The 75% pay / 100% benefits thing is likely the factor that prevents many companies from doing this. This is part of the reason I love the idea of a single-payer health system. If companies were no longer on the hook for the most expensive benefit, then more flexible wrking arrangements with concordance between work and pay would be possible.
Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
241–250 of 299 posts
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#242'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. I wonder if the group that does this will be viewed as lesser, e.g. work on less interesting projects, be less likely to be promoted, than the "40" hour employees.
> 'Amazon is piloting 25% pay cuts'. Great! Let's be honest - most working professionals (especially in Software) earn more money than they need . I think it's much better to have more time - time with you family, time to be outdoors, time to be healthy - than it is to have more money
Indeed. And even if money is your motivator, here is an extra 10-20 hours a week to work on one's side project. Do not see the downside, here.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…
I sort of agree with what you're saying but just wanna point out that you may not have gone to school and have have a loan etc. But many many software engineers do. Many of us go to uni and study a traditional degree and therefore, have a lot of loans etc as well as spend 3 to 4 years in University. Also, learning for a software engineer is pretty much forever since the moment you stop learning is your downfall in so…
Becoming a doctor, for example, is a lot longer than 3-4 years and is going to involve a lot more debt. Also if you want to be a doctor you have no choice but to do all of that formal education and pay the huge sums. If you want to learn software development you can do so for free (excluding time but that is true of all learning). All you need is a computer and an internet connection. All of the software you need can be free, there are loads of excellent free resources and even the non-free things like books are not very expensive.
I know people many people who learnt to code in their own time for ~6 months and landed a decent first job. Over the next couple of years they learnt a lot more and now have great jobs earning within 20% of what a doctor usually earns however they don't have the debt and saved a few years of their lives as well.
Not saying everyone can do this and become a software developer but it is very possible. I don't have a degree, I had to leave school at 16 (I am now 32) and worked in a shop to get by. I self-taught and now I earn a few £ under £100k making software. I have a super comfy life. I have zero debt (well a mortgage but no other debt), a nice house, family, a fair amount in savings, etc. Honestly I couldn't ask for more especially considering the rather small investment I put into getting this lifestyle.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…
You can usually just do the math. Let's assume last year I decreases the loading time of our website by 50%, taking it from 2 seconds to 1 second. This reduces the drop off rate of customers (people who switch websites before it loads) by about 15%. That means a 15% increase in overall sales. Now let's assume it was a $10 million a year business. That means it's now making $11.5 million dollars a year because a softw…
That is just life as an employee though. If you want to get the lions share of that increase you need to start your own business and then you can split the profit how you want.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#245Something about this bothers me. Time-keeping is already not straightforward for an engineer. Because the work is done in our heads and doesn't necessarily stop just because the workday is over. You don't have to be sitting at a keyboard for your head to be grinding on a problem. More often some problem takes hold of you, occupying some mental bandwidth even while you're away, at home trying to enjoy time with your f…
I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…
I'm always surprised when we have this double standard of valuation of people vs companies. Companies rarely sit back and independently say - hey my products are making too much of a profit margin, maybe I should lower the price? On the flip side, there is this push to beat down the valuation of people - or at least to apply a completely different set of measures on the income of people. Why does it matter if the income is generated by something "too easy"?
If anything there is an argument that labor in the overall economy is undervalued, and it is destabilizing the long term strength of the economy.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#246"Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post."
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#247"These 30-hour employees will be salaried and receive the same benefits as traditional 40-hour workers, but they will receive only 75 percent of the pay full-time workers earn." How does this sentence make any sense?
It means that they get the same [non-cash] benefits as other workers and that their cash compensation is the only thing scaled down in proportion to nominal hours worked. (I'm assuming you were confused by "same benefits" and "75% pay". Benefits, in this context, is the non-cash benefits: health insurance, PTO accrual, etc.)
I was (still am) confused because they say employees will be 'salaried' the same and than receive 75% of full time 'earn'. Salary and earn are the same to me.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…
You can usually just do the math. Let's assume last year I decreases the loading time of our website by 50%, taking it from 2 seconds to 1 second. This reduces the drop off rate of customers (people who switch websites before it loads) by about 15%. That means a 15% increase in overall sales. Now let's assume it was a $10 million a year business. That means it's now making $11.5 million dollars a year because a softw…
Ha ha, I have experienced this first hand, a small project I worked on netted my then-employer roughly $2m/year in additional revenue.
That money covered the bonuses of just 2 executives, I think I might have got a 2 or 3% raise myself that year...
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#249Something about this bothers me. Time-keeping is already not straightforward for an engineer. Because the work is done in our heads and doesn't necessarily stop just because the workday is over. You don't have to be sitting at a keyboard for your head to be grinding on a problem. More often some problem takes hold of you, occupying some mental bandwidth even while you're away, at home trying to enjoy time with your f…
I'm skeptical of claims that developers are underpaid. Maybe I feel differently about this because I'm not in a major tech hub and am not faced with the prospect of buying a multimillion dollar cottage, but when I compare my life as a software developer to that of more or less anyone else I know, including doctors and lawyers, I struggle to find a single person who seems to have a more comfortable life than me. I'm n…
A doctor impacts one person at a time, a software developer can impact millions. Now, people are bad when dealing with large numbers, but regularly adding removing stress from millions of people will shorten / lengthen people's lives.
For less used software this might not seem like a big deal, but targeted software can have a larger indicidual impact even if it's only making 50+ people redundant.
Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
It means that they get the same [non-cash] benefits as other workers and that their cash compensation is the only thing scaled down in proportion to nominal hours worked. (I'm assuming you were confused by "same benefits" and "75% pay". Benefits, in this context, is the non-cash benefits: health insurance, PTO accrual, etc.)
I was (still am) confused because they say employees will be 'salaried' the same and than receive 75% of full time 'earn'. Salary and earn are the same to me.
Salaried means an employee is paid a fixed amount per calendar time (per week, month, or year). The word "salaried" doesn't specify the amount, just the structure of pay.
The alternative is "hourly" where the employee is paid per hour worked or "piecework" where the person (typically not an employee) is paid per unit of work (bushel picked, unit assembled, etc)
From the original quote: "These 30-hour employees will be salaried and receive the same benefits" means:
"These employees will be salaried [not hourly]." and
"These employees will receive the same [non-cash] benefits."
Nowhere does it say nor imply "These employees will receive the same salary."