Now if you asked them, if they hired a plumber by the hour, and they watched him constantly playing on his phone instead of doing the job, they'd be upset.
Hi Kathryn, a lot of office jobs these days are salaried positions. Which means you get paid the same, regardless of how many hours worked. Personally, I like this system better as it encourages efficiencies.
Unfortunately, most employers still hold onto the hourly rate mindset, effectively giving them the best of both worlds. In other words, they pay a salary, but expect employees to be there from 9 - 5. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
To me, a salaried position means to get paid a set rate to do a set amount of tasks. If those tasks get done by Person A in say, four hours, then what's the point of expecting them to do additional work? If this is what the employer wants/expects, then they should pay an hourly rate.
Let's say Person B takes 8 hours to do the same set of tasks. Note Person A and Person B are both getting paid the same amount. If you (as the employer) expect Person A to take on more work, then you are effectively punishing Person A for being efficient and encouraging them to slow down.
When you address being paid by the hour, then your point is understandable, but what are your thoughts on the above example? The reason I ask is because the example I outlined above is exactly what happened to me (I was Person A). I actually quit the business I was working for, partly for this reason.
The other reason was when I approached my employer asking for a raise (to market rates), after the other two people in my section left the company, I was given a token raise, which still left me about 25% under market. So I was doing the work of 3 people (3 and a half if you include the extra work I did when I had downtime) for well below market rates.
You might respond with 'your employer appreciates you working harder'. That might be true in La La Land, but not in the real world. In my case, the employer merely took it for granted that I would take on additional work - in fact, it was expected and if I didn't ask for/take on additional jobs, they viewed me as 'lazy'. Even though I was doing the equivalent work of 3 and a half people (measured by the output of others in the office). I even had the practice manager come up to me one time and tell me to slow down! The reason for that was because I was helping another section with their work and was doing it at a much faster pace than they do it (and doing it to the required standard), making them look bad.
The boss actually sent me an email just prior to my leaving saying that my output had been suffering the last few months. At which point I showed him my record of work done showing that if hadn't decreased, but increased!
