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76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

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Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#61

Post by psyc »

gozur88 wrote: post #59
psyc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it makes any sense to call that a 'view' - other than the trite philosophical sense in which everybody's worldview is their own. Not sure what part of Marx's analysis of class struggle would actually depend on personal opinion in any meaningful way.

Because it doesn't reflect reality? Do you really feel like you're "struggling" with other classes?

Absolutely. Every single day of my 40 years (no doubt this experience is strongly connected to having been raised in poverty). Not confrontationally, face-to-face, or with violence. That's the whole point.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#62

Post by alphonsegaston »

gozur88 wrote: post #59
psyc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it makes any sense to call that a 'view' - other than the trite philosophical sense in which everybody's worldview is their own. Not sure what part of Marx's analysis of class struggle would actually depend on personal opinion in any meaningful way.

Because it doesn't reflect reality? Do you really feel like you're "struggling" with other classes?

If your argument is that the world doesn't conform to any kind of Hegelianism, Marxist or otherwise, I guess I'd agree with you.

But if it's that there are no such thing as classes of rich and poor people, or that the former has not persecuted and exploited the latter for its own gains, now and in the past, that seems to fundamentally misunderstand history and human behavior.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#63

Post by sdflkd »

st3v3r wrote: post #52
valuearb wrote: post #44

Another angle to this beyond the data being useless because of how it was collected. High performance workers likely recognize that skills get them paid, so the opportunity to get better skills should always come before money, if you want to earn the most money. Example: A young engineer is offered a job at MSFT at $100k per year being a cog on a team doing maintenance on an existing product. Or they can go to a star…

Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k. Plus, there's something to be said for actually being able to afford a decent place to live, and to be able to put some money away for savings…

> Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k.

Never say what you're already earning and try to not give a number first.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#64

Post by Mitchhhs »

In a similar vein, this post on worker satisfaction found that these 8 metrics can predict 70% of the variance in overall satisfaction at work. Quality of coworkers was by far the highest predictor.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13997858

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#65

Post by robodale »

zelos wrote: post #6

OK, try paying below market rate and see how long your best engineers hang around then.

Company I used to work for did this. They held raises/bonuses down to the point we all knew we were underpaid. Entire software engineering team turned over in 18 months. They hired 1-2 year experienced developers replacing all of us who had 8-12 years experience at the company. Take a guess at how that department is doing now.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#66

Post by bougiefever »

The question on the survey was an either/or question. Do people pick mastery over money when faced with this question because they don't want to admit that money matters more? I picked mastery because I've already been in what I considered a high-paying dead-end job. I was miserable, but making money still matters a lot to me. I would (already have) picked a lower-paying job that was more rewarding in other ways. Never regretted it.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#67

Post by cableshaft »

js8 wrote: post #53
valuearb wrote: post #44

Another angle to this beyond the data being useless because of how it was collected. High performance workers likely recognize that skills get them paid, so the opportunity to get better skills should always come before money, if you want to earn the most money. Example: A young engineer is offered a job at MSFT at $100k per year being a cog on a team doing maintenance on an existing product. Or they can go to a star…

I would personally go with the first option, in your example. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." How do you imagine the better career earnings that come from the 2nd offer? At the next interview, they ask him, "what was your previous salary?" Then ten years, five companies and five frameworks later, he (if lucky) finally matches his MSFT competitor at 130k.

Can confirm. I've been living that life the past decade. Worked for two startups that unfortunately didn't succeed as employee #3 for low wages (~$50k) in my 20s, because they seemed like great opportunities (and to be fair, I did learn a lot and I am proud of a few of the products that came out, even though they weren't successful) and I'm still struggling to get my wages up anywhere close to what gets casually tossed around as 'easy to get' here on a daily basis.

And pretty much every single company I interview with makes sure they ask what my previous wage was before giving me an offer, and surprise, surprise, the offer they give me is only about 10-20% higher than my previous wage, and waaaay below market.

I'm not in SV though, so wages are a little lower here on average anyway.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#69

Post by st3v3r »

sdflkd wrote: post #63
st3v3r wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k. Plus, there's something to be said for actually being able to afford a decent place to live, and to be able to put some money away for savings…

> Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k. Never say what you're already earning and try to not give a number first.

People say that, but it doesn't always work that way. I've had potential employers say they won't proceed without that number, and that they would verify it. I, fortunately, was in a position to tell them to go pound sand, but I recognize that many may not be.

Re: 76% of high-performance employees say trade mastery, not money, most important

#70

Post by lgas »

st3v3r wrote: post #69
sdflkd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it? That person is going to have the anchor of that 60k follow them around. When they move on from the startup, most likely their new company is going to base the offer around that 60k. Whereas the other one is going to have their raises and offers based around the 100k. Never say what you're already earning and try to not give a number first.

People say that, but it doesn't always work that way. I've had potential employers say they won't proceed without that number, and that they would verify it. I, fortunately, was in a position to tell them to go pound sand, but I recognize that many may not be.

Even when companies are insistent you can usually get away with "I'm not willing to give you the proprietary information about my previous employers salary ranges, but I can tell you that my target is $X."
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