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Basecamp Employee Handbook

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Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#221

Post by piqufoh »

TomK32 wrote: post #215
piqufoh wrote: post #24

Under parental leave; > You may also choose to take an additional 8 weeks leave unpaid. Note that this does not guarantee your employment. We're simply keeping your job open for an additional 8 weeks, unless your position becomes redundant. Is it just me, or does that sound a little harsh? (Maybe I'm used to UK workers rights) Isn't this exactly the reason why many parents don't take the parental leave they probably…

Didn't take long before they removed the bit about redundancy. https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commit/695f0bff611b3d9a...

Wow! What a great company :-D

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#222

Post by abuani »

aspencer8111 wrote: post #135

This company publishes a handbook that puts most corporations to shame in every benefit category. So we are picking them apart for their 401k and their parental leave? Seriously!?! I don't understand HN any more...

It's always easier to identify the bad then it is to identify the good. Especially if you're coming at this from a specific perspective "This company sucks!", then you're bound to find something that doesn't strike you as excellent.

At my current company, I do not get any 401k matching, and it sucks. However, the company fully covers medical insurance for each employee and their ENTIRE family. My copay's are more then fair, and unless I end up in an emergency and I'm rushed to a hospital that's out network and it turns out that it wasn't an emergency, I have no other costs. Being married, I save thousands a year in my paycheck by not having to cover any of my insurance. Compared to the cost of my previous job, the difference is enough to fully fund my IRA which is roughly equivalent to a 4% match in my 401k which is the best any company has offered me to date. So in the end, I lost an employee match, but save $6k a year in medical insurance for my family.

It's a balance, and I can understand why people would be upset to "only" see six weeks of Paternal leave, but when you look at their entire portfolio of perks, it's amazing. It is among the best. Can they do better? Sure. Should people flay them for two sticking points? Absolutely not.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#225

Post by piqufoh »

tptacek wrote: post #223
piqufoh wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! What a great company :-D

Grow up.

So I should have spent more time adding that comment; it wasn't intended to be negative. I honestly believe that a company who can adjust their corporate guidelines that quickly is something to be admired, and the fact that they're doing it on such an important topic is excellent news.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#226

Post by tedmiston »

ryandrake wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #15

There's a lot of good stuff here. I'm surprised about their take on speaking engagements (they're OK as long as they don't involve multi-day travel obligations). I get that you don't want team members touring talks or becoming conference tourists. But a lot of companies want their employees doing speaking engagements; Matasano/NCC, my old employer, pays a pretty substantial cash bonus for every time you do that.

Is "doing speaking engagements" really a big thing in tech? I've been in the industry for close to 20 years and have never felt the need to (or been asked to) go drone on about something at a conference somewhere, or even to go attend one for that matter. I couldn't even tell you what any major software conferences are, although I'd probably recognize the names of some of them.

It seems like speaking and even attending conferences varies a lot by a developer's personality type. I've always been a fan and find it the most effective way to take in info on a large variety of topics I might not otherwise find in a very concentrated period of time. The networking and whatnot can be useful too. At PyCon it was neat to meet GvR for instance. Anecdotally I'd say maybe 20% of the devs I know pursue conferences regularly.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#227

Post by tedmiston »

rdslw wrote: post #160

I find this discussion of "benefits" fascinating. In Europe, standard in IT companies (Central Europe, mind you), is: * 25 fullt paid days (or more) of vacation every year (no need to call it a sabatical and limit it to once a three years), not including national holidays etc. * one year of (or more) paid maternity leave (or more), while second parent gets few weeks (two at my country) * free gym membership (so I can…

When you say standard in Europe, are there certain countries you have in mind, like specifically some subset of Western Europe?

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#228

Post by tedmiston »

kzisme wrote: post #52

> Basecamp will pay up to $100/month for your gym membership, yoga studio membership, or whatever activity you do to stay in shape. Is this sort of thing common? I wish my current employer did something like this. While I'm still skimming some of the documents - Basecamp sounds like a cool place to work.

In the midwest, a paid gym membership has been less common but has become more popular in the past couple years.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#230

Post by erroneousfunk »

pc86 wrote: post #42
scurvy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is curious considering DHH's involvement in Basecamp and how often he espouses European ideals. You'd think they had a year of maternity and paternity leave.

You'd think it would be the same for both parents. How does my employer know whether I am the primary or secondary caregiver? How do they know there even is a primary or secondary caregiver?

It's also frustrating from a "feminism" perspective. Women need time to recover physically from childbirth and time to figure out a feeding/pumping schedule (even if they don't plan to breastfeed long term, there may be complications to work out). Those are things that men can't do. In order to get that time, they may need to legally declare themselves the "primary caregiver." Especially at companies like mine where "secondary" caregivers get only 2 weeks of leave and FMLA doesn't apply. You can't recover from a c-section in 2 weeks.

But "primary caregiver" is a loaded term that goes beyond biological necessity. What if a woman's husband is quitting his job to take care of the kid(s) and the woman plans to return to work? Is she the secondary caregiver because she spends less of her time doing childcare than her husband? What if the primary caregiver is a nanny?

Even if HR says "Oh, nevermind what you actually plan to do, if you're pushing the kid out, we can mark you as primary" it creates a terrible start to things if you have two parents who set out with good intentions to share childcare efforts equally. HR is telling one parent they're the "primary" and another parent they're the "secondary" and they have to sign legally binding documents attesting to this. It's just ridiculous. I think it's a great example of good intentions backfiring dramatically.

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