rightly so).

It's funny, it feels like this is the kind of thinking that pushes managers to make the wrong decision and refuse a raise to a deserving employee.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#206

Post by m0zg »

user5994461 wrote: post #100
wting wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe grandparent was referring to proactive raises. Reactive counter offer raises typically don't work because the employee's mind has been made up to leave. Compensation is usually only part of why someone decided to leave.

It's a myth spread out by recruiters. They do not get paid when the developer doesn't change job. They'll say anything to get you to leave. Truth is, counter offers happen and work out. When it's about compensation, not toxic workplace/coworker, or relocating elsewhere to live with your wife/children.

I'd be willing to bet that for at least 90% of people making 6 figures it's not _just_ compensation. For me it never was. I mean, I did make sure that I'll make more in the new job, but I have never specifically taken a job _just_ to make more money. Most of the time there were two things that caused me to leave jobs:

1. I got bored

2. I ended up under a bad manager after a reorg

And once it was a combination of the two.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#207

Post by ivanhoe »

piokoch wrote: post #200
issa wrote: post #84

I've always found it strange that companies don't give raises to current employees. A team I am on just lost a good engineer to another company offering him a $30k+ raise. He would have stayed if our company had even given him half of that. Instead, they let him go, and how will have to hire someone else, probably at that higher salary. So weird, and seems to happen a lot.

I guess such employers strategy is taught at business schools. My ISP or mobile operator also gives much better offer to a new customer as compared to the existing one. The question is if it works, that is if people indeed prefer stability and status quo so much that they are ready to earn less or pay more for a service. Probably this is not that easy to verify, as, for instance, employee might indeed stay and get lo…

> The question is if it works, that is if people indeed prefer stability and status quo so much that they are ready to earn less

In IT I seriously doubt it since it's so easy to take a leap forward. And it's a huge question who are those people who choose to stay even when they feel unrewarded? If they do it for a fear of change or just being too lazy or unmotivated to bother with it, it can become a huge problem for a company. As those employees hang around and climb the hierarchy such bureaucratic mindset can seriously hurt company's agility and water down everything.

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#208

Post by k__ »

pixl97 wrote: post #134
icelancer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negotiating raises via counteroffers is a very dangerous practice. The employee will tell everyone how they got their raise (and it will get out), and suddenly you have a much larger problem on your hands rather than a single engineer leaving. Set up a fair, proactive, and objective way to obtain more money, and never deviate.

Or, when you leave a company remember to send a company wide email to your old coworkers telling them how much more you make now : )

Isn't it common knowledge that people in new jobs make more money?

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#209

Post by k__ »

icelancer wrote: post #132
issa wrote: post #84

I've always found it strange that companies don't give raises to current employees. A team I am on just lost a good engineer to another company offering him a $30k+ raise. He would have stayed if our company had even given him half of that. Instead, they let him go, and how will have to hire someone else, probably at that higher salary. So weird, and seems to happen a lot.

Negotiating raises via counteroffers is a very dangerous practice. The employee will tell everyone how they got their raise (and it will get out), and suddenly you have a much larger problem on your hands rather than a single engineer leaving. Set up a fair, proactive, and objective way to obtain more money, and never deviate.

I know this problem well, but what can one employee do?

If one company tries to poach me, should I simply keep it to myself that there is someone who is willing to pay me much more?

Re: The one-salary experiment, ten years in

#210

Post by nathan_f77 »

sitharus wrote: post #67
chrisco255 wrote: post #6

I love iwantmyname's service. Super easy to use and been using it for years. One question I have is, does everyone have equal equity in the company there? And if not, does this not count as additional comp besides salary? Also, it would seem to me that this becomes less sustainable the larger your team gets.

Looking at the Companies Register the answer is no, employees do not get equity. That's likely due to how equity-based compensation is treated in New Zealand tax law. It gets complicated so it'd be unusual for a small company to do it.

That's very strange. I have a friend who joined a startup in New Zealand, and they also didn't get any equity.

Maybe startups in New Zealand could start offering some equity to attract the best software developers.

Post reply on HN