When employees feel slighted, they work less • Hacker News Board

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#201

Post by starkparker » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

nuancebydefault wrote: post #112

hypeatei wrote: post #64

Maybe I'm a bit jaded, and corporate environments have taken their toll, but I see the employee-manager relationship as adversarial by default. Whether my boss wishes me happy birthday or not doesn't move the needle much. I'm there to contribute as an individual and he's there to answer to his boss about staffing, budgeting, and performance. Although, I do feel slighted when a manager acknowledges the absurdity of al…

> see the employee-manager relationship as adversarial by default. I don't see how anyone can be happy in their job if that were the default. Maybe I am naive or lucky, but I have a very goed relation with my boss, as well as with the boss above. When that condition is not fulfilled, i definitely tend to slack off and I will eventually leave. I believe such should be the default.

First, you're certainly lucky. Secondly, the emphasis should be on "by default"; managers can, and some easily and quickly do, prove that they aren't adversarial. But companies (especially tech companies with high stress on unsustainable growth) don't often incentivize that, and sometimes disincentivize it whether they mean to or not.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#202

Post by andy99 » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

catlifeonmars wrote: post #187

andy99 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has almost never been my experience in ~20 years of working. Other than a few fleeting assholes, all of my work relationships have essentially been collegial, with all parties, regardless of position, looking at how we can best get the work done that’s in front of us. I’ve never felt exploited or used and never felt I was exploiting those I managed. I think if one sees their work this way, maybe it comes true? I…

You’ve never worked in retail or service industries, have you?

I have, and your reply is a pretty weak fallback from

  The relationship between owners and workers has always been extractive. The adversarial relationship is built in.

I’m sure extractive relationships exist, but it’s certainly not an iron law of work, and I’m not even sure it’s that common in most modern workplaces.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#203

Post by mitchellst » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

taway112233 wrote: post #74

This article hits close to home. Recently management provided some 'training' for everybody at where i work, specially focused at team leaders/supervisors, about being courteous based on a training that Disney offers around the world. The focus was not only to be courteous to your end-users, but also to those who you manage and are on your team. I'm really good at my job, and a few years ago i became a supervisor. Bu…

Ok actually you sound kind of awesome. The article is about how thoughtless, petty slights demotivate employees. You are talking about the opposite of thoughtlessness: doing something that takes effort for you, going out of your way to stretch out of your default for their benefit. They see you making the effort. And on a team that size, you’re not fooling anybody—they know it’s effort. I imagine they appreciate that quite a lot.

People like dazzling conversation from their manager for like two weeks. Manager who will flex against their own instincts out of respect for my needs? I’ll line up behind that person every time, even if they’re a little awkward here and there.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#204

Post by 12_throw_away » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #12

Lots of “no shit” in these comments makes me wonder how many VP level managers you guys have interacted with. Maybe it’s just my location, but this is one of those things that legitimately NEVER makes it through to upper managers. When they tell their base managers to crack the whip and force them to give the whole “you are not working hard enough, tighten up. Shorter lunches, clock in 5 minutes early, etc” speech to…

> When they tell their base managers to crack the whip [...]

This all reminds me of a phrase that I have heard, repeatedly, in many different organizations: "We need to start working with a sense of urgency."

Aside from the complete lack of leadership (so, your plan is ... keep working, but moreso?), it's almost always insulting (all those people you've been praising for skipping vacations and working while sick, what "sense of urgency" were they missing exactly?)

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#205

Post by kibwen » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

tarkin2 wrote: post #35

mejutoco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior Regarding dog training, one can use a placeholder for the reward. This is useful, for example, if you want to reward a dolphin jumping through a hula, because you will not be able to give the reward at that moment, but for example, you can say "yes!" or use a clicker a…

Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation? Perhaps the answer is yes when we also compare a worker's motivation to a dog's motivation seemingly without irony.

> Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation?

Never met a manager in your life, I take it?

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#206

Post by kibwen » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

kingofmen wrote: post #178

pinnochio wrote: post #21

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition. When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't a…

Humans, even pointy-haired ones, do have slightly larger brains than dogs precisely for the purpose of being able to form associations over longer timespans. That's a big part of what intelligence is .

To be fair, I could name managers who would do less damage if they were replaced by a dog. Managing upwards would be greatly eased with the application of dog treats.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#207

Post by mitchellst » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #86

Conversely, I wonder if employers who feel slighted by those employees, pay and promote them less.

I think this is actually where the study is interesting. Because the “no duh!” Comments actually have merit on their face. But the argument is that these are tiny slights—not harassment, not pervasive toxicity. By definition it’s the kind of thing management doesn’t notice. So I think the argument is that employers consider those employees to be some default percentage of the workforce, and the argument is that you can move the entire performance bar up by hiring/training managers to be thoughtful and consistent.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#208

Post by trympet » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

throw__away7391 wrote: post #159

locao wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a bit childish, but I feel neglected when I am asked to sign an work anniversary card for a colleague and next week my manager doesn't even acknowledge my work anniversary. It happened for the last 4 years and, yes, it affects my productivity in the day.

Some time ago I had my 10 year anniversary forgotten once in a company (where I had written almost the entire codebase for their core product myself) and I did feel slighted. I had felt invested in the company, to me this day was a big deal and my company was completely unaware. It felt like a disorienting mismatch of unreciprocated commitment and made me feel a bit sick in the pit of my stomach. I started looking fo…

Does your company have a culture of recognizing work anniversaries? To me it feels very arbitrary. Maybe I’m jaded by big tech.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#209

Post by mitchellst » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #3

On some level the headline is like "yeah, no shit," but the surprising thing is the claimed strength of the effect. 50% absenteeism increase for missing a birthday congratulations? Really?

Agreed. 3 things are interesting.

How small the slight is.

How big the effect is.

Meta thing: how the slight is not the kind of thing most managers or executives, or even knowledge workers generally, would care about. (As evidenced by the software people here questioning if a birthday wish is a big deal.)

Lesson: your employees think differently than you. Get curious.

Re: When employees feel slighted, they work less

#210

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #161

pinnochio wrote: post #21

There's a lot of jeering, I suspect at the headline more than anything, but having documented research can be helpful in changing management behavior. The changes in employee behavior documented here are not ones that managers would easily connect to their past behavior, such as a late birthday recognition. When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't a…

Please don't compare employee relationships to dog training. I've had a few encounters with poor managers (or potential managers) who wanted to treat me like a dog. I turned heel and ran in those cases. It's a bad analogy for managing people and should not be perpetuated.

[deleted]