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Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

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Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#31

Post by esotericn »

red_admiral wrote: post #20

I like the Swiss approach to overtime. 1. It can only be demanded for exceptional circumstances, with justification. "Poor planning or lack of staff are insufficient." [1] 2. It must be compensated with 25% extra salary, or extra holiday (if the employee agrees). An employee cannot waive their right to this. 3. Even then, there is a limit by law on the number of extra hours you can do in a year, [2] says 170 hours pe…

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule.

You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality.

The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#32

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

red_admiral wrote: post #20

I like the Swiss approach to overtime. 1. It can only be demanded for exceptional circumstances, with justification. "Poor planning or lack of staff are insufficient." [1] 2. It must be compensated with 25% extra salary, or extra holiday (if the employee agrees). An employee cannot waive their right to this. 3. Even then, there is a limit by law on the number of extra hours you can do in a year, [2] says 170 hours pe…

In Austria, there was a new all-in(all inclusive) white collar contract type developed years ago, mostly aimed at founders, top management and executives where the expected large compensation would waive your rights to paid overtime as these positions often involved working "all hours that are necessary" but paid to match.

However, that compensation limit was so low that lots of companies started abusing this and extended this type of contract to all employees not just the ones with high pay/responsibilities to the point where in job ads you now see the lack of these all-in contracts listed as a perk.

In some scummy companies they forced all existing employees to change to these new all-in contracts and if you refused(which you were of course legally allowed to) you'd slowly be pushed out of the company via bad performance reviews and then dismissed.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#33

Post by sweeneyrod »

esotericn wrote: post #31
red_admiral wrote: post #20

I like the Swiss approach to overtime. 1. It can only be demanded for exceptional circumstances, with justification. "Poor planning or lack of staff are insufficient." [1] 2. It must be compensated with 25% extra salary, or extra holiday (if the employee agrees). An employee cannot waive their right to this. 3. Even then, there is a limit by law on the number of extra hours you can do in a year, [2] says 170 hours pe…

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule. You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality. The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist a…

> The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary.

No, but if someone on £58k is expected to work unreasonable amounts of overtime without sufficient compensation they probably won't suffer too much if they decide to switch jobs.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#34

Post by darkerside »

BurningFrog wrote: post #11
darkerside wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that tech leadership is doing what I described. Making clear to involved stakeholders that this is not normal and can't be expected every time. As parent commenter has seen, it doesn't happen automatically.

Yeah, I keep hearing that, but - over 10+ jobs - have never experienced it. Maybe I screen out those jobs in my searches. Or they screen me out :) My bigger point is that there are many different SW engineering worlds even in SV. You, and everyone you know, may be in the one you describe. But there are other and better ones out here. One caveat: You may have to "level up" to join some of them.

I believe you misunderstood my comment. I am not disagreeing with you. There are organizations that properly value people's time and make sure that overwork is both rare and rewarded. I'm lucky enough to work in one. But, even in those organizations, it doesn't just happen by itself. The management in your company is working hard to keep leadership in check and communicate your value. Because if they don't, organizational inertia will result in your team getting more and more work (or losing resources to do your existing work), no matter how great your company is.

It's not magic, it's good leadership and management.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#35

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #33
esotericn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule. You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality. The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist a…

> The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary. No, but if someone on £58k is expected to work unreasonable amounts of overtime without sufficient compensation they probably won't suffer too much if they decide to switch jobs.

I really hate that we should accept switching jobs as a solution instead of fixing the root cause.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#36

Post by esotericn »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #33
esotericn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule. You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality. The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist a…

> The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary. No, but if someone on £58k is expected to work unreasonable amounts of overtime without sufficient compensation they probably won't suffer too much if they decide to switch jobs.

Eh. IMO, almost anyone with a full time job is in the same position, with few exceptions everyone spends up to their means anyway.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#37

Post by red_admiral »

esotericn wrote: post #31
red_admiral wrote: post #20

I like the Swiss approach to overtime. 1. It can only be demanded for exceptional circumstances, with justification. "Poor planning or lack of staff are insufficient." [1] 2. It must be compensated with 25% extra salary, or extra holiday (if the employee agrees). An employee cannot waive their right to this. 3. Even then, there is a limit by law on the number of extra hours you can do in a year, [2] says 170 hours pe…

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule. You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality. The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist a…

I know lots of people at UK universities in junior positions - sometimes even fixed-term contracts - on way less than 29K, who are still expected to work stupid hours.

Or at least, no-one tells you that you have to officially, but when you inverview for moving up to a permanent contract you don't want to be the person with the weakest publication profile.

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

red_admiral wrote: post #37
esotericn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule. You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on inequality. The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K CHF) is a "should be expected to exist a…

I know lots of people at UK universities in junior positions - sometimes even fixed-term contracts - on way less than 29K, who are still expected to work stupid hours. Or at least, no-one tells you that you have to officially, but when you inverview for moving up to a permanent contract you don't want to be the person with the weakest publication profile.

[deleted]

Re: Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019)

#39

Post by war1025 »

akoncius wrote: post #28
war1025 wrote: post #8

Can someone please enlighten me what the heck an SLA is? I skimmed through the article and felt like he teased at providing a definition several times and then never actually did.

it is in the article: > In IT we have a popular concept which is closely related to these two principles – Service-level agreement (SLA).

I could have glossed over it the first time, but I am pretty confident that must have been added later. I think I even did a search for SLA to see if it got defined somewhere.
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