> Anyway, loyalty in the sense that as long we're in a contractual relationship my employer can expect me to do good work, professionalism, confidentiality (a huge thing in finance), that I don't fib expense claims and that I don't steal the office supplies, among some examples.
I completely agree with that points. It is a matter of principle to behave professionally, not just for the company but for my own self esteem.
But, some experiences make me think twice before renounce to my rights. Many years ago, I was in a company that used to force employees to work on weekends. I had enough negotiation power to reject working on weekends. For me, it was not a problem. Weekend work was paid and I had no other responsibilities. But, my and other "top" colleagues rejection helped others to have the possibility to stand for their own rights.
I guess that I see the situation tinted by that perspective. If I renounce to a right, to say not to work on weekends, I may damage others that may end losing their right unwillingly. Some time later, I left the company for something better, thou. In my twenty five years of working for all kinds of companies, I have seen many different situations.
Japan and vacation days is a more general example. Even if employees have right to vacation days, it is difficult to take them when nobody else is doing so. As each employee renounces to their right to take vacations, they force the rest to do the same as it becomes a social stigma. To the extend, that for me, to renounce to your own vacation days becomes damaging to everybody else even done in good faith.
> Maybe it's just me, but I believe in transactional fairness. As long I feel well treated I just don't see the point of trying to squeeze every last inch of advantage from my vis-a-vis.
So, maybe you have been lucky enough, or smart enough to not work for companies that have abused their position. I guess that I would be of your same opinion if I had the same experience. By default, I agree that employers and employees need to collaborate to maximize the benefits of the partnership.
> Maybe one of the best examples I can give you is Amazon. Or the fact that I never bought anything since their book dealing days, when they suddenly pulled their privacy bait and switch. I wouldn't give them my business, even if it's cheaper. As it turns out that's not such a bad attitude to have.
I completely relate to your actions. And, to avoid rewarding the wrong behavior is important and a good value to live for.
> I have seen others thinking like that, and then become very sore when they are fired in an economic downturn.
I see where you're coming from and to answer one of your later question: I work in one of the most dog eat dog industries, which is finance.
That said, I don't see myself as a charitable extension of my employer. I'm well paid and fairly treated and as long this is the case my employer can expect me to deliver the best possible performance and my loyalty as long we're in a contractual relationship.
Let me qualify loyalty, becasue it touches exactly into the neither regions you're outlining (I was loyal all my life and now I get the boot. And while that gripe may be justified it's not really helpful). Anyway, loyalty in the sense that as long we're in a contractual relationship my employer can expect me to do good work, professionalism, confidentiality (a huge thing in finance), that I don't fib expense claims and that I don't steal the office supplies, among some examples.
I expect decent treatment, supplying of all the tools, information, training and resources required to perform my job, human decency in general and a certain amount of fairness.
That's while the contract lasts and partially beyond, confidentiality being a good example for that.
I understand that it's a transactional agreement, which lasts as long the contract lasts and doesn't imply a job guarantee.
But one part of the deal and as long it's reasonably balanced is that I just wouldn't seek out ways how to squeeze a couple hundred francs a month extra, which I don't believe I have coming. I feel fairly and well enough paid so that I don't really factor in the use of a bit of power and my personal laptop, which is essentially the whole cost I incur.
For what it's worth my employer provides a laptop, but it's far more comfortable and convenient to work on my own system within their secure setup with a real keyboard and a 24" screen. That's my choice and if I have that option and chose to use it I don't see why that's my employers problem.
> Is that different in Switzerland? Has it a similar culture to Japan where firing an employee is the last resource? Or is it more like other European countries were a simple merge or a decline in share value increase the possibility of being laid off?
Actually it's harder to fire employees in most European countries. Switzerland has comparatively liberal employment laws compared to a lot of other (western and southern) European countries. Liberal as in a contract can be terminated from both sides under respect of a notice period without a reason specified.
This is much harder in, for example France or Spain, which has the drawback that companies very much prefer temporary employment, which in turn leads to a two class employment system.
I think it's a bit of an attitude thing. Companies, whenever possible, prefer to hang on to their employees, even during downturns, since they consider it cheaper than to re-hire and retrain a lot of employees in the next upswing.
Differences in social security arrangements also make that more palatable for companies. And it's not only a cost thing, it's also the loss of important institutional knowledge, which is irreplaceable.
> I know that your attitude reduces salaries and reduces my and any other developer salary expectations, so maybe that makes me be extra doubtful of how good is your strategy for all the rest of us (or yourself).
I hope not. As I could hopefully illustrate I'm not in the corporate wellfare business. I don't believe in dumping and the one thing that bugs me so much with our race to the bottom capitalism we now have, best illustrated by the gig economy, is the "how can we squeeze out more and more, while treating vital partners (employees) like crap" attitude you see so much nowadays.
Maybe it's just me, but I believe in transactional fairness. As long I feel well treated I just don't see the point of trying to squeeze every last inch of advantage from my vis-a-vis.
It's not about giving away the shop, but about fairness and trust.
Maybe one of the best examples I can give you is Amazon. Or the fact that I never bought anything since their book dealing days, when they suddenly pulled their privacy bait and switch. I wouldn't give them my business, even if it's cheaper. As it turns out that's not such a bad attitude to have.
> Quit. But this would burn a lot of fingers/relationships and put the company in a spot since I'm pretty sure most things will break if I leave.
Well, that may or may not be true. But even if it is, so what? It's not your company.
You have given them work, they are supposed to have given you money. And you have both agreed that that is a fair compensation for your work, at least for as long as you are doing that work for that compensation. And that settles accounts; you're back to a position where you don't owe them any more work and they don't owe you any more money. There's no obligation in that for you to continue to work for them. You don't owe them any loyalty – that's not the sort of thing you can buy. (Phrased another way 'money is a bad retention tool.')
There are things where it makes sense to have a degree of personal loyalty to some of the people you work with in a company (though having a loyalty to the company as a whole is of course nonsense.) There are people who we might choose to continue working for, despite the fact that we might make more money elsewhere, because those people are good at what they do, take care of us, and we generally enjoy working with them. But it doesn't sound like that's the case here.
> some of our most loyal and bought in employees are the ones we brought over.
...and part of it is that if you fire them they lose their visa... not to be cynical but are you sure it’s loyalty and not fear?
(Aside: what is a “loyal” employee anyway? I’ve always hated when companies use terms like “loyalty” or “family” because they really misconstrue the employment relationship. It’s a business arrangement, nothing else. “Loyalty” should not be expected and if it is, it’s an indicator that the company is taking advantage of the employee IMO. Why can’t we just be open about the fact that we work, first and foremost, for money? Anything else is secondary. I wouldn’t expect an employer to show loyalty to me as an employee — they can fire me whenever they want — so I have no interest in showing loyalty to them.)
> I have no relationships where “obedience” is considered a virtue.
Maybe this statement should be qualified as being about personal relationships, since the vast majority of employer/employee relationships demand obedience to the demands of the employer. Even high-level executives can't just tell their boss that they don't want to do something they're told to do. They could argue against it, but if they're overruled, they need to obey or be fired.
You are, of course, free to quit your job, but for many people, the loss of income and health benefits that would entail could make that virtually impossible.
> If the company wants them in office, they can leave. If enough talented people leave then the company will suffer.
Before people leave, they could at least try to see if management is flexible. Perhaps they like working there and care about the product and the customers and don’t want to leave right away. Perhaps they feel like a case can be made.
If you are passed over for a promotion or the company withholds your bonus or you feel wronged otherwise, you don’t immediately leave your company, do you? Likewise, you may try to work with management or HR to see if what you want is achievable first, before leaving.
> I as an employee do not feel that I should change my employer’s policy, which they’ve had for 40 years, simply because I feel it should be a certain way.
The ability to conduct remote work was not present for forty years, and was not tested until the pandemic. Now that it has been tried, the change back seems negotiable, especially if the company’s bottom line did not suffer during the period of remote work.
Why so much respect for policy that is itself malleable in the hands of management? What if you had personal needs, a young child, a sick parent, and you had to take time away from the office to care for them, would you not ask for an exception? People do and are granted them all of the time. So this is just an example of people asking for that exception collectively, and to them it seems reasonable, because again, the company has literally just applied that policy for the past two years and the bottom line is stronger than ever.
> I cannot fathom that level of entitlement. It just doesn’t register in my brain.
Well, with that sort of mindset we would never have had the eight hour working day, or weekends, so to each their own.
> I find it troubling that so many people are alright with signing away their personal rights. The employee individually isn't obligated to the company
The employee and the company are obliged to stand by their agreements with each other. The time to negotiate the terms of the agreement is before you sign it, not after.
> I do not think that companies deserve to be screwed by all this turnover.
While this line gets a lot of attention, I want to attack the misconception too:
You owe your employer exactly what's in your contract. That's your agreement.
If you think you owe them something out of the goodness of your heart, and they have no contractual obligation to compensate you proportionally for that, then you're making unnecessary rules for yourself.
I'm not saying you shouldn't be insensitive towards knowing your employer will be screwed if you leave; but if that is truly the case, and you're not explicitly being acknowledged for this importance (contractually, monetarily, benefits-wise, responsibility-wise), you need that to grow. Where you're at, or somewhere else.
I remember talking to a past manager about how excited I was about an acquaintance who had accepted a position through my effort. The manager said he would celebrate on the day this person stepped through the door on his first day, and not sooner, because he'd seen people change their minds up until the last moment. It's just business.
A part of being a professional is being able to operate with sunk costs.
> the kind of company that takes advantage of you when you're ignorant isn't the kind of company you want to work for even after you're fully-informed and can renegotiate a better deal.
This is the important bit. Don't waste loyalty on someone who isn't loyal back. There's literally nothing in it for you; it will only bring you pain, frustration and health problems.
Sure, I have no problem working for an illoyal employer, and most of us do. I'll do the most skilled work I can, with a professional attitude, as long as I get my negotiated pay. But, they can not expect any loyalty if things go bad.
If my employer refuses to compensate when people run off from the family dinner to help out during emergencies, that is acceptable. The contract only says they are required to pay for my 8 hours per day. But, then they should not expect me to answer the phone outside working hours; I don't care if there's a crisis at Important Customer's site. The contract only says I have to work for 8 hours per day.
If my employer has a tendency to lay off people to meet arbitrary profit goals, that is also acceptable. It's business - they're here to make money. But, I will also not hesitate to jump ship to take better paid jobs when given the opportunity. I don't care if I'm the only person left who knows Technology Foo. It's business - I have kids to feed and loans to pay.
You should not be spiteful, you should just refuse to be exploited. Life's too short to spend in abusive relationships.
I got severely sick when I started working there... like 2 weeks in and I was hospitalized with a brain infection for a week + another couple weeks at home recuperating. They paid full wages during my absence.
When my father was dying from cancer they did the same thing as I helped move him to hospice and handle the estate.
There's been other things as well where they've gone above and beyond what an employer should do, and maybe "loyalty" isn't exactly how I should frame it, I do feel "safe" working there knowing I'm not about to be thrown out on my ass should something inconvenient happen.
I think that in this case when people say 'loyalty' they mean 'commitment over time'. "We'll dump you as soon as that option becomes slightly better than keeping you" is what people are reacting to.
It's different than being fired because of something you did/didn't do - it's the fear that something's going to change and this important part of your life (your source of income, of identity, of your professional status and one basis for your professional network, etc) will be yanked away without any real concern for the even short-term impacts on you.
> I think your first paragraph is sort of self-evidently silly so there's not much to say there. Good employees leave, or die, and most of the time it doesn't kill the company.
Yes it's so self-evident that even you argument for it is moving the goalposts. Just to remind you, we are talking about an employee leaving affecting the bottom line of the company, not the company shutting down.
> You didn't explicitly, but you did say "worker makes it fairer to demand loyalty but not reciprocate". I'm claiming that the non-competes already demand a lot of loyalty, but the companies do not reciprocate it.
Loyalty is implicit, not some terms you sign on a contract. Duh, you have to follow those for legal reasons, not because of 'loyalty'. But let's indulge you.
If your contract has a non-compete and you want to see reciprocation of the loyalty, ask to add in your contract the terms that would made you feel it's a fair exchange of loyalty. Otherwise don't sign the contract. But of course you will sign it because you like that fat paycheck high-tech/finance is giving you - won't accept to work for those pesky companies that can't afford non-competes for a lower salary. You make it sound like non-competes are a common thing except for the ridiculously well-paid white-collar jobs.
> we have a company that does whatever the hell it wants and employees doing whatever the hell they want,
False equivalence. The company is employing (and paying) the employee, not the other way around. This is not a symmetric relationship. This is the thing you seem to have a hard time with.
And no, the company can't do whatever the hell they want either, they are bound by the contract and the appropriate laws. Which at least one of my employers found out to their detriment (they tried to do something illegal and unethical to me and I didn't let them. Lawyers got involved, it ended very nicely for me)
However, had I done what these Googlers have done, I wouldn't have stood a chance, and my lawyer would have just thrown up his hands and exclaimed "you did WHAT??!?"
> any action you please, including one that risks termination.
Absolutely. But if you risk termination, don't be surprised (and cry foul) if you are terminated.
> Employers also see trusted employees smile and leave for competitors even after signing that they would not do that.
Employers who ask their employees to sign immoral and usually illegal non-compete clauses deserve whatever they get, honestly. Employers should expect their employees to go work for competitors when they leave. Where else are they going to go work, but companies with similar operations? An ecology management company fires and ecologist and they clutch their pearls when that ecologist goes and works for another ecology management company, instead of McDonalds!? Gasp! The nerve of that person!
Don't want your employees to go work for a competitor? Don't treat them like shit.
> You don't chose your co-workers. And now you're forcing me to take my vacation with these people, who I put up with every day at work.
It's not a vacation. Think of it as a company-specific conference. Yes, you can ask people to leave their family behind for a week (or pay for them to join you) if you tell them when offering the job.
No we shouldn't. The reason being that this puts employees at a significant disadvantage compared to the multitude of companies doing much worse things.
Obviously, there is always a line that one should not crossed. EX: don't do anything that is blatantly illegal.
But taken advantage of at-will employment status, which is fully within someone's legal right to do so? Go for it. If the company is upset about it, then they should have offered better employment terms.
One of the best periods in my life was working with people who became my friends.
> Believe me, the company will have no regrets parting with you if they feel you are not adding to their business value.
"The company" doesn't exist. Its a somewhat useful abstraction. The people involved can and will keep people on long after they "should" have been fired. At least here is Europe.
> I don't think anyone should have fondness for their employer -- it's a business relationship -- but you also have an ethical obligation to do what you're being paid to do. Otherwise, don't agree to do it in the first place.
I disagree with this view. My employment is a simple arrangement: entity X pays me $Y to be their employee. To some extent, they can tell me to do things and I'll do things in response. It's up to me to find a new employer if I'm unhappy with what they're telling me to do (or the salary, etc), and it's up to them to have a convo with me or fire me if they're unhappy with what I do. If he hasn't gotten fired or even spoken to by his manager for his work, then his work is satisfactory.
> Having worked as a consultant, I'm repulsed by the idea that I'd need my company's permission to leave and go work for a client
For a large consultancy with many clients, I agree.
But when a significant portion of your employer's income is a single client:
Are you comfortable with that single client of your employer having a strong incentive to make your job redundant so they can try to hire you under worse terms (as you suddenly lost your job)?
You don't need your company's permission, you're unemployed.
I guess what I'm thinking is something more along the lines of not hiring employees immediately after making them redundant through your own actions?
> I see no consideration for those whom are employed under employement contract to assign both moral rights and intellectual property to their employer.
When I got hired the contract was apparently not up to standards (but very nice). After a few years they got some lawyers to write up a new one, and it included such a "we own everything" clause.
I refused to sign it. The boss explained the intention was only on company time or with company assets. So I got them to change it to include that wording.
I'd never sign a contract with an all-encompassing "we own everything" clause, my spare time is mine. I know it probably wouldn't have held up in court where I live, but I feel it's about respect more than anything.
I completely agree with that points. It is a matter of principle to behave professionally, not just for the company but for my own self esteem.
But, some experiences make me think twice before renounce to my rights. Many years ago, I was in a company that used to force employees to work on weekends. I had enough negotiation power to reject working on weekends. For me, it was not a problem. Weekend work was paid and I had no other responsibilities. But, my and other "top" colleagues rejection helped others to have the possibility to stand for their own rights.
I guess that I see the situation tinted by that perspective. If I renounce to a right, to say not to work on weekends, I may damage others that may end losing their right unwillingly. Some time later, I left the company for something better, thou. In my twenty five years of working for all kinds of companies, I have seen many different situations.
Japan and vacation days is a more general example. Even if employees have right to vacation days, it is difficult to take them when nobody else is doing so. As each employee renounces to their right to take vacations, they force the rest to do the same as it becomes a social stigma. To the extend, that for me, to renounce to your own vacation days becomes damaging to everybody else even done in good faith.
> Maybe it's just me, but I believe in transactional fairness. As long I feel well treated I just don't see the point of trying to squeeze every last inch of advantage from my vis-a-vis.
So, maybe you have been lucky enough, or smart enough to not work for companies that have abused their position. I guess that I would be of your same opinion if I had the same experience. By default, I agree that employers and employees need to collaborate to maximize the benefits of the partnership.
> Maybe one of the best examples I can give you is Amazon. Or the fact that I never bought anything since their book dealing days, when they suddenly pulled their privacy bait and switch. I wouldn't give them my business, even if it's cheaper. As it turns out that's not such a bad attitude to have.
I completely relate to your actions. And, to avoid rewarding the wrong behavior is important and a good value to live for.
reply