Well, hypothetical speaking, if there were two completely absolutely identical jobs, but the one had a ping pong table. I might choose the one without and ask them to get a Foosball table, since I'm no good at ping pong.
Most places that have HR like this work their employees too hard for them to have time to use a ping pong table anyway, so it's really just a hollow gesture.
Ping pong tables are loud as fuck and disrupt the whole office. If they invest in a soundproof room to put it in, sure. Otherwise it just makes you feel like a massive douche.
My last job had a pingpong table. We'd even use it occasionally. That is, until people started getting pissy when they'd see us playing pingpong. Then management started bitching that we were playing pingpong instead of working. Eventually, nobody was allowed to use the pingpong table - it just sat there, in the middle of the room, with brand new paddles and packs of balls that we weren't allowed to use.
The money was okay - not great, but not terrible. After some management fuckery, I left for a $10000/yr raise and 100% work from home. I've gone up $20K since then, been promoted to senior, still have upward trajectory, and still work 100% from home. I have a desk in Memphis somewhere, but I've never actually seen it.
My employer really covered their bases. We have ping-pong, pool, and foosball. That guarantees that everyone has something that will keep them from quitting.
It’s always about autonomy, one way or another. People want to be able to control how they work and what they can get out of it. For some that does mean more money, for some it would mean less stress, for others it could means less meetings.
It’s pretty easy for management to address all of it by just giving people more power over what their work lives are like, but that could mean less control over their workforce. No “owner” wants that, to them, they own their employees’ time/work life.
If I had been well paid and treated well I would not have ever started that job search. Further even just having one of those two thing might have kept me from looking.
At that job I hit the tipping point of both. It’s was getting shittier everyday and the pay wasn’t budging year after year. Finally mid-Covid the power flipped to the employee and jobs were much easier to get. I started looking and jumped shipped.
Eh. Toxic work culture can drive people away regardless of the pay. Obviously some people suck it up but not everyone. Ultimately the goal is to treat employees well all around. Good pay, benefits, and work culture will keep people happy.
As a professional in this field, top reasons would be...
Dissatisfaction with pay
Limited/No career progression
Dissatisfaction with environment/culture
Dissatisfaction with management
Poor work-life balance
Poor job design/expectations of role
Poor taining quality/knowledge management
Inadequate tools/systems
Edit: I should also point out we have about half a dozen ping-pong tables scattered around my work and our turnover figures were bang on average for annual benchmarking against the sector. I consider the average too high, though, and will be targeting better retention over this year. We'll need at least double the amount of ping-pong tables.
But I have no money and lemons are expensive! If only there was a way we could acquire lemons without paying for them... Anyone know where I could find a lemon tree?
Very correct. You can solve bad culture by throwing more money at the problem. Preferably all at once with zero maintenance budget or governance so that the amenities in question can become non-functional monuments to your superior culture. Future generations will find these and marvel at your ingenuity from the safety of the water cooler.
Strategic Workforce Planning. It's a bit different to HR in that there's a lot of data analysis. Typically we would use data to identify retention issues (reasons, areas, seasonality, etc) and figure out how to improve it. We'd then hand that over to HR to implement fuck up.
There’s some new research that shows raising pay is not great for retention. Studies say it’s better to take that money and put it into a long-term benefit line a pension, profit sharing, while life insurance with a cash out value, etc.
There is a bit of truth here. Toxic culture and out of touch management will make people walk as well.
Thing is, there might just be a wad of cash big enough to make me put up with that against my health interests.
Fuck ping pong tables though. No one left a company because they didn't have enough fucking table sports. If you think they are then you are the problem. Exit interview your own fucking arse.
One of the best bosses I ever had once told me that people will stay for the culture but leave for money. His philosophy was to try and ensure that money was not a factor in people's decision, then build as good a culture as he could.
And to be clear, by making money not a factor, I mean he paid well.
I had a meeting years ago with my company's CTO about my salary. He kicked off the meeting by saying "you care a lot more about what you make than I do" which prompted me to ask for 50% more than I had been planning to ask for. He agreed to it without argument. TBF he was a coke addict married to the daughter of the company's owner and within six months he'd been divorced and fired, but I got to keep my salary.
Only time these make sense is in sitcoms, and solely to show the workers interacting without doing something as boring as work. Better chances for cammradire if they're playing Brand Friendly Product Placement or Generic CGi Generated video game on the break room Xbox being played with PS2 controllers than if they're quietly dragging and dropping files until the new networking software recognizes the drive its in and starts
In real life, if you're playing Ping Pong on Company Time your ass is fired.
Gotta be sneaky about it, pretend your wireless earbuds are hearing aids and just pretend to mop the floor while you're playing Pokemon Go
I think it depends on the company, I work at a software company and you'll regularly see the big boss playing pool with staff at random times of the day. A bit of non work time during the work day can help the brain come up with solutions to problems.
Reminds me of this video of Huawei showing off its copy of Heidelberg at one of their campuses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGOlzkK_Bsw. The streets are almost completely empty, so relaxing. /s
"Man, my job pays horribly and the benefits barely cover anything, but they have a ping-pong table so it's honestly a tough call."
I struggle to understand how someone could seriously write something like that question without a lack of self-awareness so dire that a walk to the kitchen would come with a near-death experience. It just can't be real.
I think the truth is that it assuming it's the latter may not be enough. But the first two are even less likely. Additional responsibilities WITHOUT a raise is very, very unlikely to be what anyone was waiting for to stick around.
The flip side is if you can't be bothered to set aside some money for a ping pong table, as well have the sense to first ask around whether people would rather have foosball, or a proper pizza oven, or whatever the fuck, your company culture probably also sucks. A place for recreation means that you respect recreation and extend enough trust to have employees self-manage their need for it.
...of course, setting up that place only to have it be a hunting ground for micromanagers preying on unsuspecting workers is not what I'm talking about. If noone ever uses those areas, worry.
yeah, the "not necessarily pay is accurate, but the "right" answer being ping-pong table pivots things from "ok, they have some understanding" to "incredibly tone deaf".
Ah but what is enough money for you or I is not enough money for the bigwigs. And since they're obviously more important, as they're at the top, we have to have sure they get enough money even if that means you don't.
But they'll get you a ping pong table so you can stop thinking about how you don't know what you're going to feed your family tonight
You may be fine with $1000 a month. You have everything you need: food, bed, apartment, electricity, etc.
Now you get a new job and have $2000. You try out more expensive food options and realize you like them better. You move into a bigger apartment and start enjoying the freedom.
You may never wanted this if you didn't try it, but now that you have, you don't want to go back. You may not have noticed that your mental and physical health was degraded due to your previous living conditions until you get better after raising your standards.
I'm like mid-career and I can't afford vacations. There's always some other priority for the money and I would feel guilty for spending it on something that is by nature temporary and ephemeral.
That question isn't the best way to frame it, because yeah... 2x "enough" is pretty reasonable. That's still well within the high returns of happiness phase.
Do you need 1000x enough, though? Or 1000x that? I'd love a high end espresso maker, or a nicer car, or to be able to afford to take more time off, but there comes a point where more is just pointless.
others need a bit of distraction like a ping pong table.
That is never the answer. If your business isn't retaining people because the party culture isn't party enough...you've got way bigger problems...and it's probably leadership.
As I get older I begin to realize that people love to work.
However people hate being treated like shit.
Treating people like shit or building an environment that supports shitty behavior poisons the well and will absolutely make people leave, even for a pay cut.
If you just respect people and properly value them and their contributions to your organization, you'll never have trouble keeping them.
I wouldn't say party culture - it is what you make of it! You're normally at work for a significant portion of your day. Something like a table tennis table can help to break up the day and is just a bit of fun. For example, we had a table tennis tournament at work, which people got really into - it was fun and people bonded over it. I'd take that over working somewhere where you don't even know your colleagues.
This was at a tech company where culture was a big part of why almost everyone worked there. Definitely wasn't a party culture, but it was collaborative, where people worked closely together. There was never an expectation to work outside of working hours, or to do anything social - it was purely optional.
Obviously pay is a big factor, but it isn't everything. I'm lucky enough to be in a sector where I can afford to get paid less and have a better work (definitely not party!) culture and work-life balance.
I shrug...I like WFH...it's me vs the machine and that's that. I hated the forced corporate fun when I was still in that environment. It's "collaborative"...no...no it's not.
Sure...having Little John spin the company party was a neat story...getting paid 50k more and working in quiet peace is a better one.
Totally understand - each to their own! And we agree on forced fun!
I WFH since COVID, and I definitely wouldn't go back to the office (we go in once every two months which everyone really enjoys). Personally, I'd swap the 50k for working in an environment that I enjoy, and that for me means working closely and collaboratively with my teammates, who I get along with. Everyone is different though, so what I want from a job is probably other people's idea of hell.
Where do you live, where taking breakes is frowned upon? That's crazy.
Here in Denmark, I'm being reminded to take breakes and go home. I have been asked if I'm sure it's not hurting my work/life balance, before getting overtime approved.
It's also common to stay at work after hours to hang out, if there's a nice place to do that.
Come over to America! A magical place where you are only worth the money you make for your corporate overlords, and despite being told by your boss that they are SO glad that they hired you, your performance review is a 3/5 because they don't want you getting too comfortable and "there's always room for improvement!"
Ah, here it's very different. In multiple companies I've gotten consistent 5/5 and told by my own manager that I should really get a promotion, but they can't give me promotion or even a raise. Just the 1-2% salary adjustment everybody gets.
At least for me in IT, everybody usually gets an adjustment that's on average above inflation. So if you work the same place for ten years without ever getting a raise, you still keep up with inflation.
I think my lowest was 0% and my highest almost 3%. Some years slightly below inflation, but in any 3 year period I think I've been above inflation.
Same in my office in the UK, I got asked if I was not taking enough breaks or doing work outside of work hours as I was doing more than they expected and my manager was worried about me burning out, but having a chill atmosphere and a nice place to hang out and chill in the office just means that I can be more productive and happier at work so it's a win-win... A lot of HR types don't realise that it takes a nice office in both material and culture to make people productive and just go for the former which has the lower effect of the two when used alone.
Ok, calm down there, commie. Maybe you'd better go check in with your "family" and your "adequate housing". The rest of us are here to make money.... For other people.
I know that the American capitalism thing is a meme at this point, but working in software, every company I've worked for isn't against you taking breaks or doing whatever as long as things get done. I've played foosball with my VP during normal hours before, and it was slightly awkward but good fun.
The usual issue I see in my industry is that you constantly accumulate more responsibilities without any corresponding increase in pay. It's especially bad for morale when you see someone leave, and their responsibilities get distributed to the team, but no one gets any part of the old person's salary as a raise to make up for the added responsibilities even when the higher ups refuse to hire a replacement since you're all clearly handling it fine.
Listen, speaking as an American, we know Danes have better quality of life, but we’ll be damned if we will sacrifice capitalism to get there! Our motto is “if you’re not working, you’re losing money!” That only applies to the lower ranks, of course.
Seriously tho, I would love to live in a society that expects companies to hold the well-being of their employees over profits (not that these two are mutually exclusive), and the culture is changing slowly, but we’re not there yet.
Exactly, that's the thing. Here in Denmark, many (most?) companies think that happy workers are more productive.
I might be colored by mostly working in places where it's very expensive to replace an employee, but then again, for Americans I mostly talk with people in a similar kind of job.
I've been told multiple times to take more sick leave.
Usually when I come back from sick leave, I've been told I should have taken a day more to recover fully. But after days in bed, I just really want to start doing something, even if I'm tired.
That's nice and all, but staying after hours to hang out sounds awful. I don't want to befriend those losers, I want to get on with my life. They can all rot in hell for all I care, I'd sell them out in a heartbeat.
I always tell people the easiest way to get a raise is to find a new job. Nobody is keeping up with inflation anymore, it's pretty much required to job hop to break even anymore.
I like my job, but I'd leave for the right position/compensation.
I try to interview once per quarter, at least.
I've started adding some tough questions, like asking how the average annual increases compare with inflation and COLA. Most interviewers turn into a 13 year old telling a girl they have a crush on them -- all of the sudden 0 confidence.
That's when I tell them that for the circumstance, my compensation ask is going to be quite high.
I also tell local employers that my "in office" ask is literally 5x pay. They always balk and say somethi g like "yeah that's not gonna happen," to which I say "Tell me about it!"
Everyone should interview more. Declining a good offer because you like your situation more feels like doing cocaine.
I often get ask about my salary expectation in the very first 10 minute interview with the HR person, before even getting the chance to talk to the team. Being sincere, I wouldn't get to follow-up interviews if I told them my expectation that they would definitely see as too high.
You're applying to and weeding out jobs that don't suit you.
Your price is your price. They don't have to like it and you don't have to work with them.
I've told $50K jobs I wouldn't do it for less than 5x, 250K, lol. Yeah, I didn't get a follow up. Oh well. These are my terms. You want me in office for a 50k/yr role? I'll do it for 250k. This ensures I don't end up with a role not suited for me.
If the company doesn't want to match your salary expectation, then why interview? Are you hoping that meeting with the team will change their mind? I don't have enough experience to know if that happens, but I suspect it's unlikely.
If salary range says 40 to 80 and they offer 40, counter with 100.
Don't settle for less than 80 assuming your credentials fit the position.
Have them tell you no. Don't decide it based on intuition.
If they stay at 40 tell them you'll continue to look for employment that values your work where you think it should be valued, wish them well, and walk.
True enough. Yes, I would expect them to move towards my expectation once they got to know me better and once they see that I might fit into the team quite nice. At least I believe it more likely than weeding me out based on numbers in the very first call. I too don't have enough experience to know whether this is realistic. I just know that my current employer would lean into that way of thinking.
But, it seems that many companies can still afford to weed out candidates by numbers, at least here in Germany. So, I just have to do me as long as I have a secure position and otherwise, otherwise.
Especially if you know exactly that your employer most likely has zero loyalty to you either.
If there was a way to get the same work for 20% less, my employer would happily do that.
I never understood that logic, tbh. It can't be good for a business to lose half the staff every few years. Bringing in fresh blood once in a while is good, but you shouldn't need constant transfusions.
A company offered me a million dollars to work for them, but then I remembered the ping pong table at my current employer and said no way. Totally worth it.
I interviewed once for a part-time job at a potential startup, and the two people running it spent 75% of the time talking about how they had a pingpong table and how that meant it was a fun company...
The job wouldn't be in the office tho, so for my position (and pretty much every employee) would only be able to use it off the clock.
They were very excited about the ping pong table tho, because their job was in office and they played a lot.
I've worked in at a smaller startup with a ping pong table and my anecdote is we were all obsessed with ping pong. So their excitement could really be genuine. It's not always a ruse.
I had this argument with a boomer HR consultant and she just doubled down, even though I explained that neither I nor my colleagues, give two hoots about fussball or team building. Our position is a resounding "fuck you pay me" but oh no - boomer knows best.
My then gf now wife moved in with me and my employer wouldn't cover her under the insurance. I made it clear that this was important. They wouldn't back down. So got a new job. During the exit interview I repeated what I told them. It was only about the health insurance. HR tried to get me to talk smack about my manager, a guy I actually liked. I praised him and again told them that this was only about insurance.
Told my manager about what they did on the way out the door.
Questions like these make me wonder if large capitalists actually live in an alternate universe but through some time and space shenanigans they are still here. There's just no way they can make this type of shit up (assuming it's a real question) without being delusional or sadistic.
There’s just no way they can make this type of shit up (assuming it’s a real question) without being delusional or sadistic.
Of course there is: they want to implement doublethink. It's a deliberate attempt to make workers not to pursue their own rational interest when it conflicts with corporate profits.
They are either people in advantageous positions that benefit from this or people that are stupid enough to think they will one day be the rich benefiters of this so why should they shoot their future self in the foot right? Goes hand in hand with people that are stupid enough to keep voting right because they advocate for the poor so at some point surely something will change.
These people live in the future where automatons make money for them for nothing. It's why uber is pushing for automated cars. They don't care about the present.
When I worked at a soul-crushing insurance job, we were given an event where the bosses served us pancakes. That was right after we were forced to celebrate bosses' day and watch our bosses open gifts that the suck-ups got them. I was able to quit without notice shortly after and it felt so goddamn good.
I've never left a company because of money. I have left because the bullshit they put me through wasn't worth the money. That's not just being funny either. I'm okay with being under-compensated if the environment is positive, managers are friendly and flexible, and it actually feels like our sister teams have similar goals and we're not working against each other.
Ping Pong table ? Are they serious ?!? We had a PS5 in the meeting room for ~4 month an no one ever touched it. I don't go to work to have a fun time, I go to do my job, then leave and have a fun somewhere else. More correct answers for retaining employees:
give them tasks they are interested in
give them perspective for developement (promotions, raise, mobility, etc)
value their contributions and support them moraly (you want to know your managers and colleages got your back)
of course more money ! Or alternatively more freetime !
It is pretty simple. Respect your employees and they will respect you. Respect starts with valuing the employee's contributions by paying them a fair wage. It continues with treating them well. A way of treating them well might be a point ping table, but that comes on top of a fair wage, not instead of.
A good manager might recognise a hard working team needs a way to relax and gets a pool table or something. The employees are happy and tell their friends they've got a pool table at work, everyone is jealous. It seems like the pool table is the reason but it is just a symptom of them being generally treated well.
I wonder if this is how this whole trend started: some decent manager recognized their hard working well-paid and taken care of team deserved some extra something, got them a pool table or whatnot, then other shittier companies copied this thinking it was a solution in itself without understanding why the thing was installed in the first place
Unless of course your job is to be a ping pong ball tester, in which case you may not be getting supported with the necessary tools to perform your job successfully.
My boss had the worst employee satisfaction result ever seen in our group for his department. No surprise, he had oversold himself to get the job and when his idiotic project of redoing everything from the ground up started to be way delayed compared to the unrealistic promises he had made to the board, he asked everyone to go into "crunch mode" for "a short time", work late, Saturdays, and so on. A "short time" became months...
Anyhoo, he asked us, what we could do about his shitty results because the board actually got worried. I reminded him, the work life balance sucked, people were overworked and they didn't see any end to "the crunch" and it had to stop before any other action.
He dismissed my idea and he settled on a team lunch. But since he didn't want to waste work time for "the crunch", he decided to have it on a Sunday and fuck up the only off day for most of the people.
I've never seen a floor of people so angry than the day they got the email about that team lunch.
I told him, he dismissed it again.
That's about when I went into quiet quitting and patiently waited to be fired while pretending to be out on meeting and actually going for walks in the park.
I'm not that old, worked with 14 companies, every manager was on the shit scale. Even when I saved a smaller companys biggest client, by rewriting critical part as a new hire when no one else could get it to satisfy new requirements, the manager told me I should not expect more money, since I didn't finish Uni.
Hundred percent. And best indicator for someone to stay is having sn actual friend at the company. So you gotta invest in leadership training and team building.
I am close to that. I know I could make more and I don't particularly enjoy the work but my coworkers are freaken awesome and so is my boss. Guys I actually enjoy seeing after work.
Most likely just going to stick it out. There is something to be said about dealing with people for 40 hours a week that I like.
This reminds me of the Simpson episode where they are negotiating a new contract. It’s the same as the old one expect the they replace the dental plan with a keg of beer.
How many of these companies think employees are going to say it's about the money during an exit interview? Usually if you agree to an exit interview it's to be diplomatic and not burn your bridges. You're not going to tell the truth, you're going to say what they want to hear.
perfectly maps to startups selling working at a startup as "we're a family", "you're a googler", etc. give them a ping pong table and free beer on fridays and you can pay considerably less.
Of course, nobody with two brain cells to rub together who reads that answer is sitting there thinking to themselves, "Huh... I guess I've had it wrong all this time, focusing so much on money." Rather, they're instinctively blurting out, "Yeah right -- I call bull!"
But I'll give them partial credit; frequently it's about money. Sometimes, it's just about a work environment that used to be great going to crap. And sometimes, it's about the employee coming to an epiphany, and realizing that their work environment was actually crap all along.
That said, it may be true that not every job that I've ditched was entirely because of money... but it should go without saying that it's always a factor in where I went for the next job. Also, it's never the only factor -- but it's certainly one of the more significant ones.
"Usually, in our narrow and sad description of what an employee wants, it's not money. Clearly it's more related to the lack of ping-pong tables and extra responsibilities." 🤡
These people have absolutely forgotten what it means to be an employee.
I actually convinced my boss to get us a ping pong table, all I had to do was forego my pay for a year!
Totally worth, since I'm not working for the money, I'm working for the culture (our culture is now a ping pong table). It's so awesome that I can use it during my state-mandated breaks 🙂
Definitely not. I've seen these type of questions and answers on practically any job application in America. Thing is, this isn't even the worst example of it, unfortunately. It's fucking depressing and degrading.
Wtf are you talking about? Employees work office jobs 9 to 5 because they love to work. Like all good employee's. Heck, if they weren't getting paid they'd still the work for free because they love it so much. It's only out of the pure goodness of my heart that I decide to pay them minimum wage/s
And when you edit within a minute of a reply that was made within a minute of your comment nothing changes. Just suck it up and admit you missed it, dude.
If needing to pay for basic necessities weren't a factor in people getting jobs, I highly doubt the majority of people would work the kinds of jobs of today. I don't know a single person who is excited to go into their retail job and deal with shitty customers all day or sit in a bland cubicle all day making spreadsheets that nobody really cares about.
I know more people who would much rather devote their time to learning and playing instruments, or making something with their own hands, or writing stories, or spending time raising their families.
Hey if that's your jam go for it, personally I'd like to live in a world where someone can elect to do that sort of work and not have to worry and stress about housing, food, bills etc or take on that kind of work despite hating it in order to put food on the table.
In fact all three are valid answers. Cruel manipulation as it is, additional even uncompesated responsibilities often do drive retention as people are invested too deep and too stressed out to consider switching or find time for the process.
This is the reason why but never the reason I give. If I make employers think at any time that I focus too much on the money, they will see me as a troublemaker. Instead, I come up with some bullshit excuse such as medical reasons and the smart employers will work it out on their own.
In my experience, they're thinking 20-30 cents per hour. And yah, that's never enough to change someone's mind. 20-30% that could make a difference, but it's way too much for them to ever concider.
Was "A ping pong table and enough free time in my schedule to actually use it for half an hour on a quiet day without the area manager coming in and demanding that we get back to work" too long?
Ill stay at an average paying job with a great culture, over a shitty culture and more money. But only to a point.
Oh yeah, fun fact, in my former and current job every year we get invited to a town halls with some executive and every year we hear the complaints that we can't keep employees.
Every year I ask the same question, "We keep hearing that we have a attrition problem so why do we keep chasing the industry standard for pay and benefits, why can't we adjust our pay scale and promotion process to actual reward performance to actually keep our high performers?"
Every year, is a non-answer, nothing changes, we lose good people and only keep our industry standard people.
Though it was funny that since I'm on multiple projects/teams I did get the same speil multiple times from the same person and the third time in two years I got called I didn't even have to ask before I got the boiler plate.
I thought this was chatgpt for a second because I didn't want to believe anyone but ai could be this tone deaf. then I remembered humans and got depressed
That's stupid. Wouldn't the smarter thing to do be to buy the ping pong table and Dock everyone's pay because of it? That ping pong table cost the company a fortune. And no, those bite marks on the leg of pool table aren't from my dog/s
If definitely seen shit like this on menial job applications in the past. Typically as pary of a "personality test" that tries to root out commies. USA obv
It'd such a bad feedback loop. Employees don't always feel safe being honest at exit interviews, so they say what they think HR wants to hear and HR just takes it as fact. Then they build training like this based off what Former employees felt safe telling HR and the cycle continues.
The ping ping table at least lasts longer than a pizza party, but it's no more significant. When retiring, nobody wishes they ate more pizza or played more ping pong at work. They wish they had been able to grow and make more money so they'd be better taken care of.
Here's a pingpong table. If you are fit enough to play after a 10h shift, knock yourself out. Except that the office closes when you finished your work so, no, it's just decoration.
If a company is paying competitive wages then when an employee quits it isn't because of pay.
If a company is paying low wages it will probably be because of the pay that a person quits, because there is nothing to keep them putting up with the bs that EVERY COMPANY HAS.
It's especially morbid when the CAPITALISTS try to get you to "care about our totally noble mission, not what you get paid."
The irony being that the mission is always to make the capitalist owners more money as the only priority. You, on the other hand, should just see making them money as its own reward, you lucky little capital battery.
It's like being scolded about the intrinsic value of human life... by Jeffrey Dahmer.
So... this is pretty stupid, a raise in pay certainly might help.
However, from the perspective of a career spent managing teams, often organizations with hundreds of employees, if you think your people are all solely motivated by compensation, you're going to do a very poor job as a manager.
Everyone wants more money, but that's not all they want -- and there are plenty of people who quit high paying jobs that treated them poorly or gave them no opportunity to grow.
Think about appropriate compensation as necessary, but often not sufficient -- and think about the best boss you ever had. They probably did more than just pay you fairly, that's the bare minimum.
I've seen reference to research showing pretty much what you're saying: Inadequate pay gives dissatisfied employees, but raising pay above a certain level only gives very short term increase in employee satisfaction. The conclusion was that pay has to be high enough that people feel fairly compensated, but further increasing it has little to no long-term effect.
Seriously. Another comment pointed out there's "not enough money" and "enough money" for wages. Depending on which side you're on money may not be the reason someone quits. My previous job paid me enough, but the business partner was so dangerously incompetent, reckless, agressive, and unwilling to do their own job that I quit out of frustration. I made it very clear to my boss' boss that it wasn't about money, and I wasn't going to tell them what my new compensation was. It isn't his business. My issue was the business partner. Within a few months a few other people quit working there too for the same reason.
Exactly. "Pay people enough, " is table stakes. It's good business strategy and it's a basic moral duty. "Grossly over pay people, " is probably not good business strategy; even if you do, it isn't going to make up for being a shitty place to work
Yeah, I get what you’re saying, but between more money and a ping pong table, which do you think most people would choose? If they wanted to imply a more casual/fun/less-stress environment, they should have said that, but implying a ping pong table would motivate people to stay is like thinking dangling your keys in front of a baby to stop its crying will keep it happy forever. At least a pay raise is helpful to me.
This is why we need a huge general strike. It's going to take this getting a lot worse before must people would consider joining though. It's a trap and it's tough to get out of. Capitalism is a train wreck.
I've left a dozen or so jobs over my entire life. One because the job was eliminated, five or six because school was starting/ending, one because the manager was a prick, and the rest exclusively because I was offered more money.
Employee retention has been a huge part of my job for over a decade. In the professional world, employees rarely leave over money.
It's generally about opportunities to do new things/grow in their career (which is distinctly different from compensation), a culture problem (which compensation will not fix), or an engagement problem (poor leadership)
I'm sure your anecdotal experience clearly changes how the science of studying human behavior works.
That's why COVID boosters were so pointless - your cousins brother's friend got sick from the booster so obviously they're full of metals that solidify in your circulatory system.
The only way I can see what he mean making sense is that he's talking about the people making more than low 6 figures. I can totally see someone making 300k a year not leaving because of money but because they wanna do something new.
I never thought that CEOs might plant a seed that a "cultural change and approach in HR" and falsified stats papers would be the new meta to keep payroll low.
This is a jackwagon CEO (Oligarch in training.) trolling the masses. Don't fall for the rage bait. Just form a Union and strike. Better yet, boycott the company until they disolve. 🤷
"Capitalism indoctrination" doesn't make any sense in this context. Capitalism in this context would be that raising the pay of an employee is investing in your business to retain good producers of the products you sell for profit. Competitive pay rates are a weapon in the capitalist war for profits.
Capitalism doesn't require rational behavior; all it requires is a system that allows some people to make passive income by exploiting other people, based on the idea of private property. CEOs, for example, don't care about what's good for the business; they care about extracting as much value from the business and the workers as they can get away with before moving on to the next victim.
Just because you follow overlapping communities doesn't mean everybody else does. As long as the post follows the community policies, there's no problem with posting the same content to multiple appropriately-themed communities.
Bruh. I only posted it one community which I was advised to do so by others. The others are other people sharing this in other communities. There's nothing wrong with sharing posts, in fact it can help people find other communities they might like.
Hey I want a raise as much as the next guy but to be honest the title is kinda wrong. Capitalism has existed since the start when humans started trading each other, so you can't really be indoctrinated like you can with communism.
It's true that it's not always about the money, but it's probably never about a ping pong table
Well, hypothetical speaking, if there were two completely absolutely identical jobs, but the one had a ping pong table. I might choose the one without and ask them to get a Foosball table, since I'm no good at ping pong.
It also depends on whether it's about a pingpong table in the office, or whether I get one for at home and we're talking a fully remote job.
Getting a free pingpong table isn't a bad bonus! I'd prefer a decent crokinole board though, tbh
It's a bad bonus if you don't have space for a ping pong table. Speaking from experience, I got a free ping pong table for Christmas once...
Same here. In the past 5 years, it's seen maybe 10 games, and a whole lot of laundry.
What is Crokinole?
Shut up and sit down has a video where they rave about it. It's a dexterity game that uses a large board and sliding pieces.
It seems simplistic, but it is genuinely amazing to paly.
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I'm cannot deny that "where should we mail your crokinole board?" would work on me.
If they put in any kind of clackball table, I’m demanding noise canceling headphones and my own office.
I'm all about the air hockey table.
Either of those within earshot from my desk and I'm not taking the job.
Most places that have HR like this work their employees too hard for them to have time to use a ping pong table anyway, so it's really just a hollow gesture.
A company I used to work for had a fucking arcade of all sorts of video games, I NEVER saw anyone playing them
Indeed.
It's telling that "basic dignity" or "managers who aren't dicks" didn't make the list.
Yeah. In my experience, "A manager who doesn't suck" is most of the list.
Source: I've been the manager who did suck, and the one who doesn't. I have some data points.
Ping pong tables are loud as fuck and disrupt the whole office. If they invest in a soundproof room to put it in, sure. Otherwise it just makes you feel like a massive douche.
Especially if your coworkers play like pros.
Thwack
thwack thwack
Thwack
I wanted a foosball table dammit!
That's the game of the debil!!!!
Damnit Bobby what did I tell you about foosball!
Dammit, you beat me to it!
My last job had a pingpong table. We'd even use it occasionally. That is, until people started getting pissy when they'd see us playing pingpong. Then management started bitching that we were playing pingpong instead of working. Eventually, nobody was allowed to use the pingpong table - it just sat there, in the middle of the room, with brand new paddles and packs of balls that we weren't allowed to use.
The money was okay - not great, but not terrible. After some management fuckery, I left for a $10000/yr raise and 100% work from home. I've gone up $20K since then, been promoted to senior, still have upward trajectory, and still work 100% from home. I have a desk in Memphis somewhere, but I've never actually seen it.
It is if you're managing an Olympic ping pong team
My employer really covered their bases. We have ping-pong, pool, and foosball. That guarantees that everyone has something that will keep them from quitting.
It’s always about autonomy, one way or another. People want to be able to control how they work and what they can get out of it. For some that does mean more money, for some it would mean less stress, for others it could means less meetings.
It’s pretty easy for management to address all of it by just giving people more power over what their work lives are like, but that could mean less control over their workforce. No “owner” wants that, to them, they own their employees’ time/work life.
I was at my last job for 10 years.
If I had been well paid and treated well I would not have ever started that job search. Further even just having one of those two thing might have kept me from looking.
At that job I hit the tipping point of both. It’s was getting shittier everyday and the pay wasn’t budging year after year. Finally mid-Covid the power flipped to the employee and jobs were much easier to get. I started looking and jumped shipped.
It’s not ever not about the money around 0% of the times.
Eh. Toxic work culture can drive people away regardless of the pay. Obviously some people suck it up but not everyone. Ultimately the goal is to treat employees well all around. Good pay, benefits, and work culture will keep people happy.
This
As a professional in this field, top reasons would be...
Edit: I should also point out we have about half a dozen ping-pong tables scattered around my work and our turnover figures were bang on average for annual benchmarking against the sector. I consider the average too high, though, and will be targeting better retention over this year. We'll need at least double the amount of ping-pong tables.
I don't see pizza party or ping pong table on that list so you're obviously not a professional.
A real professional knows employees want pizza parties instead of higher pay and they want more responsibilities with the same pay!
:P
Pizza party solves everything!!
Or...a lemon party!
I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?
Make some kind of lemon powered rocket launcher and force life to take it's lemons back!
Make lemonade, obviously
But I have no money and lemons are expensive! If only there was a way we could acquire lemons without paying for them... Anyone know where I could find a lemon tree?
Consult our mutual friend, the Lemon Stealing Whore
Just don't promise a pizza party and fail to deliver! That happened at my job once, and people did not like it.
My top reasons for leaving a job:
The three Big Nos. My optimal work-life balance is 0.1-99.9. If they trust me to be able to do even one thing, that pay better be huge.
Almost all of these applied to the last job I left, so I guess it's pretty spot on.
So ping pong table falls under the third point right? More ping pong = more fun = better culture? Right? /s just for clarity
Very correct. You can solve bad culture by throwing more money at the problem. Preferably all at once with zero maintenance budget or governance so that the amenities in question can become non-functional monuments to your superior culture. Future generations will find these and marvel at your ingenuity from the safety of the water cooler.
you really a pro, I'm looking for other jobs precisely because of 1 and 2, even though the rest are all great at my current job
Obviously right? I mean this post is definitely a joke
What field?
Strategic Workforce Planning. It's a bit different to HR in that there's a lot of data analysis. Typically we would use data to identify retention issues (reasons, areas, seasonality, etc) and figure out how to improve it. We'd then hand that over to HR to
implementfuck up.There’s some new research that shows raising pay is not great for retention. Studies say it’s better to take that money and put it into a long-term benefit line a pension, profit sharing, while life insurance with a cash out value, etc.
Raises and bonuses had about a 3-month effect.
That seems highly suspect.
Was this research sponsored by the association for research into golden parachuting out of a pillaged company?
There is a bit of truth here. Toxic culture and out of touch management will make people walk as well.
Thing is, there might just be a wad of cash big enough to make me put up with that against my health interests.
Fuck ping pong tables though. No one left a company because they didn't have enough fucking table sports. If you think they are then you are the problem. Exit interview your own fucking arse.
He had to laugh at you, otherwise he would have cried because he knew you were right.
Lol he probably just thought you sucked at ping pong.
One of the best bosses I ever had once told me that people will stay for the culture but leave for money. His philosophy was to try and ensure that money was not a factor in people's decision, then build as good a culture as he could.
And to be clear, by making money not a factor, I mean he paid well.
I had a meeting years ago with my company's CTO about my salary. He kicked off the meeting by saying "you care a lot more about what you make than I do" which prompted me to ask for 50% more than I had been planning to ask for. He agreed to it without argument. TBF he was a coke addict married to the daughter of the company's owner and within six months he'd been divorced and fired, but I got to keep my salary.
Was his name Keith?
Phillip. Of course, we knew him better by the name his eventually ex-wife gave him on Facebook: "Ol' Three Inches Two Minutes".
"Mark, were you playing time crisis 3 in the arcade room again?"
"Ski safari, actually"
"You know that the big presentation is tomorrow right?"
"FUCK OFF DEBRA THIS IS MY PROCESS"
Only time these make sense is in sitcoms, and solely to show the workers interacting without doing something as boring as work. Better chances for cammradire if they're playing Brand Friendly Product Placement or Generic CGi Generated video game on the break room Xbox being played with PS2 controllers than if they're quietly dragging and dropping files until the new networking software recognizes the drive its in and starts
In real life, if you're playing Ping Pong on Company Time your ass is fired.
Gotta be sneaky about it, pretend your wireless earbuds are hearing aids and just pretend to mop the floor while you're playing Pokemon Go
I think it depends on the company, I work at a software company and you'll regularly see the big boss playing pool with staff at random times of the day. A bit of non work time during the work day can help the brain come up with solutions to problems.
Notice how they're always empty when they show them to you?
They don't even give employees time to play them...
Reminds me of this video of Huawei showing off its copy of Heidelberg at one of their campuses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGOlzkK_Bsw. The streets are almost completely empty, so relaxing.
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"Man, my job pays horribly and the benefits barely cover anything, but they have a ping-pong table so it's honestly a tough call."
I struggle to understand how someone could seriously write something like that question without a lack of self-awareness so dire that a walk to the kitchen would come with a near-death experience. It just can't be real.
That was beautifully put.
I think the truth is that it assuming it's the latter may not be enough. But the first two are even less likely. Additional responsibilities WITHOUT a raise is very, very unlikely to be what anyone was waiting for to stick around.
This is what I came to say. Good management will make people stay for a long time with less pay.
But obviously HR doesn't get that lmao.
This is it right here!
Last time a job tried to hire me from my current position, it was all about the money, my company was willing to compete. I stayed with the company.
This time where I'm throwing applications like campaign pamphlets, I'm willing to take a cut in pay.
It is shocking how a year can have a company go to the shitter.
The flip side is if you can't be bothered to set aside some money for a ping pong table, as well have the sense to first ask around whether people would rather have foosball, or a proper pizza oven, or whatever the fuck, your company culture probably also sucks. A place for recreation means that you respect recreation and extend enough trust to have employees self-manage their need for it.
...of course, setting up that place only to have it be a hunting ground for micromanagers preying on unsuspecting workers is not what I'm talking about. If noone ever uses those areas, worry.
yeah, the "not necessarily pay is accurate, but the "right" answer being ping-pong table pivots things from "ok, they have some understanding" to "incredibly tone deaf".
I mean not enough ping-pong tables could be reason to leave for a PE teacher or something
It’s true, most people don’t care about money.
They care about what money can help them buy, like another day of survival.
It was never about the money. It was about maslovs heirarchy of needs; which, at the very bottom, is a foosball table.
There's two kinds of money: Enough money, and more than enough money.
If you don't have enough money, that's all that matters. A nicer day at work means very little.
Once you have enough money, more money matters very little. Now it's about enjoying work etc.
Ah but what is enough money for you or I is not enough money for the bigwigs. And since they're obviously more important, as they're at the top, we have to have sure they get enough money even if that means you don't.
But they'll get you a ping pong table so you can stop thinking about how you don't know what you're going to feed your family tonight
This is brilliant!
Tangentially related, I heard another about enough money:
When you already have enough money, do you really need 2x enough money?
As a person with enough money, yes, I would love double my income.
Your baseline can change.
You may be fine with $1000 a month. You have everything you need: food, bed, apartment, electricity, etc.
Now you get a new job and have $2000. You try out more expensive food options and realize you like them better. You move into a bigger apartment and start enjoying the freedom.
You may never wanted this if you didn't try it, but now that you have, you don't want to go back. You may not have noticed that your mental and physical health was degraded due to your previous living conditions until you get better after raising your standards.
I interpreted enough as really enough, when you are really well off and can afford the good stuff/vacations/good cars whatever.
But you are right. The definition of enough changes through ones lifetime quite a bit. I would have a really hard time going back to broke (student).
I'm like mid-career and I can't afford vacations. There's always some other priority for the money and I would feel guilty for spending it on something that is by nature temporary and ephemeral.
That question isn't the best way to frame it, because yeah... 2x "enough" is pretty reasonable. That's still well within the high returns of happiness phase.
Do you need 1000x enough, though? Or 1000x that? I'd love a high end espresso maker, or a nicer car, or to be able to afford to take more time off, but there comes a point where more is just pointless.
Yeah like, cmon, what do you think the pyramid sits on. On the floor??? No, on the holiest of of foosball tables!
It's actually second from the bottom, above Pogs.
Eh, I dunno. You can wipe your tears with money, light cigars with it, sew clothing from it. Many uses! :P
There's only been two reasons for me to quit a job: shitty pay and shitty people in charge.
Sounds like this company has both.
Sounds like you need a Ping Pong table.
AND additional responsibilities!
With NO extra pay.
Somebody might also have a case of mondayitis.
I believe you'd get your ass kicked 'round here for saying that.
None of these answers is correct, it's simply not a multiple choice question.
For some the pay is important, others need a bit of distraction like a ping pong table.
Everybody has their own needs, the biggest HR loser is the one that fits all employees in the same square.
That is never the answer. If your business isn't retaining people because the party culture isn't party enough...you've got way bigger problems...and it's probably leadership.
As I get older I begin to realize that people love to work.
However people hate being treated like shit.
Treating people like shit or building an environment that supports shitty behavior poisons the well and will absolutely make people leave, even for a pay cut.
If you just respect people and properly value them and their contributions to your organization, you'll never have trouble keeping them.
A ping pong table is cheaper and less effort.
So, a fruit basket?
Think bigger, and rounder, and flatter, and then covered in cheese and maybe pepperoni. But no mushrooms, Dolores in accounting will pretend to vomit.
Hawaiian pizza, I gotchu fam
Joke's on you, I'm into that shit.
I wouldn't say party culture - it is what you make of it! You're normally at work for a significant portion of your day. Something like a table tennis table can help to break up the day and is just a bit of fun. For example, we had a table tennis tournament at work, which people got really into - it was fun and people bonded over it. I'd take that over working somewhere where you don't even know your colleagues.
This was at a tech company where culture was a big part of why almost everyone worked there. Definitely wasn't a party culture, but it was collaborative, where people worked closely together. There was never an expectation to work outside of working hours, or to do anything social - it was purely optional.
Obviously pay is a big factor, but it isn't everything. I'm lucky enough to be in a sector where I can afford to get paid less and have a better work (definitely not party!) culture and work-life balance.
I shrug...I like WFH...it's me vs the machine and that's that. I hated the forced corporate fun when I was still in that environment. It's "collaborative"...no...no it's not.
Sure...having Little John spin the company party was a neat story...getting paid 50k more and working in quiet peace is a better one.
Company parties are such a dumb waste of time. "Boss says, have fun!"
No thanks.
Totally understand - each to their own! And we agree on forced fun!
I WFH since COVID, and I definitely wouldn't go back to the office (we go in once every two months which everyone really enjoys). Personally, I'd swap the 50k for working in an environment that I enjoy, and that for me means working closely and collaboratively with my teammates, who I get along with. Everyone is different though, so what I want from a job is probably other people's idea of hell.
Like leadership partying too much
Nah. That's too black and white
Found that one that wanted the ping pong table.
A ping pong table? What for? So HR can punish you when you use it?
seriously，who has time to use a ping pong table at work? It's like a decoration to remind you you're not having fun.
You can only enjoy the perks during your 45 minute lunch break. Food or fun, your choice ..
Where do you live, where taking breakes is frowned upon? That's crazy.
Here in Denmark, I'm being reminded to take breakes and go home. I have been asked if I'm sure it's not hurting my work/life balance, before getting overtime approved.
It's also common to stay at work after hours to hang out, if there's a nice place to do that.
Come over to America! A magical place where you are only worth the money you make for your corporate overlords, and despite being told by your boss that they are SO glad that they hired you, your performance review is a 3/5 because they don't want you getting too comfortable and "there's always room for improvement!"
Ah, here it's very different. In multiple companies I've gotten consistent 5/5 and told by my own manager that I should really get a promotion, but they can't give me promotion or even a raise. Just the 1-2% salary adjustment everybody gets.
Feels so good... 🙄
You guys get 1-2% salary adjustments?!?
At least for me in IT, everybody usually gets an adjustment that's on average above inflation. So if you work the same place for ten years without ever getting a raise, you still keep up with inflation.
I think my lowest was 0% and my highest almost 3%. Some years slightly below inflation, but in any 3 year period I think I've been above inflation.
Then any raise is on top of that.
this sounds like a sci-fi novel
Same in my office in the UK, I got asked if I was not taking enough breaks or doing work outside of work hours as I was doing more than they expected and my manager was worried about me burning out, but having a chill atmosphere and a nice place to hang out and chill in the office just means that I can be more productive and happier at work so it's a win-win... A lot of HR types don't realise that it takes a nice office in both material and culture to make people productive and just go for the former which has the lower effect of the two when used alone.
Ok, calm down there, commie. Maybe you'd better go check in with your "family" and your "adequate housing". The rest of us are here to make money.... For other people.
I know that the American capitalism thing is a meme at this point, but working in software, every company I've worked for isn't against you taking breaks or doing whatever as long as things get done. I've played foosball with my VP during normal hours before, and it was slightly awkward but good fun.
The usual issue I see in my industry is that you constantly accumulate more responsibilities without any corresponding increase in pay. It's especially bad for morale when you see someone leave, and their responsibilities get distributed to the team, but no one gets any part of the old person's salary as a raise to make up for the added responsibilities even when the higher ups refuse to hire a replacement since you're all clearly handling it fine.
Listen, speaking as an American, we know Danes have better quality of life, but we’ll be damned if we will sacrifice capitalism to get there! Our motto is “if you’re not working, you’re losing money!” That only applies to the lower ranks, of course.
Seriously tho, I would love to live in a society that expects companies to hold the well-being of their employees over profits (not that these two are mutually exclusive), and the culture is changing slowly, but we’re not there yet.
Denmark is capitalist. High investment rates are literally their biggest internal economic driver.
from Wikipedia:
Well, there's the problem. Our capitalists say that's stupid, they'll just lose money!
I'm a capitalist and unions are dope. The two are clearly not incompatible.
Let's get union reform like these countries too
I agree. I wish more capitalists in charge did!
Exactly, that's the thing. Here in Denmark, many (most?) companies think that happy workers are more productive.
I might be colored by mostly working in places where it's very expensive to replace an employee, but then again, for Americans I mostly talk with people in a similar kind of job.
My guess is USA or UK
Source: live in USA. Taking breaks is seen as being lazy. As is taking days off when your sick.
I've been told multiple times to take more sick leave.
Usually when I come back from sick leave, I've been told I should have taken a day more to recover fully. But after days in bed, I just really want to start doing something, even if I'm tired.
Every shitty company in France is like this. And I’ve seen a lot like that.
That's nice and all, but staying after hours to hang out sounds awful. I don't want to befriend those losers, I want to get on with my life. They can all rot in hell for all I care, I'd sell them out in a heartbeat.
That's fine, I can't expect everybody to like that kind of stuff.
But it's still important to have that for those that do. And of course that people more like you, get what you want.
This is so true, and I don't even have a pingpong table at work
Yeah, the main reason Ive changed jobs is money. Nobody gives raises like new bosses.
I always tell people the easiest way to get a raise is to find a new job. Nobody is keeping up with inflation anymore, it's pretty much required to job hop to break even anymore.
I like my job, but I'd leave for the right position/compensation.
I try to interview once per quarter, at least.
I've started adding some tough questions, like asking how the average annual increases compare with inflation and COLA. Most interviewers turn into a 13 year old telling a girl they have a crush on them -- all of the sudden 0 confidence.
That's when I tell them that for the circumstance, my compensation ask is going to be quite high.
I also tell local employers that my "in office" ask is literally 5x pay. They always balk and say somethi g like "yeah that's not gonna happen," to which I say "Tell me about it!"
Everyone should interview more. Declining a good offer because you like your situation more feels like doing cocaine.
I often get ask about my salary expectation in the very first 10 minute interview with the HR person, before even getting the chance to talk to the team. Being sincere, I wouldn't get to follow-up interviews if I told them my expectation that they would definitely see as too high.
How do you deal with that situation?
Make sure you have a job while interviewing for a new one, that way you aren't desperate, and hold your ground!
You're applying to and weeding out jobs that don't suit you.
Your price is your price. They don't have to like it and you don't have to work with them.
I've told $50K jobs I wouldn't do it for less than 5x, 250K, lol. Yeah, I didn't get a follow up. Oh well. These are my terms. You want me in office for a 50k/yr role? I'll do it for 250k. This ensures I don't end up with a role not suited for me.
If the company doesn't want to match your salary expectation, then why interview? Are you hoping that meeting with the team will change their mind? I don't have enough experience to know if that happens, but I suspect it's unlikely.
Not every company posts salary up front, so there is at least that situation.
Or the salary range is $40k - $80k, which in my experience, means $40k.
If salary range says 40 to 80 and they offer 40, counter with 100.
Don't settle for less than 80 assuming your credentials fit the position.
Have them tell you no. Don't decide it based on intuition.
If they stay at 40 tell them you'll continue to look for employment that values your work where you think it should be valued, wish them well, and walk.
Glassdoor is usually sufficient to find the info you need unless it's a startup.
True enough. Yes, I would expect them to move towards my expectation once they got to know me better and once they see that I might fit into the team quite nice. At least I believe it more likely than weeding me out based on numbers in the very first call. I too don't have enough experience to know whether this is realistic. I just know that my current employer would lean into that way of thinking.
But, it seems that many companies can still afford to weed out candidates by numbers, at least here in Germany. So, I just have to do me as long as I have a secure position and otherwise, otherwise.
Especially if you know exactly that your employer most likely has zero loyalty to you either.
If there was a way to get the same work for 20% less, my employer would happily do that.
I never understood that logic, tbh. It can't be good for a business to lose half the staff every few years. Bringing in fresh blood once in a while is good, but you shouldn't need constant transfusions.
A company offered me a million dollars to work for them, but then I remembered the ping pong table at my current employer and said no way. Totally worth it.
I interviewed once for a part-time job at a potential startup, and the two people running it spent 75% of the time talking about how they had a pingpong table and how that meant it was a fun company...
The job wouldn't be in the office tho, so for my position (and pretty much every employee) would only be able to use it off the clock.
They were very excited about the ping pong table tho, because their job was in office and they played a lot.
I didn't take the job.
And the startup never opened.
I've worked in at a smaller startup with a ping pong table and my anecdote is we were all obsessed with ping pong. So their excitement could really be genuine. It's not always a ruse.
You are a wise man, keep it up
I had this argument with a boomer HR consultant and she just doubled down, even though I explained that neither I nor my colleagues, give two hoots about fussball or team building. Our position is a resounding "fuck you pay me" but oh no - boomer knows best.
My then gf now wife moved in with me and my employer wouldn't cover her under the insurance. I made it clear that this was important. They wouldn't back down. So got a new job. During the exit interview I repeated what I told them. It was only about the health insurance. HR tried to get me to talk smack about my manager, a guy I actually liked. I praised him and again told them that this was only about insurance.
Told my manager about what they did on the way out the door.
Yeah, often when an employee leaves it's about the lack of ping-pong table.
Questions like these make me wonder if large capitalists actually live in an alternate universe but through some time and space shenanigans they are still here. There's just no way they can make this type of shit up (assuming it's a real question) without being delusional or sadistic.
Of course there is: they want to implement doublethink. It's a deliberate attempt to make workers not to pursue their own rational interest when it conflicts with corporate profits.
I'm sorry to say but psychopaths walk among us every day, you just need to play the game, until you find a better gig
You gotta have hr (the worker who defends the bosses interests) on your side if you wanna drop $300 on a ping pong table rather than raises.
Raises cost $30,000. That's why they prefer the ping pong table.
They are either people in advantageous positions that benefit from this or people that are stupid enough to think they will one day be the rich benefiters of this so why should they shoot their future self in the foot right? Goes hand in hand with people that are stupid enough to keep voting right because they advocate for the poor so at some point surely something will change.
These people live in the future where automatons make money for them for nothing. It's why uber is pushing for automated cars. They don't care about the present.
🌍👨🏻🚀 🔫👨🏽🚀
When I worked at a soul-crushing insurance job, we were given an event where the bosses served us pancakes. That was right after we were forced to celebrate bosses' day and watch our bosses open gifts that the suck-ups got them. I was able to quit without notice shortly after and it felt so goddamn good.
I've never left a company because of money. I have left because the bullshit they put me through wasn't worth the money. That's not just being funny either. I'm okay with being under-compensated if the environment is positive, managers are friendly and flexible, and it actually feels like our sister teams have similar goals and we're not working against each other.
Ping Pong table ? Are they serious ?!? We had a PS5 in the meeting room for ~4 month an no one ever touched it. I don't go to work to have a fun time, I go to do my job, then leave and have a fun somewhere else. More correct answers for retaining employees:
It is pretty simple. Respect your employees and they will respect you. Respect starts with valuing the employee's contributions by paying them a fair wage. It continues with treating them well. A way of treating them well might be a point ping table, but that comes on top of a fair wage, not instead of.
A good manager might recognise a hard working team needs a way to relax and gets a pool table or something. The employees are happy and tell their friends they've got a pool table at work, everyone is jealous. It seems like the pool table is the reason but it is just a symptom of them being generally treated well.
I wonder if this is how this whole trend started: some decent manager recognized their hard working well-paid and taken care of team deserved some extra something, got them a pool table or whatnot, then other shittier companies copied this thinking it was a solution in itself without understanding why the thing was installed in the first place
Never quit a job over lack of ping pong tables.
Unless of course your job is to be a ping pong ball tester, in which case you may not be getting supported with the necessary tools to perform your job successfully.
Ah yes because I have the time to play ping pong :)
They didn't even take themselves seriously when making the "ping pong table" as the correct answer. HR is a bad joke
"Additional responsibilities" is obviously the correct intended answer.
Don't worry, it's a mandatory team building exercise. 😉
This is true but still not the right answer... it's not always about the money
IT'S ABOUT THE METS BABY, LET'S GO METS, GONNA GET A HOMERUN, LOVE THE METS! LET'S GO METS!
My boss had the worst employee satisfaction result ever seen in our group for his department. No surprise, he had oversold himself to get the job and when his idiotic project of redoing everything from the ground up started to be way delayed compared to the unrealistic promises he had made to the board, he asked everyone to go into "crunch mode" for "a short time", work late, Saturdays, and so on. A "short time" became months...
Anyhoo, he asked us, what we could do about his shitty results because the board actually got worried. I reminded him, the work life balance sucked, people were overworked and they didn't see any end to "the crunch" and it had to stop before any other action.
He dismissed my idea and he settled on a team lunch. But since he didn't want to waste work time for "the crunch", he decided to have it on a Sunday and fuck up the only off day for most of the people.
I've never seen a floor of people so angry than the day they got the email about that team lunch.
I told him, he dismissed it again.
That's about when I went into quiet quitting and patiently waited to be fired while pretending to be out on meeting and actually going for walks in the park.
I have quit from more than 10 companies (i'm old), and I'd say that 100% of the time the reason was shitty managers.
But "A raise in pay" would be the best solution to convince to me stay.
I'm not that old, worked with 14 companies, every manager was on the shit scale. Even when I saved a smaller companys biggest client, by rewriting critical part as a new hire when no one else could get it to satisfy new requirements, the manager told me I should not expect more money, since I didn't finish Uni.
Hundred percent. And best indicator for someone to stay is having sn actual friend at the company. So you gotta invest in leadership training and team building.
Sounds to me that those friends will stay in your life even if you would move to a different job.
I am close to that. I know I could make more and I don't particularly enjoy the work but my coworkers are freaken awesome and so is my boss. Guys I actually enjoy seeing after work.
Most likely just going to stick it out. There is something to be said about dealing with people for 40 hours a week that I like.
I’m in France and I confirm. I never left a company because of the salary. It was always because managers were behaving like little Hitlers.
This reminds me of the Simpson episode where they are negotiating a new contract. It’s the same as the old one expect the they replace the dental plan with a keg of beer.
Season 4 Episode 17 “Last Exit to Springfield” .
Lisa needs braces
Dental plan
Lisa needs braces
Dental plan
drops a pencil in your crack
https://piped.video/watch?v=I94w30LszoQ
Yeah, we're the fucking generation that can't afford our own living, but have you tried giving us a ping-pong table?
How many of these companies think employees are going to say it's about the money during an exit interview? Usually if you agree to an exit interview it's to be diplomatic and not burn your bridges. You're not going to tell the truth, you're going to say what they want to hear.
perfectly maps to startups selling working at a startup as "we're a family", "you're a googler", etc. give them a ping pong table and free beer on fridays and you can pay considerably less.
They said employee, not wage slave
the correct answer to this entire questionnaire is to close it and never look back
Of course, nobody with two brain cells to rub together who reads that answer is sitting there thinking to themselves, "Huh... I guess I've had it wrong all this time, focusing so much on money." Rather, they're instinctively blurting out, "Yeah right -- I call bull!"
But I'll give them partial credit; frequently it's about money. Sometimes, it's just about a work environment that used to be great going to crap. And sometimes, it's about the employee coming to an epiphany, and realizing that their work environment was actually crap all along.
That said, it may be true that not every job that I've ditched was entirely because of money... but it should go without saying that it's always a factor in where I went for the next job. Also, it's never the only factor -- but it's certainly one of the more significant ones.
"Usually, in our narrow and sad description of what an employee wants, it's not money. Clearly it's more related to the lack of ping-pong tables and extra responsibilities." 🤡
These people have absolutely forgotten what it means to be an employee.
share this with workreform. they'll love it. I would link but forgot how
![email protected]
I actually convinced my boss to get us a ping pong table, all I had to do was forego my pay for a year!
Totally worth, since I'm not working for the money, I'm working for the culture (our culture is now a ping pong table). It's so awesome that I can use it during my state-mandated breaks 🙂
This has to be satire
...right?
Definitely not. I've seen these type of questions and answers on practically any job application in America. Thing is, this isn't even the worst example of it, unfortunately. It's fucking depressing and degrading.
I can't afford groceries for the 3rd time this month, but did you hear they're putting a ping pong table in the lounge!?
Most people quit because of bad bosses. I know I have...
46 HR Employees downvoted this post.
Wild. They both "might" help. They both cost the company money. They should both be correct.
Wtf are you talking about? Employees work office jobs 9 to 5 because they love to work. Like all good employee's. Heck, if they weren't getting paid they'd still the work for free because they love it so much. It's only out of the pure goodness of my heart that I decide to pay them minimum wage/s
They work because they're family, right? Not for money.
The only thing that makes less sense than your comment is people upvoting it.
Morale and pay are both factors, your sarcastic comment makes it seem like you believe everyone only cares about pay and nothing else...
Some people make good money, so that's not their primary motivation when picking a job.
You clearly missed “/s” at the end of his post, OR you don’t know what it means.
It's funny how many people are telling me I missed the sarcasm when I literally said it was sarcasm...
Someone can attempt sarcasm and still fuck it up bud
Agreed, but the above comment is not one of those times. Just admit you missed it and go on with life. Nice edit with both comments, lulz
When you edit on Lemmy it resets how long ago the comment was made...
If I edited it, your reply to me would show a newer timestamp...
No idea why so many people in this sub have no clue what they're talking about, but it looks like I'm just blocking the whole thing
And when you edit within a minute of a reply that was made within a minute of your comment nothing changes. Just suck it up and admit you missed it, dude.
It's obviously sarcasm...
Maybe that's why I said it was sarcastic?
Someone can be sarcastic and still not make a point...
What exactly do you think sarcasm is?
If needing to pay for basic necessities weren't a factor in people getting jobs, I highly doubt the majority of people would work the kinds of jobs of today. I don't know a single person who is excited to go into their retail job and deal with shitty customers all day or sit in a bland cubicle all day making spreadsheets that nobody really cares about.
I know more people who would much rather devote their time to learning and playing instruments, or making something with their own hands, or writing stories, or spending time raising their families.
I actually enjoy making those spreadsheets. I wouldn't do it for free though.
Hey if that's your jam go for it, personally I'd like to live in a world where someone can elect to do that sort of work and not have to worry and stress about housing, food, bills etc or take on that kind of work despite hating it in order to put food on the table.
Not everyone works entry level retail jobs...
And some people already make enough to live comfortably...
Which is why I said that.
I now completely understand why something as stupid as what I replied to got upvoted tho.
Have fun here
In fact all three are valid answers. Cruel manipulation as it is, additional even uncompesated responsibilities often do drive retention as people are invested too deep and too stressed out to consider switching or find time for the process.
Chants for your next strike action:
I doubt most people leave because of a lack of ping-pong table.
This is the reason why but never the reason I give. If I make employers think at any time that I focus too much on the money, they will see me as a troublemaker. Instead, I come up with some bullshit excuse such as medical reasons and the smart employers will work it out on their own.
Damn. Now I want a ping pong table.
As a capitalist I don't understand why it wouldn't be about the money
In my experience, they're thinking 20-30 cents per hour. And yah, that's never enough to change someone's mind. 20-30% that could make a difference, but it's way too much for them to ever concider.
That's awesome! It's nice to know it works out sometimes. Congrats!
Congratulations 😄
Was "A ping pong table and enough free time in my schedule to actually use it for half an hour on a quiet day without the area manager coming in and demanding that we get back to work" too long?
Ill stay at an average paying job with a great culture, over a shitty culture and more money. But only to a point.
Oh yeah, fun fact, in my former and current job every year we get invited to a town halls with some executive and every year we hear the complaints that we can't keep employees.
Every year I ask the same question, "We keep hearing that we have a attrition problem so why do we keep chasing the industry standard for pay and benefits, why can't we adjust our pay scale and promotion process to actual reward performance to actually keep our high performers?"
Every year, is a non-answer, nothing changes, we lose good people and only keep our industry standard people.
Though it was funny that since I'm on multiple projects/teams I did get the same speil multiple times from the same person and the third time in two years I got called I didn't even have to ask before I got the boiler plate.
I thought this was chatgpt for a second because I didn't want to believe anyone but ai could be this tone deaf. then I remembered humans and got depressed
How about giving them a raise in pay, and if they really want it, they can buy the ping-pong table out of their own pocket flips desk
That's stupid. Wouldn't the smarter thing to do be to buy the ping pong table and Dock everyone's pay because of it? That ping pong table cost the company a fortune. And no, those bite marks on the leg of pool table aren't from my dog/s
I think I am bad at capitalism.
If they put a ping pong table anywhere within earshot of my desk I’m going apeshit
Capitalism stops when it comes to salary. Then it's all about culture and warm fuzzy feelings. Those are the only incentives an employee needs.
This totally doesn't look like something fake with its lack of source or context that was just made to spark rage, not at all
If definitely seen shit like this on menial job applications in the past. Typically as pary of a "personality test" that tries to root out commies. USA obv
I never left a job just to make more money. But I have left managers who weren't looking out for me, and happened to make more money in the process.
It'd such a bad feedback loop. Employees don't always feel safe being honest at exit interviews, so they say what they think HR wants to hear and HR just takes it as fact. Then they build training like this based off what Former employees felt safe telling HR and the cycle continues.
The ping ping table at least lasts longer than a pizza party, but it's no more significant. When retiring, nobody wishes they ate more pizza or played more ping pong at work. They wish they had been able to grow and make more money so they'd be better taken care of.
Here's a pingpong table. If you are fit enough to play after a 10h shift, knock yourself out. Except that the office closes when you finished your work so, no, it's just decoration.
If it was a Foosball table, it could at least be used as a makeshift coat rack
That's 95% correct. Ping Pong table is dumb but it's very often not about the money.
If a company is paying competitive wages then when an employee quits it isn't because of pay.
If a company is paying low wages it will probably be because of the pay that a person quits, because there is nothing to keep them putting up with the bs that EVERY COMPANY HAS.
It's especially morbid when the CAPITALISTS try to get you to "care about our totally noble mission, not what you get paid."
The irony being that the mission is always to make the capitalist owners more money as the only priority. You, on the other hand, should just see making them money as its own reward, you lucky little capital battery.
It's like being scolded about the intrinsic value of human life... by Jeffrey Dahmer.
So... this is pretty stupid, a raise in pay certainly might help.
However, from the perspective of a career spent managing teams, often organizations with hundreds of employees, if you think your people are all solely motivated by compensation, you're going to do a very poor job as a manager.
Everyone wants more money, but that's not all they want -- and there are plenty of people who quit high paying jobs that treated them poorly or gave them no opportunity to grow.
Think about appropriate compensation as necessary, but often not sufficient -- and think about the best boss you ever had. They probably did more than just pay you fairly, that's the bare minimum.
What the list needs is "fire their toxic manager" or "ask them what they need to be happy and successful in their career"
Right... "perform an actual exit interview" would be good
I've seen reference to research showing pretty much what you're saying: Inadequate pay gives dissatisfied employees, but raising pay above a certain level only gives very short term increase in employee satisfaction. The conclusion was that pay has to be high enough that people feel fairly compensated, but further increasing it has little to no long-term effect.
Yep. It's why companies can offer ridiculous salaries and still have crazy employee churn (see: amazon, tesla).
Seriously. Another comment pointed out there's "not enough money" and "enough money" for wages. Depending on which side you're on money may not be the reason someone quits. My previous job paid me enough, but the business partner was so dangerously incompetent, reckless, agressive, and unwilling to do their own job that I quit out of frustration. I made it very clear to my boss' boss that it wasn't about money, and I wasn't going to tell them what my new compensation was. It isn't his business. My issue was the business partner. Within a few months a few other people quit working there too for the same reason.
Exactly. "Pay people enough, " is table stakes. It's good business strategy and it's a basic moral duty. "Grossly over pay people, " is probably not good business strategy; even if you do, it isn't going to make up for being a shitty place to work
Yeah, I get what you’re saying, but between more money and a ping pong table, which do you think most people would choose? If they wanted to imply a more casual/fun/less-stress environment, they should have said that, but implying a ping pong table would motivate people to stay is like thinking dangling your keys in front of a baby to stop its crying will keep it happy forever. At least a pay raise is helpful to me.
Middle of the road: pay your employees in ping pong tables, increase monthly ping pong table quota.
Surprised it didn’t go full dystopian and say “pizza party.”
This is why we need a huge general strike. It's going to take this getting a lot worse before must people would consider joining though. It's a trap and it's tough to get out of. Capitalism is a train wreck.
didn't thought I would read neoliberal nonsense in the comments of an antiwork meme
"printing money" is a symptom not the cause
I've left a dozen or so jobs over my entire life. One because the job was eliminated, five or six because school was starting/ending, one because the manager was a prick, and the rest exclusively because I was offered more money.
This has to be a joke or satire, right?
💀
Employee retention has been a huge part of my job for over a decade. In the professional world, employees rarely leave over money.
It's generally about opportunities to do new things/grow in their career (which is distinctly different from compensation), a culture problem (which compensation will not fix), or an engagement problem (poor leadership)
And has someone who quit over poor compensation, those are exactly the bullshit reasons I told HR on my way out, as to not burn bridges.
When I was younger, at least. Old me doesn't give a shit anymore.
I'm sure your anecdotal experience clearly changes how the science of studying human behavior works.
That's why COVID boosters were so pointless - your cousins brother's friend got sick from the booster so obviously they're full of metals that solidify in your circulatory system.
An argument born from being a literal expert in something is not "anecdotal"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2023/07/09/beyond-money-the-real-reasons-employees-stay-or-leave/?sh=4d9542983d07
This is well-understood information with literally millions of data points
I've heard that people leaving Amazon do so because of the environment/culture there, even though Amazon pays very well.
Are you upvoting yourself with bots or what's going on here? You seem to be making very sure to drive the point that it definitely ISN'T money lol.
They sound like someone who's completely disconnected from the financial realities of 95% of workers lmao
The only way I can see what he mean making sense is that he's talking about the people making more than low 6 figures. I can totally see someone making 300k a year not leaving because of money but because they wanna do something new.
It's almost never about money, once you hit salary-exempt professionals.
I never thought that CEOs might plant a seed that a "cultural change and approach in HR" and falsified stats papers would be the new meta to keep payroll low.
Is it a ping pong table full of money?
Yup they try to pull this shit all over the world.
I'd stay with a job I hate for more money
No, no! You silly, he meant to raise the pay to the ping pong table! He wanted a bigger one!
This is a jackwagon CEO (Oligarch in training.) trolling the masses. Don't fall for the rage bait. Just form a Union and strike. Better yet, boycott the company until they disolve. 🤷
"Capitalism indoctrination" doesn't make any sense in this context. Capitalism in this context would be that raising the pay of an employee is investing in your business to retain good producers of the products you sell for profit. Competitive pay rates are a weapon in the capitalist war for profits.
Capitalism doesn't require rational behavior; all it requires is a system that allows some people to make passive income by exploiting other people, based on the idea of private property. CEOs, for example, don't care about what's good for the business; they care about extracting as much value from the business and the workers as they can get away with before moving on to the next victim.
Please stop posting the same thing in different communities. It was obnoxious on Reddit and it is obnoxious on here too.
Just because you follow overlapping communities doesn't mean everybody else does. As long as the post follows the community policies, there's no problem with posting the same content to multiple appropriately-themed communities.
Bruh. I only posted it one community which I was advised to do so by others. The others are other people sharing this in other communities. There's nothing wrong with sharing posts, in fact it can help people find other communities they might like.
Hey I want a raise as much as the next guy but to be honest the title is kinda wrong. Capitalism has existed since the start when humans started trading each other, so you can't really be indoctrinated like you can with communism.
Communism has been around since animals started working collectively toward the good of the group.
idk guy im pretty sure it was transactional but it's cool I'm just glad we are done with history.