POLL: How has COVID affected your job?

[LogGrad98]

That's a big jump. Going from barely above minimum wage to 100k.

Other things are being discussed in a political way. I'm being sincere. If you can't hire people for what you are offering and you need employees then the best solution is to bump the wage up a little bit. You can possibly get better employees as a perk. Maybe a good hard working employee from another company will want that job.

It's not short sighted in this economy to pay a little more. It's short sighted to not get employees if you need them right now, even if they cost a little bit more.

But probably out of your control.

The argument then is what is a little more? 15 compared to 12.50 is a 20% increase. I think most people would be happy with 20% more in general. But even that can't compete with the unemployment incentive. So would you want to see 50% more? Double? Would you be willing to pay higher prices to pay people more money, because that's where it will come from. You'll never get increased productivity to cover increases like that from the increase alone. And then at that wage, companies would hire fewer people. So more unemployment. There are a lot of dominoes that fall in that scenario. You can't pretend it's just as simple as signing a bigger check for everyone.

 

[LogGrad98]

So there's a pay bump to compete against unemployment. Then there would be another pay bump to get people above that tier. There may be a line that can get crossed where you'd make significantly more working than being on unemployment, but for every small increase in pay, it is only a fraction of the proportion of effort difference between full time and unemployed. For instance, many (most?) people would take a 20% reduction in pay if it meant a 100% reduction in work. You could probably continue that quite a ways down. If I could make even 40% of my income by not working, the reduction in headache would be massive. And worth it. Obviously I'm speaking hypothetically, but when people are put in a situation where you get significantly diminished returns on your efforts, it should not surprise that it does impact behavior.

This in spades.

Right now I would take 50% of my pay to not work. Stress is at an all-time high for us right now. Give me 50% and I'll gladly stay home and mow the lawn and walk the dog.

 

[Ron Mexico]

So there's a pay bump to compete against unemployment. Then there would be another pay bump to get people above that tier. There may be a line that can get crossed where you'd make significantly more working than being on unemployment, but for every small increase in pay, it is only a fraction of the proportion of effort difference between full time and unemployed. For instance, many (most?) people would take a 20% reduction in pay if it meant a 100% reduction in work. You could probably continue that quite a ways down. If I could make even 40% of my income by not working, the reduction in headache would be massive. And worth it. Obviously I'm speaking hypothetically, but when people are put in a situation where you get significantly diminished returns on your efforts, it should not surprise that it does impact behavior.

There are people working, plenty of them. In this industry as well. You just need to pay slightly more then similar companies to get people hired. Of course some people would rather stay on unemployment. But everyone knows that won't last forever. You don't have to compete with that. People can realize it's a good long choice to take pay even if it's less than what they are getting. Plus people working other places will be interested. You'll get better employees.

I'm not sure why minimum wage keeps coming up. That's not really relative for this.

 

[Ron Mexico]

This in spades.

Right now I would take 50% of my pay to not work. Stress is at an all-time high for us right now. Give me 50% and I'll gladly stay home and mow the lawn and walk the dog.

I very much doubt that. You would take that temporarily knowing it could end any second and you would have to look for another job and have nothing?

 

[LogGrad98]

I very much doubt that. You would take that temporarily knowing it could end any second and you would have to look for another job and have nothing?

Of course not if it were known to be temporary. But your responses make me think you've never worked this kind of job before. If workers were already out of work and getting unemployment, and you effectively tripled it making it in many cases more or at least a significant portion of what they were making while working, then that strongly disincentivizes them to try to find work until the free money runs out. I would happily take 50% of my current pay if I were laid off and would milk it as long as I could before earnestly looking for the next job.

I have been in that situation more times than I care to think about in my career, and never did I have that option. I got at best 2 months severance and then went on regular unemployment, which I maxed out, and it was still a very small percentage of my most recent pay. But if it had been cranked to even just 50% I would have taken the opportunity and taken my time in looking for something else.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Of course not if it were known to be temporary. But your responses make me think you've never worked this kind of job before. If workers were already out of work and getting unemployment, and you effectively tripled it making it in many cases more or at least a significant portion of what they were making while working, then that strongly disincentivizes them to try to find work until the free money runs out. I would happily take 50% of my current pay if I were laid off and would milk it as long as I could before earnestly looking for the next job.

I have been in that situation more times than I care to think about in my career, and never did I have that option. I got at best 2 months severance and then went on regular unemployment, which I maxed out, and it was still a very small percentage of my most recent pay. But if it had been cranked to even just 50% I would have taken the opportunity and taken my time in looking for something else.

I have worked that job. Most people aren't unemployed right now.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Possibly, but you can hire better employees. That's been well documented.

LOL. You have documentation that shows that warehouses can hire better employees at higher wages in order to cut costs? Please share it. If what you are saying is true the warehouses would be doing it, guaranteed. You think they want their costs to be high? I have a feeling that you don't understand what sort of work gets done in a warehouse.

 

[infection]

LOL. You have documentation that shows that warehouses can hire better employees at higher wages in order to cut costs? Please share it. If what you are saying is true the warehouses would be doing it, guaranteed. You think they want their costs to be high? I have a feeling that you don't understand what sort of work gets done in a warehouse.

I'll give an example but it's not exactly what Ron is saying:

During college and for a year after, I worked in a steal yard / warehouse. It was pretty awful. It's hard for me to describe the conditions and the amount heavy physical labor without sounding like exaggerated hyperbole, so I won't. But it paid pretty good. I started at $14, which was really good at that time (hell, still is) and was up to $15.70 by the time I left. The pay was good, but the working conditions were not. There was massive turnover. Everyone was lured by the high hourly wages, but within the first 3-5 months I was there, there had to have been at least 25-30 people who were hired on and quit. Most people would be there the first day then not show up again. This wasn't a huge place, either. There were usually maybe 5-8 people working in the warehouse at any given time. The demands were high. But over time, this selected for a group of people who needed this job and would tolerate ********. Everyone there was young and had a wife and kids, and it paid well enough that they could support them while they went through school, so those with a lot of responsibilities tolerated it. As a result, they were able to reduce their total costs by weeding out a lot of inefficient people, and driving the people there into the ground. So they'd have the 5-8 people doing the work of what would otherwise be the work of 12-15.

But I don't think that's what Ron was going for. Especially since we were there for the money, and the morale was terrible. And though we were compensated well, we were most definitely earning it.

 

[LogGrad98]

I'll give an example but it's not exactly what Ron is saying:

During college and for a year after, I worked in a steal yard / warehouse. It was pretty awful. It's hard for me to describe the conditions and the amount heavy physical labor without sounding like exaggerated hyperbole, so I won't. But it paid pretty good. I started at $14, which was really good at that time (hell, still is) and was up to $15.70 by the time I left. The pay was good, but the working conditions were not. There was massive turnover. Everyone was lured by the high hourly wages, but within the first 3-5 months I was there, there had to have been at least 25-30 people who were hired on and quit. Most people would be there the first day then not show up again. This wasn't a huge place, either. There were usually maybe 5-8 people working in the warehouse at any given time. The demands were high. But over time, this selected for a group of people who needed this job and would tolerate ********. Everyone there was young and had a wife and kids, and it paid well enough that they could support them while they went through school, so those with a lot of responsibilities tolerated it. As a result, they were able to reduce their total costs by weeding out a lot of inefficient people, and driving the people there into the ground. So they'd have the 5-8 people doing the work of what would otherwise be the work of 12-15.

But I don't think that's what Ron was going for. Especially since we were there for the money, and the morale was terrible. And though we were compensated well, we were most definitely earning it.

What gets missed in that one is the cost of the turnover itself. Endlessly hiring, onboarding, and training employees is very expensive. It would undoubtedly offset most of not all of the benefit.

I've been managing operations for 25 years. Rarely have I seen an increase in pay result in a direct increase in productivity or efficiency, and if so it was pretty minor. It just doesn't work that way.

 

[Ron Mexico]

LOL. You have documentation that shows that warehouses can hire better employees at higher wages in order to cut costs? Please share it. If what you are saying is true the warehouses would be doing it, guaranteed. You think they want their costs to be high? I have a feeling that you don't understand what sort of work gets done in a warehouse.

Lol

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Lol

In other words, you have no evidence to back up your claim? I thought so.