[ameister14]

Most employers aren't actually operating with efficiency as the main goal.

Look at it this way:

worker A makes 10 widgets an hour. In 8 hours, he makes 80 widets.

worker B makes 20 widgets an hour. In 4 hours, he makes 80 widgets.

Why should the employer care about which one works more hours?

[varjag]

How many widgets will worker B make in 8 hours?

Also, how many widgets will worker A make in 4 hours?

[crocodiletears]

In my experience:

If worker worker A is not at risk of termination, bar any incentive program rewarding excess production, worker B will likely produce 80 widgets in 8 hours.

[ameister14]

worker B will make 80 widgets in 8 hours and be unhappy because he knows the employer expects 80 and he's not going to work harder for no reward.

Worker A will make 40 widgets in 4 hours.

[varjag]

Let's say worker B draws 2x salary of worker A, because he is known to be twice more experienced/skilled/productive.

[ameister14]

Ah, but didn't you say it was impossible to measure quality of work? You could only measure the time spent in the seat, right?

Now you're saying people should be judged on their outputs. Interesting change of pace.

In reality he's unlikely to draw 2x the salary for 2x the output, though, because he's operating from a deficit of information and again, the manager/hr person's main goal isn't actually efficiency.

If they're smart, though, they'll give him a performance bonus based on productivity over a minimum marker, maybe staged as productivity goes up without a quality drop to squeeze out as much as possible. At a certain point, though, money becomes less of a driver for most people so that's not the only thing they'll do. They will also tie his performance to the team as a whole, create opportunities for building 'team unity' and maybe put together artificial competition so he actually cares about team performance. Then his colleagues will push him to perform better.

[varjag]

You made a ton of implicit assumptions with your widget factory at home, it's not really like you caught me on anything here. I just brought in a bit of realism into your model.

Point is you expected to do an honest day of work for your pay with a good effort. That's the social contract which may well be changed in the future, but so far it isn't.

[ameister14]

You say time in the seat is the only thing you can measure objectively. I don't agree, then give a simple example that shows you can measure productivity and you immediately switch to measuring productivity. I don't think you introduced any realism at all, you were just wrong at the start.

By the way, I've never seen someone be rewarded 2x the pay for being 2x as productive without a commission model.

And if they are on commission, nobody cares how much time is spent in the office.

>Point is you expected to do an honest day of work for your pay with a good effort. That's the social contract which may well be changed in the future, but so far it isn't.

I don't think that's true. I've worked construction jobs and you're expected to do what you're expected to get done in a day of work, not work hard necessarily. Sometimes you work hard, sometimes you don't. A lot of time is spent uselessly. I found the same thing in corporate environments.

An honest day's work for an honest day's pay would actually be pretty unusual, especially given that for it to be honest the workers would have to understand the labor market implicitly, what they could get at competing companies and what their labor was actually worth to the company employing them. Most of the time none of that happens.

[crocodiletears]

Worker A and B not being interchangeable in this context, and understanding the reason for their distinction, worker B will attain the quota they've been given within the alotted time period, up to 80 units as is their capacity.

[paulcole]

Because most people aren’t as productive as Worker B.

Having Worker B come in late and leave early sets a bad example for all the Worker As (and breeds resentment among them). Worker B staying all day and screwing around half the time and distracting Worker A so they get 8 widgets done an hour instead of 10 is bad, too.

Give me 10 average people over 5 great ones any day. Average people can get better when they work together. Great people get bored and move on. Average people are just fine for most jobs.

And I assure you that I’m decidedly average and unspectacular in every way.

[ptr]

How about 10 average vs 1 great?

[paulcole]

For the huge majority of jobs, 10 average people are better, in my opinion.

[Haunted_Cabbage]

Sounds like an explanation of why labor costs are a employer's largest expense.