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A comment on 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm. Parent comment

Re:'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg so... by mc32 on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @01:07PM (#32415310)
Google et al. cargo culted SGI culture -maybe it works for a class of geeks. Anyway they often coddled employees and treated them "like family" as they like to say and tell them they are special and the lucky few. You can bring your pet to work (if no one has allergies to it), you can waltz in late, go get a snack, log in, chat with your friends, play with new gizmos, then go to a meeting, get lunch, then work out, then have another snack and then the last meeting of the day before you cut out early to get in the (Co.)-bus home before traffic gets bad.

Where the hell did they think productivity would go?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg so... by crote on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @02:08PM (#32416157)
Easy: it goes both ways. Keeping employees happy means they are willing to voluntarily spend more time at work. "Chatting with friends" is more often than not informally discussing work projects. Going home before traffic gets bad and working a few hours from home is the sane thing to do.

My current employer is very lenient, and as a result I am very happy working here and put in more than I am required to. If they were very strict, I would work _exactly_ 9 to 5 and not a second longer - if I even wanted to work there at all.

Fact is, you simply can't be 100% effective 100% of the time. So you either end up with people _pretending_ to be busy, or people who are free to openly de-stress and are way happier employees.

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Re:'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg so... by mc32 on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @03:20PM (#32417119)
I don't disagree with you there, but also companies that have to be mindful of their cashflows can't afford to have people work for them who think it's a club-med for work. I'm not advocating that employees have to work it to the bone to be productive as we need long term productivity, but at the same time we need conscientious contribution and productivity.
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