Managerial Workplace Question

[Flashpoint]

Cull the weak. You keep what you kill.

Fire girl B. Make a huge show of it. It will make clear how tenuous employment is. Girl A will likely double her work output. You can then go to your boss and show a 50% increase in performance at half the budget.

Spend 80% of your bonus on hookers and blow. Then waste the rest.

[Shazam]

Girl A should ask for more stuff to do.

And stop whining about what Girl B is or isn't doing unless it affects her work.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

So you rather have employees that are slower? For me personally, Girl A is the way to go. If she is that fast, she obviously knows exactly what to do and on top of that she finds time to slack off. If I was her I would be loving my job but at the same time I would love a raise if more was expected of me (extra duties)

No... if I was the employer, I would rather have Girl A work for 8 hours like she is paid to do. If she finishes her job early, go find something else to do.

If you are getting paid for working 8 hours, you should work 8 hours.... not spend part of the time socializing on the phone with your buddies.... while still getting paid to work.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Rerun

No... if I was the employer, I would rather have Girl A work for 8 hours like she is paid to do. If she finishes her job early, go find something else to do.

If you are getting paid for working 8 hours, you should work 8 hours.... not spend part of the time socializing on the phone with your buddies.... while still getting paid to work.

Maybe the calls are semi work related. Perhaps she is calling her bank to deal with a loan issue. To assume she is slacking off and talking to buddies is pretty silly.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by yeah_baby

maybe the calls are semi work related. Perhaps she is calling her bank to deal with a loan issue. To assume she is slacking off and talking to buddies is pretty silly.

okkkkkayyyy...

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Rerun

No... if I was the employer, I would rather have Girl A work for 8 hours like she is paid to do. If she finishes her job early, go find something else to do.

If you are getting paid for working 8 hours, you should work 8 hours.... not spend part of the time socializing on the phone with your buddies.... while still getting paid to work.

Why?
What incentive does she have? She is already doing more than a co-worker. Her only incentive it so work exactly as hard as she needs to, which in this case sounds like only as fast as the slower employee.

The employer's incentive is to get as much work from his employees for as low a cost.

While I'm sure the employer would like like the fast employee to work as hard as she can, the fact that she already does more than the struggler should mean he should replace the struggler, not penalize the potentially better employee.

[Devils'Advocate]

I have had a similar situation.

Employee A was so good at what she did she could get her work done that she could take a half hour coffee break and still accomplish twice as much as anyone else in a given day.

But then Employee B saw A taking a half hour coffee break, so he figure he was entitled to go that long too. Even though he was slacking off and I had to beat him over the head with a keyboard to get him to stop playing Hearts when he was supposed to be working.

-=-=-=-=-=-

The difficulty with the "If you are getting paid for working 8 hours, you should work 8 hours" is that Employee A is a VERY valued employee as she is carrying the load. We were dependent upon her doing a fair percentage of the work. If I told her that she wasn't doing as much work as she possibly could given her extra-long break, I don't think my head would still be attached to my torso. At the very least, we'd be looking for another resource.

-=-=-=-=-

In the end, I let sleeping dogs lie and let A continue to take her breaks. B on the other hand, even though I was under no allusions that he could ever become as productive as A, I put his nose to the grindstone until he met HIS peak performance. I guess it comes to expectations. I have a minimum level of performance that I expect and an idea of maximum. If some lackadaisically exceeds the maximum I'm not going to fight that battle. I've got enough fires to fight to go start another one. If someone is struggling with all their might to be just over the minimum I'm not going to fight that one either. But if I have someone being lazy that is under the maximum THAT's when I get the keyboard out and start swinging.

[Bobblehead]

An easier solution, if the units of work are discrete and easily measurable, is to pay piece work. Then the fast worker has every incentive to work as hard as possible.

[Ducay]

Sounds like me at summer jobs; since I was working alongside older workers, I could effectively achieve more and at a better quality, whilst sitting on the internet 80% of the time.
You just have to keep the slacking somewhat on the DL or theyll give you more work.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Why?
What incentive does she have? She is already doing more than a co-worker. Her only incentive it so work exactly as hard as she needs to, which in this case sounds like only as fast as the slower employee.

The employer's incentive is to get as much work from his employees for as low a cost.

While I'm sure the employer would like like the fast employee to work as hard as she can, the fact that she already does more than the struggler should mean he should replace the struggler, not penalize the potentially better employee.

Thing is in this scenario, the struggler isn't struggling. She doing about what is expected and maybe just a bit more so firing her wouldn't be right.
It's just that Girl A is lightning fast.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Thing is in this scenario, the struggler isn't struggling. She doing about what is expected and maybe just a bit more so firing her wouldn't be right.
It's just that Girl A is lightning fast.

If Girl B is accomplishing what a "normal" person would accomplish during the day and Girl A is a "freak of nature" I say give Girl A more responsibility and more pay. There is nothing worse than working at a job where you have nothing to do.... the day goes way too slow.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Rerun

If Girl B is accomplishing what a "normal" person would accomplish during the day and Girl A is a "freak of nature" I say give Girl A more responsibility and more pay. There is nothing worse than working at a job where you have nothing to do.... the day goes way too slow.

What if the Union mandates that she can't do more than she is already doing?