[screye]

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more

Given the number of new grads out of college working 60+ hr weeks, I am not sure there is much leeway left for managers to 'work more'.

With a manager's job, time invested and outcome is even less correlated than a code-monkey (no offense, I am one too) who at least has a slightly-less-than-linear relationship with work/time.

Find yourself a good manager. Don't think too much about how long the manager (or any other coworker) chooses to work. A good manager will find a way to accommodate different lifestyles without disrupting the unity or drive of the individual members of the team.

[spacemadness]

Working more because you’re paid more is a dumb metric and sounds like a puritan minded threat. It’s working effectively using the skills you are paid to use to help your project/team do well at whatever it is you’re targeting.

[pc86]

Not sure I'd consider someone not pulling their weight on a team a "different lifestyle." I've worked for taskmasters before and it's not fun but if everyone on the team is working a full 40 hour week, and one person is working 25 or 30, it will become apparent over time and should be handled quickly.

[screye]

Different people have different priorities and bring different things to the team.

Someone who does not want to be promoted, and is happy with average rewards will put in different efforts than someone who puts in a lot more and wants to rise up the ranks quickly. Differences in effort and outcome need to be differently rewarded. Not everyone wants to rise up an infinite corporate ladder.

Someone who knows the product inside out and has a great rapport with the team, is worth keeping around. Just don't reward them disproportionally for their contributions.

Somehow, Tech people find a way to be the most stressed out people on a job, while simultaneously working on the least significant part of human lives. No one cares if social media, ads or TV streaming have an incident that last a few extra hours. No one cares if your feature that makes streaming/ads/social-media 5% better releases 2 weeks late.

Legally, your colleague does not have a direct relationship with you. Both you and your colleague have a relationship with the company through your manager, and that's it. If your colleague has a hand-shake agreement for working 30 hours a week for average returns, and you have negotiated a promotion in return for a feature.......then the colleague does not owe you extra work so you get promoted. If your career progression needs others to work more than they've signed up for, then that's the fault of your manager for misallocating funding.

It's at will employment. If your the company doesn't like them, they fire them. The American employment agreement is deeply transactional. You owe only as much to your company as won't get you fired.

[jonfw]

Why would a different number of hours constitute a problem which needs to be solved?

It could obviously lead to a problem, if that person is under performing as a result, but it's not obvious that there is a linear relationship between hours worked and performance.