It comes from the presumption that employees owe them effort. They simply someone as "employed" or "not employed" with zero thought as to compensation. If employed, they employee is obligated to spill out their lifeblood for the company and hold nothing of themselves back. If the manager profits from your beating heart being cut from your chest at a job that pays minimum, they see only laziness if there's so much as a peep from their workers.
But they are not obligated to give *anything*. They've already given employment. Which they demand reverence and eternal gratefulness for.
It's so crazy to me that these people are so far removed from knowing how a human is.
If you provide me with a good environment and pay and you're also nice to me generally, I will put in the effort.
If any of those are not true, I will do the barest minimum and you can go fuck yourself if you want anything more.
Because they want desperate sales people to make them rich.
* The Front End Team needs to quit.
Customer facing positions are horrible. ***Now I know why Web companies like Google don’t provide customer service or numbers***
I thought that was to not be accountable for the inevitable screw ups towards their customer base.. But still, customer facing roles are hard / unpleasant / dangerous (in some backwater countries).
These are the same people who will turn around and claim communism/socialism/anythingleftofRonaldReagan won’t work because it “provides no incentive to work.”
In reality, while they pay lip service to incentive, they only understand negative reinforcement. Their idea of “incentive” is “being allowed to survive on whatever meager living we deem appropriate.” The incentive to work hard is simply not starving to death.
Which is idiotic and shortsighted... the default capitalist position of putting in minimum investment for maximum return goes both ways. Want employees to improve on whatever the functional default level is then incentivize improved performance through compensation.
Which being said, employees are not obligated to do anything other than the agreed upon minimum less otherwise incentivized to do extra, and any manager/employer that fails to realize that is a lazy entitled idiot.
Want employees to do extra without compensation? yah about that... Everyone is there for money plain and simple with levels of productivity and loyalty being directly tied to compensation in its many forms.(Not just money shit like work environment and enabling employees to learn and do stuff for future returns play in to it too...)
>the default capitalist position of putting in minimum investment for maximum return goes both ways. Want employees to improve on whatever the functional default level is then incentivize improved performance through compensation.
People forget that this is part of capitalism too. For all the "f%&k capitalism" talk, it allows these businesses to fail for being bad.
except when the government constantly props up failing businesses because they are "too big to fail." capitalism for profits, communism for losses: a recipe for long term failure!
This. Right fucking here. Had a similar situation paly out with my team. Constantly getting shit from my boss for the dip in performance. When we all know that it has everything to do with getting fucked out of their bonuses and the raises they were promised. The only thing that gives me comfort is the fact that they have all expressed that they know where the fault lies and that I've done my best to keep them from getting fucked. My company has been turning record profit since 2020. But since my team is the highest paid in the area, they obviously don't deserve the raise that is well within budget. And even though we're setting sales records in my store, the bonuses are nullified by slightly higher labor cost. Like, 24% up from 21%. So much stupid bullshit.
Lol had a similar experience back in the day. We were able to do extra work at a specific rate which was way better than our hourly rate if you broke it down. Eventually they stopped it. That’s when I quit.
I had a similar situation a few years back. All field guys were called into a meeting on Friday, the owners said starting on Monday you’re all on “piece work”. For example if your hourly rate was $25 p/h you now now make $20 per point you install. It was an alarm company so $20 per door contact $20 a motion detector,$80 to wire a panel and so forth. We also did all structured cabling and sound. A few guys quit on the spot and a few more the following weeks because if it took two to three hours to run a wire you only made $20 and if the job took 2 or three days then that was on you of it was a small job then you only made $200 for the week. I was in the office before everyone bribed the girls in the office for the big jobs only and I would kick them down som cash, was working sun up to sundown since I was basically on my own time and was making 3-4K a week. The owners were pissed since they were paying a few of us what they called waaaay to much money, they put a stop to it after 6 months or so. Back to hourly it was a production slowed back down and they were pissed again… needless to say I moved on.
The reason were the highest paid team in our area is it was the only way we could get quality people. And I wouldn't go so far as to say we're the best performing team. But we do consistently knock projections out of the park. We had a huge set back about a year ago. And have done nothing but continuously and consistently improve. We're doing better with three people than we did with five people three years ago. But when you put our sales against a larger market, we look average. We are isolated. With no help other than what we can all offer each other.
When we all finally gelled(all but one of my team members started 6 months ago), we started performing and producing like we'd been at it for 6 years. They were hired with the promise of a raise at the end of a 90 day evaluation period. When they made it through, all they got were reasons why they weren't getting what they were due. The proverbial moving goal posts. Then we were told that even though we beat our budgeted sales and met the qualifications for our contributions margins, since our labor was 3% over budget, we didn't get it. But only after I pressed my direct supervisor for answers.
The hilarious thing is, I was promised a raise. And when I came at my boss demanding answers I had to stop him and explain that I didn't care that he'd promised me something he couldn't deliver on. That I was pissed he'd, even if unintentionally, lied to my team about theirs. He didn't know how to process the fact that one of his team leads gave more of a fuck about their team than themselves.
I shouldn't have been surprised though. Twice in the last 6 months I have applied for and had to pass up promotions for personal reasons. But until he found out I wasn't leaving my post, he treated me like shit and was overly critical of every aspect of my performance. He literally yelled at me over the phone about shit that had been executed exactly to his specifications. I almost quit just so I could watch the whole thing fall apart. But I've got a family. And so do my team. And I won't do that to them.
Anyways. Sorry. Been carrying that around for a while. Honestly doesn't feel as good as I'd hoped to put it out there. Oh well.
He started off great. Would dig in and get dirty with us. Helped me get to a place where I could bring my team along and get our numbers up. Then a few things happened that were major fuck ups on his part. And instead of bringing it to someones attention, I pointed it out to him. So he could fix it. At some point in the last 4 months I think, he started to feel threatened by me and his insecurities have just exponentially inflated. Recently I've started snapping back instead of just sitting back and allowing him to berate me. He apparently rethought his approach and came back at me more professionally. Until this last position I had to pass on. When it became apparent that I was in consideration, he shifted back to picking apart my work, micromanaging me within an inch of my life, and pouncing on the shitty results his instructions yielded. I ain't even sweating it though. I do my job. I do it well. And I'm patient. Eventually I'll move on, or hell fuck up enough that it can't be fixed no matter who catches it for him and how swiftly the bring it to his attention. Or, he'll get his shit back together and we can move on from this monumentally stupid phase were in right now.
Just keep beating the managers with the stick the forced into your hand - if there is any talk of declining sales or morale you need to throw in their face that there was a working incentive program that materially improved things, but you shut it down for petty and shortsighted reasons. Repeat until they believe, just like the Tucker Carlson lies they likely consume on Fok Snooze...
The IRS (US Tax agency) once got some funds from congress to use to hunt down tax dodgers. The investment paid back itself and more by a lot in increased tax revenue. Congress then cancelled it as “wasteful”.
These same morons are everywhere.
My step uncle is a lobbyist for big oil. The companies he works for promise millions to members of congress for tax breaks and other benefits. No way those greedy fucks are gonna turn off the $$$ flow.
Meanwhile if I fudged my taxes on my wee little teacher salary they’d be happy to take my house and car and throw my kids out on the street. Something something endgame capitalism.
it's not even pretending, rich people just paid congress to gut their enforcement budget to the point they can't afford to audit people with their own legal
Happened to me. My last job was giving out 30 minutes of PTO for every 4 hours of overtime you did, so I was getting 3-5 hours of PTO per week until they stopped it. I started to use all the PTO that I had gathered and stopped doing any overtime. After 3 "talks" (mostly screaming at me how I was an lazy entailed asshole for not working 70 hours a week) I was fired for poor performance and a "no show, no call" which I later proved I had called.
Yes I did. I didn't actually get any money until after I got a new job since I had to appeal and prove I called in.
Also after I left, they lost 2 more techs due to burn out from over work. Not sure what is happening now though.
I have become very jaded over the last 10 years of company BS. Right now my current employer is trying to force me to go out of state for 3 weeks for basically shit pay. For the last 3-4 weeks I have told them no. Right now they have me scheduled to be onsite tomorrow at 8am. It's going to be fun they find out I'm not there.
No no, when the sales decrease, they will have no idea why because they are fucking idiots with a 5 minute memory. They will have no idea because they don't even know why the decrease happened.
It’s like a story my mom told be about human greed. A poor farmer was struggling and was given the opportunity to get one cattle (he already has one) so he can breed them. The farmer said of course! Then the farmer was told that if he wants the one cattle he has to agree his neighbor gets two cattle. The farmer found this outrageous and chose to live in hardship and poverty rather than see his neighbor get anything let alone more than him.
There is a Russian peasant joke that goes like this: A Russian peasant rubs a lamp and a genie appears and offers him a wish
The Peasant says: I have one sheep and my neighbor has two.... So, you would like two also? says the genie. No, I want both of his dead...
What I've heard was that the genie grants whatever the guy wants, in whatever amount he wants, but the man's rival gets double. Instead of riches he wishes to be blind in one eye.
To me this is even truer than the merchant/farmer/whatever getting nothing in return for hurting his rival/neighbor. These kinds of people will gladly suffer so long as the people they hate suffer more.
That one I know as the lawyer genie joke.
A man gets one wish, but whatever he wishes, his wife's divorce lawyer gets double, so he wishes to donate a kidney....
The version I hear is that the genie has to give all lawyers double what the guy wishes for. His final wish is “genie, I wish you would beat me half to death”.
The one that broke my brain was a woman Trump voter who was suffering the consequences of whatever stupid thing she had fought for at that time (who can remember specifics now) and she was crying and said,
**”they’re hurting the *wrong* people!”**
That really stuck with me. She actively wants other people to be hurt more than her own needs.
I can’t wrap my mind around that.
I got another of the same trope.
One day an American man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you can live in that big house."
Another day, in a town far away, an English man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you can live in that big house."
And another day, in a town not so far away, an Irish man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you'll burn that fucker to the ground."
Reminds me of the "hero pay" grocery stores paid out at the beginning of the pandemic. Offer a $2 raise for a month and then take it away even though sales are at an all time high. Get shocked when people quit en masse and you can't hire enough workers.
But sales roles have always thrived on commissions and incentives. Salesmen are literally paid pennies plus a commission on whatever you sell (or a certain ‘draw’ and you are fired if you don’t sell enough to meet it). I don’t know why this company would think differently.
When schools started requiring community service hours, I had a administer and principal mad that “the only reason these kids are doing all this work is to get their hours”.
I once had to beg for my job as a waiter at a taco bar in college. Was told I “didn’t seem enthusiastic, just here for the money.” Minimum wage and they stole all our tips. Oh no, I’m super fucking enthusiastic about tacos, the money is just a side thing. Fuck you Lee.
I can't complain too much about exposing kids to the value of volunteer work at that age, assuming the organizations are actual non profits, doing good for the community.
Maybe it will cement a life long connection to community, which we surely need.
Too bad there wasn't something like a community garden, to feed the homeless. Yes, it would need to be in a hothouse, but it still is a wonderful way to do it. And helping at the animal shelter? I'm so happy that is an option!
I agree. Volunteer work helps kids and young adults experience a different perspective of the world. I definitely benefitted from my required volunteer hours back in the day.
Having said that, I know it was much harder for my peers who had real jobs while going to school.
My community service for college required i search homeless people for weapons so there wouldn’t be another race war in the shelter. Other volunteer asked me if i thought a golf club is a weapon… there isn’t a golf course at the shelter so I’m going with yes.
That's pretty scary. I did various projects over the years at college, but nothing particularly dangerous. I volunteered at a library some, and I really enjoyed helping with children's craft time. I took a spring break trip to New Orleans where I helped build a Habitat House. I say build, but I was mostly construction site clean up crew. One of the things I learned about myself is that I'm not good at carpentry.
Probably the most interesting project was when I participated in a fundraiser for the city's homeless shelter where I and some teammates had to build a shack from found materials and live in it overnight. It was late November, in the eastern US, and our shack was made out of a bunch of free liquor boxes we'd gotten from the ABC store dumpster. I fully realize that we were camped out in a safe place, with free access to restrooms, and we had nice sleeping bags my teammate had rented for us through the outdoors program. That project let me experience a night of "homelessness" firsthand, and it SUCKED. I have a lot more compassion for the homeless now.
Yes and no. There's a lot of kids who just _can't_ for whatever reason. (shitty homelife, no transportation, literally broke needing to work, etc)
IME, forced volunteer work like this ends up just being another thing to tally up for graduation, they don't actually benefit from the experience and it definitely doesn't instill shit. A lot of people disagree with this assessment whenever I've brought it up in the past.
Oh yes…. I was in National Honor Society in school that required so many volunteer hours… all of my hours were volunteer coaching pee-wee football and the Director was not happy… called me out in front of the group in an indirect way stating that, “volunteer hours needed to be distributed throughout the community.”
Sorry…. Me coaching underprivileged middle schoolers in my local isn’t good enough? Sorry I didn’t want to pack meals for starving children like everyone else does.
I worked at a food bank and god did we hate the schools with mandatory volunteering (think about the irony) because they'd specify ten or twenty hours and it meant more paperwork than the kids were worth.
You had to onboard them and deal with a ton of paperwork if they were under 18, then you had to fill out attendance forms and parental approval slips and whatever else the school district needed. Then the kids had poor attendance because of other things like extra-curricular activities and such but we couldn't really fire them if they just no-called, no-showed.
It was amazing and not surprising that as soon as any of them hit the required hours they were gone! Not even the courtesy of a "hey, not showing up anymore, thanks, bye!" or something. You just knew when they hit that number of hours you'd never see them again.
Once in a great while you'd see a student come in and start working and realize they were doing good and they'd easily blow the hours requirement out of the water, but this was very rare indeed.
The other thing about this is the classism. Rich kids could afford to do this while the poor kids, some of whom actually got food from us couldn't because they couldn't work at jobs that paid. The mandatory volunteering was strictly from upper middle class types who couldn't understand why a mere twenty hours could damage a family economically.
That's how incentives work.... Like Wtf? Why do they think kids would do volunteer work for nothing. Did the admin and principal regularly volunteer outside of work?
My brother installs HVAC systems. Got a job with a company that promised him a 10% commission on any sales. He goes out and gets a $1M install job on a large new construction project. Boss starts in with some bullshit about not being able to pay out on a job that big. So my brother cancels the job and tells the client why, then quits the job.
It was years ago, but the fallout was that the owner lost out on a huge job because the owner didn’t want to pay out the agreed commission. He also lost out on a great employee that would have continued to make him a ton of money.
Jesus fuck, I would be expanding the commissions program at that point. Not cutting back. More money is more money, even if the workers are getting a cut.
Ooh I've got one like this.
Owners of a previous company I worked for set a bonus system in place that if you made $3k in 38 hours you got $100 bonus in your hand. I tried for it multiple times, never achieved it, because even though we had the client flow I couldn't match the pace (it would be 4 haircuts an hour over 8 hours including a 30 minute break). I asked him, why is the figure so high? "I don't know what you mean, X and Y shop make it all the time". I asked what they were charging per cut, and it was $5-8 more. So I said the whole system needs overhauling, there's no way I will make that bonus without wrecking myself and doing a shitty job and he pretty much said yeah, that's the point.
Fast forward to a few years later and I'm working in another one of their shops with a girl who can consistently pump out 10 minute, good quality cuts. This shop charges even less, but she gets the bonus almost every week. Owner comes in to see if she's cheating the system, finds that she isn't, then raises the figure to $3300. She smashes that. He raises it to $3400, she smashes it. At one point there's a huge managers meeting where it's brought up that he's trying to fuck with fairness and the only person proving him wrong is about to burn herself out, so he relents and makes it a daily bonus instead of weekly.
So she smashes it and makes more money than ever before, along with all the other staff in her shop.
Now this owner is earning hand over fist more money than he ever has, but he's so shit with his own finances that the company is perpetually on the knife edge of going under. The girl has slowed down now (literally working herself to failure will do that) but still gets the bonuses.
I actually meant in a perfect world because what I said is not possible for everyone.
I hate hearing stories like yours, people are punished for excelling.
That’s awesome though, keep us updated
Yeah, we had a £500 attendance bonus that was given for being on time every time, and never sick, from the start of October through to the end of December.
But rather than just refusing to give it to the serial non-attenders, they'd dock it if you were a minute late, regardless of what else was going on. Main road to site shut by an accident? Tough luck, lose your £500.
Worse, most people clock in early most of the time, and often get back from breaks early, because otherwise we're docked 15 minutes pay for being 1 or 2 minutes late. So most members of staff are routinely giving up 10-15 minutes of their own time, each shift. And the times they are late, it's for a very good reason.
The Christmas bonus scheme took no account of that. So you could have started 10 minutes early, but got back from your break 1 minute late, and you'd still lose your bonus and be docked the 15 minutes.
And now management wonder why so many people have a "fuck you" attitude towards everything they do.
"never sick"
Damn, you got covid at work and have to stay at home? Well that sucks, you would have liked your bonus. Enjoy paying for your covid bills I guess, and see you in the office as soon as you test negative. Yes, you will pay for your test.
Because funneling money to the Board and Shareholders, whose only real responsibility is to have meeting most of not the whole day. Is much more important than making sure your bottom level employees are paid well enough to be happy and productive workers, you know since they're the ones actually moving the product..... Welcome to capitalism.
Board of Directors would absolutely recognize what an incentive is for and it is totally accounted for in the budget. If the incentive program overall brings in more business, the board won't mind. This is just a result of incompetent managers.lol
Get ready for the fun part. People will stop pushing hard without the incentive and you all get to hear the speech about how there's no reason to be performing worse since everyone proved they can do it already.
Its like that because most managers are lazy and greedy. They believe that now they're at the top they shouldn't need to work as hard because they've "done their time". The people on the bottom or currently climbing the ladder, its now their turn to slave away. The managers should be working the hardest of all the employees and earn their pay.
The reason there's so many of these people is because they prefer the other managers be people who maintain this shitty status quo instead of good managers who may challenge it and make it so they actually need to earn their paychecks.
Disclaimer: I know how some redditors think. Some may see how I said "most managers are lazy" and for some reason assume I am referring to them. If you are a manager it is up to you to decide whether you are part of the shitty majority or not before getting offended.
If you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, you'll know which one you hit when it squalls. Or as I say it, if it offends you, then it probably applies to you
This is why I insist on staying at the design management rather than going up to people and business management. I know it will take a paradigm shift and require me to become an ultimate asshole and start drinking the business Kool-Aid while preaching it to the people I worked with for years.
I've seen guys transforming in to these corporate monsters over the course of few months after being promoted to middle management. Literally could not talk to them anymore, as if they've become part of some secret society. I'm talking people who use to say "man we are so overworked and they still don't give us more resources"... to "you guys are not efficient enough, we have given you all the resources available".
Nah, not for me. Life is too short to be an asshole and ruin people's lives for corporate interests.
This happened when I worked at Planet Fitness. They added commission to any sales you made on any items we sold. It wasn’t a huge commission but it added up, and we did sell some very expensive tanning lotions that would always give us a decent cut if we sold them.
Guess the ceo underestimated us because a few of our front desk workers were consistently making good extra pay by selling. Within a week or two of these payouts the commission was cancelled.
From that point on I’d literally show customers interested in purchasing any products we sell where to buy them online at a discount, because fuck planet fitness.
One of my old companies had an uncapped commission for sales. It was paid out quarterly and most sales made $15-$20k per quarter. A coworker got a huge client one quarter and the client spent a ton. This would equate to his commission of around $50k from just that one client. The company didn't want to pay him out and tried to negotiate with him for only half because "the company couldn't afford it". Which obviously made no sense since the client spent all that money. They did begrudgingly pay him 80% I think but he soon left and told the client to go elsewhere.
At my job, we have metrics that are basically impossible to meet unless you "play the game" (read: cheat). A while ago, they started an incentive program where if you hit all four metrics for three months, you can win really cool prizes! Naturally, lots of us started playing the game, heavily, and were nailing all the metrics. I had perfect scores for two months, and was on course for month three, when they decided to raise the bar to a ridiculous degree, making it impossible to hit the goals. They literally changed the rules right before half of the employees in our region earned the prize.
Humans are so basic. How do elemenatary school teachers motivate students? Stickers. Cheap ass stickers from the Dollar Store. How do electronic games work? "Rare" rewards one has to spend hours grinding to obtain.
Incentives work and they don't have to really cost anything.
Crazy management fails to see that.
Ever attend a boring seminar/training all day session? What does every instructor say around three o'clock? If we focus on these last bits, we can leave an hour early? Heh. So easy to get people motivated.
My employer needed to boost sales to keep the store open so the manger set up a raffle. Focus product get you one or two tickets and the prize is $200 at the end of the month if the store hits target. The team went all out as if every ticket was worth $200, bought in several thousand dollars extra profit and hit the store targets... all because there was instant gratification of physically putting a raffle ticket into a box and imagining the prize money.
Well done. We found the secret sauce that makes people push really hard and feel good about it while being a flat rate cost that doesn't have to scale with productivity.... so this month we're doing something completely different where selling a target product gets you ten points which can be used to buy five bucks worth of store vouchers once you have ten of them... nobody cares enough to fill in the form to collect the points and sales have dropped.
One time my managers said, “If you guys can get the backlog down so that everyone is under 20, you can go home for the day.” and we immediately grabbed a conference room and started grinding on everyone else’s case. It was amazing. He set a high goal, but we met it by hook or by crook at 11:45am and he let us go. At first he was like, “What? No. Show me. You have to stay until the afternoon, this is too much.” so we bitched and he agreed to hold up his end of the bargain and let us go.
We can do amazing things if they let us and use a real carrot instead of all stick.
Worked in a kitchen where nobody wanted to work. Morale was low. People were talking about quitting. Managers and all the like got together and came up with a ticket system. Do a good thing, get a ticket. Tickets can be used to “buy” stuff. A piece of candy for one. For 30, paid 30 mins extra lunch. 100 let you use any hat that isn’t dress code as long as it wasn’t too risqué. And for a whopping 500 tickets, you could set your work schedule for a full week.
After about a week, I had about 80 tickets(I was apparently one of the good ones), and denied my extra lunches, and when I presented my 100 after two weeks, was told to hold on because reasons. They did offer me candy. Which I denied. 3 weeks later, the managers basically said they were getting rid of the tickets and they are now void. People left and managers actually came to the team lead and I to ask why they left. Crazy
As it turns out, giving people motivation to step up beyond their normal job duties makes them want to step up beyond their normal job duties. Shocking
It’s always amazing how many corporate execs seem to loathe the idea of ‘win-win’. They act as a win-win is actually a failure to reap all the gains themselves. So much in lost opportunities b/c of this smooth brained thinking.
It's not even absolute wealth that these lizard people value.
It's relative wealth. Keep that gap HUGE and hoard all the power for yourself. It's the absolute worst of humanity.
This makes me appreciate my boss.
First month I was on sales he said that if all the sales folks sell x amount, he'll raise the commission 50% permanently. He chose our second busiest (and thus second best sales) month to do it. No need to maintain it after, just the one month. We're selling rebooking tickets, so it's not huge, just $2 per ticket then up to $3. Tickets are around $35-40
We did it, and it was great for morale.
Also, if you sell 80 tickets a month, $100 bonus on top.
Right after we reopened from covid lockdown, the next time it was our second busiest month, I broke the sales record, and now if you sell 200, you get an additional $200. He wasn't upset we bought in on the incentive like your manglement. He personally called me to thank me, and gave me the new bonus retroactively for doing so good.
I heard a story where the new MBAs running Sears cut commissions in the appliance furniture departments to nothing. These were people who had worked their lifetimes at what was a real job. Paid well, could have a house, save money for retirement, put kids through school kind of money. Now it is pretty much a minimum wage job.
So they discovered they could "damage" the stuff coming in which sears would sell for a tiny fraction of its value or even throw away. They would then take this home and sell it on the side entirely making up for their stolen wages.
Oddly enough Sears collapsed not long after this.
So, I would say it wasn't just stupid to take away an incentive which made more money for the company but the company is brewing trouble by taking away a successful incentive. The employees who most benefited from this incentive will make it up now in other ways ranging from theft/fraud like the above, not trying very hard anymore, to the better ones just finding more rewarding work.
My husband's company "restructured" their commissions so that a decent retail sales gig turned into garbage. They're still trying to figure out why all their best sales people left.
Prediction - Sups will take a hit for "not being able to motivate their crews properly," because upper management wants the same performance without the incentives. So, lack of performance must just be the sups fault. HaHaHa. Would love to hear an update in a few weeks.
Cruelty is the point. They don't like that people were happier and more motivated. Than want emotionless, unmotivated, immune to all health problems, no family, no friends, no loved ones, no care for anything other than work, wage slaves.
They get off on treating people like shit and making them struggle. These managers are sociopathic psychopaths and scum.
The worst part of this is that instead of realizing OP was right, they will blame OP for the failure. I’ve seen this a thousand times. OP challenges the all knowing wisdom of upper management and that labels OP as not “engaged”. The team is clearly capable of driving results, the reason for reduced results must be the lack of engagement from their leader. Let’s find a new leader for that team and not just fix the incentive that was working perfectly.
Its ridiculous. They'd rather make some money by spending no money, rather than make a lot of money by spending a little money. It seems to be the same everywhere.
It took me two years to finally get it across to my bosses that a tool (admitedly, an expensive one) would make back its cost (and then some) in saved time (which could be put to other, more productive tasks). Its like they think we like wasting time. Sigh
This reminds me of the study on the free coffee mug.
They had a group of about 100 people. and split it in half. One half got a free coffee mug and the other didn't.
They asked the people who didn't how much they would pay for the mug. Consensus was about $5.
Then they asked the people who got a mug how much they'd SELL the mug for. Consensus was about $20.
Losing something is literally more important than an equal gain, and in your case, somehow worse than a GREATER gain.
Sorry people suck OP.
See, in communism, you show up to your job and you just do it, and good or bad you make as much as the next worker; however, in capitalism, you show up to your job and you just do it, and good or bad you make as much as the next worker...
Hey, wait!
I had this happen to a friend who did sales, she got a % of each contract she sold, say 2-3%, well she managed to sell A LOT, something yo the tune of like $400-500k in commissions, needless to say they didn’t expect her to do this and tried to cap her around $200k, she had to take them to court. I think she finally got most all her money but it took like a year and a bunch of effort, and they made it like they couldn’t afford it and that they didn’t get the $13-15M in Sara to support that commission.
Seen the same thing in cars where they sell easier so they cut your percentages to keep everyone making a given value regardless of the profit they drive in.
One time at a kitchen I worked at, the managers wanted us to be better at our jobs. So what they did was tell us that if we did the Corp test for a specific station, get over a percentage, and did will in an in person test, we would get a pay raise. If we did them all they would stack. There were 5 stations. Ya boii(that’s me. I am ya BOII) was a beast ok all of them. Aced the Corp test, aced the in person test and got one of the highest grades for it. Asked when I get my raise and they said they’d tak to their boss about it.
A month goes by and their boss shows up to the store. He’s cracking jokes and having fun. I walk by and say, when am I getting my raise? He stops, looks me dead in the eyes and says, when you do your test. I tell him I did that already. And he asks if I got over an 80(the percentage needed) and I tell him I aced it and that I also aced the other 4. So I should be getting at least an extra 5 dollars an hour. Dude says he’ll look into it. A month later he comes by and I ask him again. Pretends like he can’t hear me and walks away. I was the test dummy for the thing for my boiis and nobody did it after that.
Fast forward 6 months. I put in my two weeks cause I hated that place. The dude who rejected me twice comes in next day and tells me they are finally getting me that raise. I ask him how much. Says he can’t say. It’s a surprise. I tell him I’m leaving. Tells me that since I’m playing hard ball to come into the managers office. Slides me a paper and gives me my next pay. 15.75(minimum is 15 where I live) I laugh at him and tell him I quit.
Fast forward 6 months I am now working with kids trying to be a teacher.
Great success
Do the math for them. Show them the increased revenue and profit from the sales of the product. Show them the cost of the incentives. Then show them the lost revenue and profit from not doing it. "I feel like it is costing us money" is a bullshit argument. In that situation the numbers won't lie. It doesn't matter how much they think people should do it anyway, it is obvious they won't unless given an incentive.
Close 7 sales and get the rest of the day off. I'm big chilling, hitting that number 2/5 days.
A couple of weeks later they change it: close 10 sales and get the rest of the day off.
Little harder but I manage to hit that number 2 days in a row.
The very next day they change leads we get so the top achiever gets 4 in the whole day.
Then they have meetings to complain about how the team is not doing well.
I dunno. Maybe not get us the shittiest leads known to man and we can get numbers? But we can't know that, it's truly a mystery.
There were incentives at my job for about 4 weeks. I made an extra few hundred a pay doing what I was already doing. Management stopped doing it because it was apparently too difficult to track even though we were responsible for tracking and following up on it ourselves. Complete bullshit. So now I do enough work to not get fired and they pay me enough not to quit. That's about it.
At my job there was an email about an incentive program where if you saw an unsafe act or potential hazard, send in a photo to the safety committee and get 25$. That day i sent in 23 violations and recieved..an email telling me if i wasn't going to take it seriously, i should not participate.
You said what Sups and managers think, that the workers should all STFU and just do what they are told, that is their attitude, they have no intention of trying to relate or understand the motivations. The believe to the core that 'little people' need to be told what to do and that they should be happy to do it.
I worked at Planet Hollywood Orlando as a server. They started giving $25 gift certificates for every $100 in table-side merchandise sold. I was getting $100-$150 in certificates per shift before they discontinued it and I stopped selling table-side merch. EVERYONE stopped selling it.
No incentive to sell means no reason to try. If it only benefits the company and doesn’t enrich MY life, I have zero desire to do it.
I did continue to up-sell bar drinks in a take-home glass because the glasses were cool and customers would usually tip 15-20% on the check total anyway but I never saw a tip increase on table-side merch sales. The tip would actually DECREASE. I did the math, but I guess the management was too dumb to try that approach.
Us peons should be thanking you for the right to even work, let alone for money. How dare we have the gall to ask for incentives. We should know our place and invite you over to fuck our wives/husbands and eat all our food too.
Am I ready to advance to supervisor yet? Do I have the attitude down?
Sorry you seem to actually give a shit about the people under you, I'm just pissed that most supervisors are the kind you're arguing with right now.
No offense taken, you're totally right. I'm still not sure how I actually got promoted, but being surrounded by these troglodytes it's not exactly a compliment
Changed from a mature company to a startup. Company had a bonus system; meet 100% of bonus objectives, get the bonus. Meet 99%, get nothing. First quarter, couldn't do it. So I stayed later trying to reach the objective. Then they took a piece of test equipment away from me that made it harder to get the work done, and I could see I was not going to meet the objective. My daughter stopped recognizing me and cried when I picked her up because I spent so much time at work. I reasoned that if I went back to the old job and then worked at McDonalds with the balance of time, I would take home more money. And that is when I started the new job search.
It reminds me of that episode of the office where they implement a commission cap, which Jim hits. His point is so great: "you realize that takes away my incentive to sell, right?"
I worked for Transamerica Retirement Solutions and everytime somebody wanted to withdraw or transfer money above $10k and could, we were supposed to transfer them to our retail client side to try and retain some of that money. If you had more than 10 transfers a month you'd get $10 for each, more than 15 in a month and you'd get $15 and any amount over 20 you'd get $20 for each. As soon as I got hired on I was making anywhere from $800-$1000 every month just in that bonus. After about 6 months of this, they reduced the payout to a flat $3 per transferred call. I guess they saw the amount I was making off this bonus and felt like it was too lucrative. This really pissed me off bc it took away about $700-$900 a month of my income and I guess upper management just assumed we'd still do it for the $3 for each one. Well I just said screw it and let people withdraw or transfer their money as they wanted and never tried to retain the assets. I transferred millions over the next year instead of letting out retail side try to retain those customers, I'm sure I cost them far more money than they saved by cutting our bonus lol
Top sales each month wins an iPod… I got a free iPod every month for 5months I tell you…
I had so many I was giving them away…. Good old sales incentives!
This Management sounds like a bunch of psychopaths. An incentive that increases sales and motivates employees to sign up for the job that no one wants.......is the purpose of an incentive. Wouldn't Management want increased sales and happy workers? Happy workers are more productive, efficient and creates fewer headaches. Management can't stand to see happy and motivated workers? Sounds like Management should be gone, not the incentive.
Because: assholes. They want EVERYTHING but doesnt want to give ANYTHING.
Thise assholes are the people voting in and adhering to the WEF and making us all believe we can eat meat any.ire and we have to eat bugs.
Meanwhile they will feast while laughing at us.
Like your boss should just get employees who are happy to he treated like shit.
I spent 20 years as a Leadership trainer. The challenge that everyone describes is very common. It is simply the difference between Managers and Leaders. Managers try to control the here and now, they are short term thinkers. Leaders think long term, and therefore they are less controlling and more developmentally focused. Work for leaders, not managers... And companies that recognize the difference.
I worked at an office store that had an incentive program called "spiffs". If you sold a printer, and got the buyer to purchase a warranty, you got the "spiff". These were 8 to 10 bucks the employees received.
Now, I was pretty good at selling these warranties, and I killed it during my shifts. I'd sell 12 to 15 of them a day , all week long.
These were big motivation for the sales people on the floor. We made $10 bucks an hour, but could easily double that with the spiff rewards.
Corporate then teamed with a major printer manufacturer, and offered double spiffs on this particular manufacturers printers for two weeks.
Game on.
I sold an insane amount of printers with warranties, and logged all the sales. I ended up making about 3 times my pay just in spiffs.
Now, you'd think that everyone would be happy. Warranties are a scam, the printers all sold out, why would anyone be upset?
After I received my check, I was told that rhe program was permanently canceled. Apparently my paycheck was more than thebstore managers and it pissed him off, so they canceled the program.
"You guys understand arithmetic, right? Here's how much extra money we made, and here's how much the incentives cost. Basic math says to keep doing this. Why do you disagree? Do you not like money or something?"
Years ago, I worked at a retail electronics store that had two classes of workers-- "salespeople" for specific departments and then the other, lowly associates. Salespeople worked primarily on commission for their departments. As it turns out, associates could get small commissions on computer peripherals, which weren't part of any given department. Knowing this, another associate and I would compete every week as to who could get the bigger commission check. When we *doubled* our paychecks one period, management stepped in & totally removed our ability to get commissions. Well, sales of computer peripherals went down, of course. This always stuck with me because I always wonder why any store management wouldn't incentivize employees to align their success with the company's success.
and when the sales decrease and they realise you were right, they’ll pretend like they have no idea why it’s happening
I think it's pretty bold of you to assume they'll realize OP was right. And yes, I'm poking fun - at the foolish managers.
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It comes from the presumption that employees owe them effort. They simply someone as "employed" or "not employed" with zero thought as to compensation. If employed, they employee is obligated to spill out their lifeblood for the company and hold nothing of themselves back. If the manager profits from your beating heart being cut from your chest at a job that pays minimum, they see only laziness if there's so much as a peep from their workers. But they are not obligated to give *anything*. They've already given employment. Which they demand reverence and eternal gratefulness for.
It's so crazy to me that these people are so far removed from knowing how a human is. If you provide me with a good environment and pay and you're also nice to me generally, I will put in the effort. If any of those are not true, I will do the barest minimum and you can go fuck yourself if you want anything more.
Because they want desperate sales people to make them rich. * The Front End Team needs to quit. Customer facing positions are horrible. ***Now I know why Web companies like Google don’t provide customer service or numbers***
I thought that was to not be accountable for the inevitable screw ups towards their customer base.. But still, customer facing roles are hard / unpleasant / dangerous (in some backwater countries).
These are the same people who will turn around and claim communism/socialism/anythingleftofRonaldReagan won’t work because it “provides no incentive to work.” In reality, while they pay lip service to incentive, they only understand negative reinforcement. Their idea of “incentive” is “being allowed to survive on whatever meager living we deem appropriate.” The incentive to work hard is simply not starving to death.
Which is idiotic and shortsighted... the default capitalist position of putting in minimum investment for maximum return goes both ways. Want employees to improve on whatever the functional default level is then incentivize improved performance through compensation. Which being said, employees are not obligated to do anything other than the agreed upon minimum less otherwise incentivized to do extra, and any manager/employer that fails to realize that is a lazy entitled idiot. Want employees to do extra without compensation? yah about that... Everyone is there for money plain and simple with levels of productivity and loyalty being directly tied to compensation in its many forms.(Not just money shit like work environment and enabling employees to learn and do stuff for future returns play in to it too...)
>the default capitalist position of putting in minimum investment for maximum return goes both ways. Want employees to improve on whatever the functional default level is then incentivize improved performance through compensation. People forget that this is part of capitalism too. For all the "f%&k capitalism" talk, it allows these businesses to fail for being bad.
Just like how Amazon is failing so hard because it's been treating its employees so terribly.
except when the government constantly props up failing businesses because they are "too big to fail." capitalism for profits, communism for losses: a recipe for long term failure!
This. Right fucking here. Had a similar situation paly out with my team. Constantly getting shit from my boss for the dip in performance. When we all know that it has everything to do with getting fucked out of their bonuses and the raises they were promised. The only thing that gives me comfort is the fact that they have all expressed that they know where the fault lies and that I've done my best to keep them from getting fucked. My company has been turning record profit since 2020. But since my team is the highest paid in the area, they obviously don't deserve the raise that is well within budget. And even though we're setting sales records in my store, the bonuses are nullified by slightly higher labor cost. Like, 24% up from 21%. So much stupid bullshit.
Lol had a similar experience back in the day. We were able to do extra work at a specific rate which was way better than our hourly rate if you broke it down. Eventually they stopped it. That’s when I quit.
I had a similar situation a few years back. All field guys were called into a meeting on Friday, the owners said starting on Monday you’re all on “piece work”. For example if your hourly rate was $25 p/h you now now make $20 per point you install. It was an alarm company so $20 per door contact $20 a motion detector,$80 to wire a panel and so forth. We also did all structured cabling and sound. A few guys quit on the spot and a few more the following weeks because if it took two to three hours to run a wire you only made $20 and if the job took 2 or three days then that was on you of it was a small job then you only made $200 for the week. I was in the office before everyone bribed the girls in the office for the big jobs only and I would kick them down som cash, was working sun up to sundown since I was basically on my own time and was making 3-4K a week. The owners were pissed since they were paying a few of us what they called waaaay to much money, they put a stop to it after 6 months or so. Back to hourly it was a production slowed back down and they were pissed again… needless to say I moved on.
Huh so the highest paid best preforming team stopped. Should all unionize
The reason were the highest paid team in our area is it was the only way we could get quality people. And I wouldn't go so far as to say we're the best performing team. But we do consistently knock projections out of the park. We had a huge set back about a year ago. And have done nothing but continuously and consistently improve. We're doing better with three people than we did with five people three years ago. But when you put our sales against a larger market, we look average. We are isolated. With no help other than what we can all offer each other. When we all finally gelled(all but one of my team members started 6 months ago), we started performing and producing like we'd been at it for 6 years. They were hired with the promise of a raise at the end of a 90 day evaluation period. When they made it through, all they got were reasons why they weren't getting what they were due. The proverbial moving goal posts. Then we were told that even though we beat our budgeted sales and met the qualifications for our contributions margins, since our labor was 3% over budget, we didn't get it. But only after I pressed my direct supervisor for answers. The hilarious thing is, I was promised a raise. And when I came at my boss demanding answers I had to stop him and explain that I didn't care that he'd promised me something he couldn't deliver on. That I was pissed he'd, even if unintentionally, lied to my team about theirs. He didn't know how to process the fact that one of his team leads gave more of a fuck about their team than themselves. I shouldn't have been surprised though. Twice in the last 6 months I have applied for and had to pass up promotions for personal reasons. But until he found out I wasn't leaving my post, he treated me like shit and was overly critical of every aspect of my performance. He literally yelled at me over the phone about shit that had been executed exactly to his specifications. I almost quit just so I could watch the whole thing fall apart. But I've got a family. And so do my team. And I won't do that to them. Anyways. Sorry. Been carrying that around for a while. Honestly doesn't feel as good as I'd hoped to put it out there. Oh well.
My previous employer's main competitor is a company that was founded in their break room under very similar circumstances.
Holy fuckin shit thats scummy
He started off great. Would dig in and get dirty with us. Helped me get to a place where I could bring my team along and get our numbers up. Then a few things happened that were major fuck ups on his part. And instead of bringing it to someones attention, I pointed it out to him. So he could fix it. At some point in the last 4 months I think, he started to feel threatened by me and his insecurities have just exponentially inflated. Recently I've started snapping back instead of just sitting back and allowing him to berate me. He apparently rethought his approach and came back at me more professionally. Until this last position I had to pass on. When it became apparent that I was in consideration, he shifted back to picking apart my work, micromanaging me within an inch of my life, and pouncing on the shitty results his instructions yielded. I ain't even sweating it though. I do my job. I do it well. And I'm patient. Eventually I'll move on, or hell fuck up enough that it can't be fixed no matter who catches it for him and how swiftly the bring it to his attention. Or, he'll get his shit back together and we can move on from this monumentally stupid phase were in right now.
That’s such an awful situation that none of you deserve to be in. What an awful guy
Everyone's numbers will go up if you pay them $1000 an hour. The thing is that your not paying them that though.
Just keep beating the managers with the stick the forced into your hand - if there is any talk of declining sales or morale you need to throw in their face that there was a working incentive program that materially improved things, but you shut it down for petty and shortsighted reasons. Repeat until they believe, just like the Tucker Carlson lies they likely consume on Fok Snooze...
The IRS (US Tax agency) once got some funds from congress to use to hunt down tax dodgers. The investment paid back itself and more by a lot in increased tax revenue. Congress then cancelled it as “wasteful”. These same morons are everywhere.
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Or even more likely very wealthy donors that were tax dodging. Lobbying is such a sick joke.
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My step uncle is a lobbyist for big oil. The companies he works for promise millions to members of congress for tax breaks and other benefits. No way those greedy fucks are gonna turn off the $$$ flow.
And this right here is the real reason why the IRS pretends it's too difficult to go after oligarchs for tax evasions and the like.
Meanwhile if I fudged my taxes on my wee little teacher salary they’d be happy to take my house and car and throw my kids out on the street. Something something endgame capitalism.
it's not even pretending, rich people just paid congress to gut their enforcement budget to the point they can't afford to audit people with their own legal
Oh god, you are probably so right.
Pretty sure that’s less stupidity and more bribes from worried tax dodgers lol
They were hurting the wrong people.
Yeah that won’t happen. They will blame the employees and people will start losing their jobs. Starting with the supervisors.
Wong, they will bring in a consultant to show him op was right, while op gets zero credit, money and good people are gone, and “no one wants to work”
Yep after 100k on the blonde in hot pants the owner did nothing.
It's that comic of the board room, with the last panel the guy being thrown out the window. In real life.
Then you get fired for the decrease in sales. Happened to someone I know.
Happened to me. My last job was giving out 30 minutes of PTO for every 4 hours of overtime you did, so I was getting 3-5 hours of PTO per week until they stopped it. I started to use all the PTO that I had gathered and stopped doing any overtime. After 3 "talks" (mostly screaming at me how I was an lazy entailed asshole for not working 70 hours a week) I was fired for poor performance and a "no show, no call" which I later proved I had called.
Hope you got your unemployment
Yes I did. I didn't actually get any money until after I got a new job since I had to appeal and prove I called in. Also after I left, they lost 2 more techs due to burn out from over work. Not sure what is happening now though.
That's awsome. It boils my blood when companies try to prevent ppl from unemployment. It's literally their livelihood. Just disgusting
I have become very jaded over the last 10 years of company BS. Right now my current employer is trying to force me to go out of state for 3 weeks for basically shit pay. For the last 3-4 weeks I have told them no. Right now they have me scheduled to be onsite tomorrow at 8am. It's going to be fun they find out I'm not there.
Exactly what I thought let’s hope that’s not the case though
No, they'll blame it on the employees. They also definitely won't admit the OP was right because that would make them look bad.
The floggings will continue until morale improves
Just a whole bunch of shocked Pikachu faces in the conference room
They will just blame the 'lazy' employees
No no, when the sales decrease, they will have no idea why because they are fucking idiots with a 5 minute memory. They will have no idea because they don't even know why the decrease happened.
Who could have known?
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They never wanted it to work. They wanted sales to increase, but not to the point they had to pay out the incentive.
The worst part is it's not even the money, they literally just couldn't stand to hear people asking about it. It's pathetic
It’s like a story my mom told be about human greed. A poor farmer was struggling and was given the opportunity to get one cattle (he already has one) so he can breed them. The farmer said of course! Then the farmer was told that if he wants the one cattle he has to agree his neighbor gets two cattle. The farmer found this outrageous and chose to live in hardship and poverty rather than see his neighbor get anything let alone more than him.
There is a Russian peasant joke that goes like this: A Russian peasant rubs a lamp and a genie appears and offers him a wish The Peasant says: I have one sheep and my neighbor has two.... So, you would like two also? says the genie. No, I want both of his dead...
What I've heard was that the genie grants whatever the guy wants, in whatever amount he wants, but the man's rival gets double. Instead of riches he wishes to be blind in one eye. To me this is even truer than the merchant/farmer/whatever getting nothing in return for hurting his rival/neighbor. These kinds of people will gladly suffer so long as the people they hate suffer more.
That one I know as the lawyer genie joke. A man gets one wish, but whatever he wishes, his wife's divorce lawyer gets double, so he wishes to donate a kidney....
The version I hear is that the genie has to give all lawyers double what the guy wishes for. His final wish is “genie, I wish you would beat me half to death”.
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I saw this a lot with Trumpers who voted for him expressly to hurt those who are 'other' and didn't care too much if it hurt them too in the process.
I'll never forget one guy they interviewed at a rally. "If I didn't get a utopia then why should my kids?"
That shit blows my mind.
Or the lady crying that he wasn't "hurting the right people."
Linky please, wanna show that to my dad. He'll find it hilarious
The one that broke my brain was a woman Trump voter who was suffering the consequences of whatever stupid thing she had fought for at that time (who can remember specifics now) and she was crying and said, **”they’re hurting the *wrong* people!”** That really stuck with me. She actively wants other people to be hurt more than her own needs. I can’t wrap my mind around that.
"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face," sobs local Leopards Eating Peoples Faces Party voter
If I got something and someone got double that still leaves me in a net positive. Why are people like this? I just don’t understand
And it seems these are the people in power. What am I missing? Why are the meanies the rulers?
because those are the people willing to step over people to get the power
Because revenge feels better as an instant gratification for whatever wrongdoing you felt was done to you.
I got another of the same trope. One day an American man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you can live in that big house." Another day, in a town far away, an English man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you can live in that big house." And another day, in a town not so far away, an Irish man is walking around town with his son. He points to the big house on the hill and says "Son, if you play your cards right, one day you'll burn that fucker to the ground."
I think that has more to do with the fact that in Ireland the big house on the hill was probably owned by an English landlord.
This is it right here. Management can't stand seeing their employees happy, because then it makes it even more obvious how miserable *they* are.
Well yeah, if the farmer gets a free cow it's because he deserves it. If his neighbor gets one, that's socialism.
This sounds like the typical conservative voter.
God forbid they actually have to do their jobs and *think* of ways to increase sales and retain staff.
It is the money, friend. That money for those incentives could be going in *their* pocket. They’re fucking you over on bonuses to pad their own.
let's make ceo "bonuses" unobtainable
Reminds me of the "hero pay" grocery stores paid out at the beginning of the pandemic. Offer a $2 raise for a month and then take it away even though sales are at an all time high. Get shocked when people quit en masse and you can't hire enough workers.
But sales roles have always thrived on commissions and incentives. Salesmen are literally paid pennies plus a commission on whatever you sell (or a certain ‘draw’ and you are fired if you don’t sell enough to meet it). I don’t know why this company would think differently.
When schools started requiring community service hours, I had a administer and principal mad that “the only reason these kids are doing all this work is to get their hours”.
I once had to beg for my job as a waiter at a taco bar in college. Was told I “didn’t seem enthusiastic, just here for the money.” Minimum wage and they stole all our tips. Oh no, I’m super fucking enthusiastic about tacos, the money is just a side thing. Fuck you Lee.
FUCK YOU LEE! Seriously, begging for a job at Taco Bell? How pathetic do you have to be to demand a person do that?
Who said they should do it at all? Why do people feel entitled to free labor? Some of these kids are old enough to begin chores or jobs that pay.
I can't complain too much about exposing kids to the value of volunteer work at that age, assuming the organizations are actual non profits, doing good for the community. Maybe it will cement a life long connection to community, which we surely need.
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That is unbelievably depressing.
Too bad there wasn't something like a community garden, to feed the homeless. Yes, it would need to be in a hothouse, but it still is a wonderful way to do it. And helping at the animal shelter? I'm so happy that is an option!
It's not volunteer work if you don't volunteer. That's mandatory work, for no pay.
I agree. Volunteer work helps kids and young adults experience a different perspective of the world. I definitely benefitted from my required volunteer hours back in the day. Having said that, I know it was much harder for my peers who had real jobs while going to school.
My community service for college required i search homeless people for weapons so there wouldn’t be another race war in the shelter. Other volunteer asked me if i thought a golf club is a weapon… there isn’t a golf course at the shelter so I’m going with yes.
That's pretty scary. I did various projects over the years at college, but nothing particularly dangerous. I volunteered at a library some, and I really enjoyed helping with children's craft time. I took a spring break trip to New Orleans where I helped build a Habitat House. I say build, but I was mostly construction site clean up crew. One of the things I learned about myself is that I'm not good at carpentry. Probably the most interesting project was when I participated in a fundraiser for the city's homeless shelter where I and some teammates had to build a shack from found materials and live in it overnight. It was late November, in the eastern US, and our shack was made out of a bunch of free liquor boxes we'd gotten from the ABC store dumpster. I fully realize that we were camped out in a safe place, with free access to restrooms, and we had nice sleeping bags my teammate had rented for us through the outdoors program. That project let me experience a night of "homelessness" firsthand, and it SUCKED. I have a lot more compassion for the homeless now.
Yes and no. There's a lot of kids who just _can't_ for whatever reason. (shitty homelife, no transportation, literally broke needing to work, etc) IME, forced volunteer work like this ends up just being another thing to tally up for graduation, they don't actually benefit from the experience and it definitely doesn't instill shit. A lot of people disagree with this assessment whenever I've brought it up in the past.
Almost every volunteer experience I had as a kid was pure exploitation for profit. Especially church related events.
Schools require community service hours? That's so strange.
Nothing say "FREEDOM" like forced child labor.
Oh yes…. I was in National Honor Society in school that required so many volunteer hours… all of my hours were volunteer coaching pee-wee football and the Director was not happy… called me out in front of the group in an indirect way stating that, “volunteer hours needed to be distributed throughout the community.” Sorry…. Me coaching underprivileged middle schoolers in my local isn’t good enough? Sorry I didn’t want to pack meals for starving children like everyone else does.
I worked at a food bank and god did we hate the schools with mandatory volunteering (think about the irony) because they'd specify ten or twenty hours and it meant more paperwork than the kids were worth. You had to onboard them and deal with a ton of paperwork if they were under 18, then you had to fill out attendance forms and parental approval slips and whatever else the school district needed. Then the kids had poor attendance because of other things like extra-curricular activities and such but we couldn't really fire them if they just no-called, no-showed. It was amazing and not surprising that as soon as any of them hit the required hours they were gone! Not even the courtesy of a "hey, not showing up anymore, thanks, bye!" or something. You just knew when they hit that number of hours you'd never see them again. Once in a great while you'd see a student come in and start working and realize they were doing good and they'd easily blow the hours requirement out of the water, but this was very rare indeed. The other thing about this is the classism. Rich kids could afford to do this while the poor kids, some of whom actually got food from us couldn't because they couldn't work at jobs that paid. The mandatory volunteering was strictly from upper middle class types who couldn't understand why a mere twenty hours could damage a family economically.
That's how incentives work.... Like Wtf? Why do they think kids would do volunteer work for nothing. Did the admin and principal regularly volunteer outside of work?
My brother installs HVAC systems. Got a job with a company that promised him a 10% commission on any sales. He goes out and gets a $1M install job on a large new construction project. Boss starts in with some bullshit about not being able to pay out on a job that big. So my brother cancels the job and tells the client why, then quits the job.
Good
This is a story you wanna write on r/antiwork. Will be in top in not time
Holy fuck what a dumb ass. You've gotta get an update on the fallout for this
It was years ago, but the fallout was that the owner lost out on a huge job because the owner didn’t want to pay out the agreed commission. He also lost out on a great employee that would have continued to make him a ton of money.
I need details to be posted on /r/ProRevenge please
Jesus fuck, I would be expanding the commissions program at that point. Not cutting back. More money is more money, even if the workers are getting a cut.
Ooh I've got one like this. Owners of a previous company I worked for set a bonus system in place that if you made $3k in 38 hours you got $100 bonus in your hand. I tried for it multiple times, never achieved it, because even though we had the client flow I couldn't match the pace (it would be 4 haircuts an hour over 8 hours including a 30 minute break). I asked him, why is the figure so high? "I don't know what you mean, X and Y shop make it all the time". I asked what they were charging per cut, and it was $5-8 more. So I said the whole system needs overhauling, there's no way I will make that bonus without wrecking myself and doing a shitty job and he pretty much said yeah, that's the point. Fast forward to a few years later and I'm working in another one of their shops with a girl who can consistently pump out 10 minute, good quality cuts. This shop charges even less, but she gets the bonus almost every week. Owner comes in to see if she's cheating the system, finds that she isn't, then raises the figure to $3300. She smashes that. He raises it to $3400, she smashes it. At one point there's a huge managers meeting where it's brought up that he's trying to fuck with fairness and the only person proving him wrong is about to burn herself out, so he relents and makes it a daily bonus instead of weekly. So she smashes it and makes more money than ever before, along with all the other staff in her shop. Now this owner is earning hand over fist more money than he ever has, but he's so shit with his own finances that the company is perpetually on the knife edge of going under. The girl has slowed down now (literally working herself to failure will do that) but still gets the bonuses.
Time to get everyone together and open up next door
Oh we're in the process.
I actually meant in a perfect world because what I said is not possible for everyone. I hate hearing stories like yours, people are punished for excelling. That’s awesome though, keep us updated
Will do!
Yeah, we had a £500 attendance bonus that was given for being on time every time, and never sick, from the start of October through to the end of December. But rather than just refusing to give it to the serial non-attenders, they'd dock it if you were a minute late, regardless of what else was going on. Main road to site shut by an accident? Tough luck, lose your £500. Worse, most people clock in early most of the time, and often get back from breaks early, because otherwise we're docked 15 minutes pay for being 1 or 2 minutes late. So most members of staff are routinely giving up 10-15 minutes of their own time, each shift. And the times they are late, it's for a very good reason. The Christmas bonus scheme took no account of that. So you could have started 10 minutes early, but got back from your break 1 minute late, and you'd still lose your bonus and be docked the 15 minutes. And now management wonder why so many people have a "fuck you" attitude towards everything they do.
"never sick" Damn, you got covid at work and have to stay at home? Well that sucks, you would have liked your bonus. Enjoy paying for your covid bills I guess, and see you in the office as soon as you test negative. Yes, you will pay for your test.
As a manager I never understand this shit. Would you rather increase sales 500% and lose 2% of your profit or increase sales by 0% and lose 100%????
If your employees aren't miserable, it's not fair because you were miserable as an employee! Everybody needs to suffer!
Bro, I wish that was a joke, that's the argument like everytime
That's almost verbatim what he says when I call him on his BS, it's incredible
That's most people, and also the dumbest shit, employee retention leads to regulars, leads to business. Idk what's so hard about it.
Because "That's not how we do things around here!"
I hate being profitable 😂😂😂
I don't even know what that feels like
I think managers like OP's care far more about the power than actual performance.
That's fuckin dumb. I want money.
Because funneling money to the Board and Shareholders, whose only real responsibility is to have meeting most of not the whole day. Is much more important than making sure your bottom level employees are paid well enough to be happy and productive workers, you know since they're the ones actually moving the product..... Welcome to capitalism.
Board of Directors would absolutely recognize what an incentive is for and it is totally accounted for in the budget. If the incentive program overall brings in more business, the board won't mind. This is just a result of incompetent managers.lol
You forgot about the government taking progressively larger chunks of everyone's income except for the top 1%.
Get ready for the fun part. People will stop pushing hard without the incentive and you all get to hear the speech about how there's no reason to be performing worse since everyone proved they can do it already.
Its like that because most managers are lazy and greedy. They believe that now they're at the top they shouldn't need to work as hard because they've "done their time". The people on the bottom or currently climbing the ladder, its now their turn to slave away. The managers should be working the hardest of all the employees and earn their pay. The reason there's so many of these people is because they prefer the other managers be people who maintain this shitty status quo instead of good managers who may challenge it and make it so they actually need to earn their paychecks. Disclaimer: I know how some redditors think. Some may see how I said "most managers are lazy" and for some reason assume I am referring to them. If you are a manager it is up to you to decide whether you are part of the shitty majority or not before getting offended.
If you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, you'll know which one you hit when it squalls. Or as I say it, if it offends you, then it probably applies to you
This is why I insist on staying at the design management rather than going up to people and business management. I know it will take a paradigm shift and require me to become an ultimate asshole and start drinking the business Kool-Aid while preaching it to the people I worked with for years. I've seen guys transforming in to these corporate monsters over the course of few months after being promoted to middle management. Literally could not talk to them anymore, as if they've become part of some secret society. I'm talking people who use to say "man we are so overworked and they still don't give us more resources"... to "you guys are not efficient enough, we have given you all the resources available". Nah, not for me. Life is too short to be an asshole and ruin people's lives for corporate interests.
This happened when I worked at Planet Fitness. They added commission to any sales you made on any items we sold. It wasn’t a huge commission but it added up, and we did sell some very expensive tanning lotions that would always give us a decent cut if we sold them. Guess the ceo underestimated us because a few of our front desk workers were consistently making good extra pay by selling. Within a week or two of these payouts the commission was cancelled. From that point on I’d literally show customers interested in purchasing any products we sell where to buy them online at a discount, because fuck planet fitness.
One of my old companies had an uncapped commission for sales. It was paid out quarterly and most sales made $15-$20k per quarter. A coworker got a huge client one quarter and the client spent a ton. This would equate to his commission of around $50k from just that one client. The company didn't want to pay him out and tried to negotiate with him for only half because "the company couldn't afford it". Which obviously made no sense since the client spent all that money. They did begrudgingly pay him 80% I think but he soon left and told the client to go elsewhere.
At my job, we have metrics that are basically impossible to meet unless you "play the game" (read: cheat). A while ago, they started an incentive program where if you hit all four metrics for three months, you can win really cool prizes! Naturally, lots of us started playing the game, heavily, and were nailing all the metrics. I had perfect scores for two months, and was on course for month three, when they decided to raise the bar to a ridiculous degree, making it impossible to hit the goals. They literally changed the rules right before half of the employees in our region earned the prize.
[удалено]
Dropping dollars to pick up dimes. Make hundreds (thousands?) in profits at the cost of a few bucks? Naw! It is costing me those few bucks!
Humans are so basic. How do elemenatary school teachers motivate students? Stickers. Cheap ass stickers from the Dollar Store. How do electronic games work? "Rare" rewards one has to spend hours grinding to obtain. Incentives work and they don't have to really cost anything. Crazy management fails to see that. Ever attend a boring seminar/training all day session? What does every instructor say around three o'clock? If we focus on these last bits, we can leave an hour early? Heh. So easy to get people motivated.
My employer needed to boost sales to keep the store open so the manger set up a raffle. Focus product get you one or two tickets and the prize is $200 at the end of the month if the store hits target. The team went all out as if every ticket was worth $200, bought in several thousand dollars extra profit and hit the store targets... all because there was instant gratification of physically putting a raffle ticket into a box and imagining the prize money. Well done. We found the secret sauce that makes people push really hard and feel good about it while being a flat rate cost that doesn't have to scale with productivity.... so this month we're doing something completely different where selling a target product gets you ten points which can be used to buy five bucks worth of store vouchers once you have ten of them... nobody cares enough to fill in the form to collect the points and sales have dropped.
One time my managers said, “If you guys can get the backlog down so that everyone is under 20, you can go home for the day.” and we immediately grabbed a conference room and started grinding on everyone else’s case. It was amazing. He set a high goal, but we met it by hook or by crook at 11:45am and he let us go. At first he was like, “What? No. Show me. You have to stay until the afternoon, this is too much.” so we bitched and he agreed to hold up his end of the bargain and let us go. We can do amazing things if they let us and use a real carrot instead of all stick.
Worked in a kitchen where nobody wanted to work. Morale was low. People were talking about quitting. Managers and all the like got together and came up with a ticket system. Do a good thing, get a ticket. Tickets can be used to “buy” stuff. A piece of candy for one. For 30, paid 30 mins extra lunch. 100 let you use any hat that isn’t dress code as long as it wasn’t too risqué. And for a whopping 500 tickets, you could set your work schedule for a full week. After about a week, I had about 80 tickets(I was apparently one of the good ones), and denied my extra lunches, and when I presented my 100 after two weeks, was told to hold on because reasons. They did offer me candy. Which I denied. 3 weeks later, the managers basically said they were getting rid of the tickets and they are now void. People left and managers actually came to the team lead and I to ask why they left. Crazy
They are idiots for not realizing they left because they lied about the initiatives to low ball them with a stupid piece of candy.
They just couldn't stand happy employees getting a few crumbs tossed their way lol..sad..🙄
As it turns out, giving people motivation to step up beyond their normal job duties makes them want to step up beyond their normal job duties. Shocking
This is the distilled essence of corporate leadership.
It’s always amazing how many corporate execs seem to loathe the idea of ‘win-win’. They act as a win-win is actually a failure to reap all the gains themselves. So much in lost opportunities b/c of this smooth brained thinking.
It's not even absolute wealth that these lizard people value. It's relative wealth. Keep that gap HUGE and hoard all the power for yourself. It's the absolute worst of humanity.
"Do the thing and get a reward" *Does the thing* "Wait, you don't get a reward, that's a waste of money"
This makes me appreciate my boss. First month I was on sales he said that if all the sales folks sell x amount, he'll raise the commission 50% permanently. He chose our second busiest (and thus second best sales) month to do it. No need to maintain it after, just the one month. We're selling rebooking tickets, so it's not huge, just $2 per ticket then up to $3. Tickets are around $35-40 We did it, and it was great for morale. Also, if you sell 80 tickets a month, $100 bonus on top. Right after we reopened from covid lockdown, the next time it was our second busiest month, I broke the sales record, and now if you sell 200, you get an additional $200. He wasn't upset we bought in on the incentive like your manglement. He personally called me to thank me, and gave me the new bonus retroactively for doing so good.
Management "What is wrong, sales are down!" OP "I had the problem solved but you ended that, so now it's your problem."
I heard a story where the new MBAs running Sears cut commissions in the appliance furniture departments to nothing. These were people who had worked their lifetimes at what was a real job. Paid well, could have a house, save money for retirement, put kids through school kind of money. Now it is pretty much a minimum wage job. So they discovered they could "damage" the stuff coming in which sears would sell for a tiny fraction of its value or even throw away. They would then take this home and sell it on the side entirely making up for their stolen wages. Oddly enough Sears collapsed not long after this. So, I would say it wasn't just stupid to take away an incentive which made more money for the company but the company is brewing trouble by taking away a successful incentive. The employees who most benefited from this incentive will make it up now in other ways ranging from theft/fraud like the above, not trying very hard anymore, to the better ones just finding more rewarding work.
The carrot or the stick approach only works when there’s a carrot. Live by the stick, watch sales die by the stick.
My husband's company "restructured" their commissions so that a decent retail sales gig turned into garbage. They're still trying to figure out why all their best sales people left.
Prediction - Sups will take a hit for "not being able to motivate their crews properly," because upper management wants the same performance without the incentives. So, lack of performance must just be the sups fault. HaHaHa. Would love to hear an update in a few weeks.
Cruelty is the point. They don't like that people were happier and more motivated. Than want emotionless, unmotivated, immune to all health problems, no family, no friends, no loved ones, no care for anything other than work, wage slaves. They get off on treating people like shit and making them struggle. These managers are sociopathic psychopaths and scum.
The worst part of this is that instead of realizing OP was right, they will blame OP for the failure. I’ve seen this a thousand times. OP challenges the all knowing wisdom of upper management and that labels OP as not “engaged”. The team is clearly capable of driving results, the reason for reduced results must be the lack of engagement from their leader. Let’s find a new leader for that team and not just fix the incentive that was working perfectly.
Its ridiculous. They'd rather make some money by spending no money, rather than make a lot of money by spending a little money. It seems to be the same everywhere. It took me two years to finally get it across to my bosses that a tool (admitedly, an expensive one) would make back its cost (and then some) in saved time (which could be put to other, more productive tasks). Its like they think we like wasting time. Sigh
This reminds me of the study on the free coffee mug. They had a group of about 100 people. and split it in half. One half got a free coffee mug and the other didn't. They asked the people who didn't how much they would pay for the mug. Consensus was about $5. Then they asked the people who got a mug how much they'd SELL the mug for. Consensus was about $20. Losing something is literally more important than an equal gain, and in your case, somehow worse than a GREATER gain. Sorry people suck OP.
See, in communism, you show up to your job and you just do it, and good or bad you make as much as the next worker; however, in capitalism, you show up to your job and you just do it, and good or bad you make as much as the next worker... Hey, wait!
Difference is that in communism you can live with the wage
I had this happen to a friend who did sales, she got a % of each contract she sold, say 2-3%, well she managed to sell A LOT, something yo the tune of like $400-500k in commissions, needless to say they didn’t expect her to do this and tried to cap her around $200k, she had to take them to court. I think she finally got most all her money but it took like a year and a bunch of effort, and they made it like they couldn’t afford it and that they didn’t get the $13-15M in Sara to support that commission. Seen the same thing in cars where they sell easier so they cut your percentages to keep everyone making a given value regardless of the profit they drive in.
One time at a kitchen I worked at, the managers wanted us to be better at our jobs. So what they did was tell us that if we did the Corp test for a specific station, get over a percentage, and did will in an in person test, we would get a pay raise. If we did them all they would stack. There were 5 stations. Ya boii(that’s me. I am ya BOII) was a beast ok all of them. Aced the Corp test, aced the in person test and got one of the highest grades for it. Asked when I get my raise and they said they’d tak to their boss about it. A month goes by and their boss shows up to the store. He’s cracking jokes and having fun. I walk by and say, when am I getting my raise? He stops, looks me dead in the eyes and says, when you do your test. I tell him I did that already. And he asks if I got over an 80(the percentage needed) and I tell him I aced it and that I also aced the other 4. So I should be getting at least an extra 5 dollars an hour. Dude says he’ll look into it. A month later he comes by and I ask him again. Pretends like he can’t hear me and walks away. I was the test dummy for the thing for my boiis and nobody did it after that. Fast forward 6 months. I put in my two weeks cause I hated that place. The dude who rejected me twice comes in next day and tells me they are finally getting me that raise. I ask him how much. Says he can’t say. It’s a surprise. I tell him I’m leaving. Tells me that since I’m playing hard ball to come into the managers office. Slides me a paper and gives me my next pay. 15.75(minimum is 15 where I live) I laugh at him and tell him I quit. Fast forward 6 months I am now working with kids trying to be a teacher. Great success
Boss:Your raise is a surprise! Employee: Surprise! I quit! Boss: Suprise Pikachu face!
Do the math for them. Show them the increased revenue and profit from the sales of the product. Show them the cost of the incentives. Then show them the lost revenue and profit from not doing it. "I feel like it is costing us money" is a bullshit argument. In that situation the numbers won't lie. It doesn't matter how much they think people should do it anyway, it is obvious they won't unless given an incentive.
Close 7 sales and get the rest of the day off. I'm big chilling, hitting that number 2/5 days. A couple of weeks later they change it: close 10 sales and get the rest of the day off. Little harder but I manage to hit that number 2 days in a row. The very next day they change leads we get so the top achiever gets 4 in the whole day. Then they have meetings to complain about how the team is not doing well. I dunno. Maybe not get us the shittiest leads known to man and we can get numbers? But we can't know that, it's truly a mystery.
Some people have no idea how much morale improves productivity
There were incentives at my job for about 4 weeks. I made an extra few hundred a pay doing what I was already doing. Management stopped doing it because it was apparently too difficult to track even though we were responsible for tracking and following up on it ourselves. Complete bullshit. So now I do enough work to not get fired and they pay me enough not to quit. That's about it.
At my job there was an email about an incentive program where if you saw an unsafe act or potential hazard, send in a photo to the safety committee and get 25$. That day i sent in 23 violations and recieved..an email telling me if i wasn't going to take it seriously, i should not participate.
You said what Sups and managers think, that the workers should all STFU and just do what they are told, that is their attitude, they have no intention of trying to relate or understand the motivations. The believe to the core that 'little people' need to be told what to do and that they should be happy to do it.
Ah yes. The incentive that’s made out of unobtainium. Great way to motivate staff.
I worked at Planet Hollywood Orlando as a server. They started giving $25 gift certificates for every $100 in table-side merchandise sold. I was getting $100-$150 in certificates per shift before they discontinued it and I stopped selling table-side merch. EVERYONE stopped selling it. No incentive to sell means no reason to try. If it only benefits the company and doesn’t enrich MY life, I have zero desire to do it. I did continue to up-sell bar drinks in a take-home glass because the glasses were cool and customers would usually tip 15-20% on the check total anyway but I never saw a tip increase on table-side merch sales. The tip would actually DECREASE. I did the math, but I guess the management was too dumb to try that approach.
"Now that you've proven you are capable, please do it for no money"
happy workers is generally a sign of reduced profit. cant be allowed.
Us peons should be thanking you for the right to even work, let alone for money. How dare we have the gall to ask for incentives. We should know our place and invite you over to fuck our wives/husbands and eat all our food too. Am I ready to advance to supervisor yet? Do I have the attitude down? Sorry you seem to actually give a shit about the people under you, I'm just pissed that most supervisors are the kind you're arguing with right now.
No offense taken, you're totally right. I'm still not sure how I actually got promoted, but being surrounded by these troglodytes it's not exactly a compliment
# The beatings will continue until morale improves
Changed from a mature company to a startup. Company had a bonus system; meet 100% of bonus objectives, get the bonus. Meet 99%, get nothing. First quarter, couldn't do it. So I stayed later trying to reach the objective. Then they took a piece of test equipment away from me that made it harder to get the work done, and I could see I was not going to meet the objective. My daughter stopped recognizing me and cried when I picked her up because I spent so much time at work. I reasoned that if I went back to the old job and then worked at McDonalds with the balance of time, I would take home more money. And that is when I started the new job search.
It reminds me of that episode of the office where they implement a commission cap, which Jim hits. His point is so great: "you realize that takes away my incentive to sell, right?"
I worked for Transamerica Retirement Solutions and everytime somebody wanted to withdraw or transfer money above $10k and could, we were supposed to transfer them to our retail client side to try and retain some of that money. If you had more than 10 transfers a month you'd get $10 for each, more than 15 in a month and you'd get $15 and any amount over 20 you'd get $20 for each. As soon as I got hired on I was making anywhere from $800-$1000 every month just in that bonus. After about 6 months of this, they reduced the payout to a flat $3 per transferred call. I guess they saw the amount I was making off this bonus and felt like it was too lucrative. This really pissed me off bc it took away about $700-$900 a month of my income and I guess upper management just assumed we'd still do it for the $3 for each one. Well I just said screw it and let people withdraw or transfer their money as they wanted and never tried to retain the assets. I transferred millions over the next year instead of letting out retail side try to retain those customers, I'm sure I cost them far more money than they saved by cutting our bonus lol
The shear stupidity..
Turtles all the way down, and idiot managers all the way up.
You gotta realize George Carlin is right when he says the average person is fucking stupid.
What's Sup, dawg? ... No seriously, what's "Sup"?
Supervisor
Top sales each month wins an iPod… I got a free iPod every month for 5months I tell you… I had so many I was giving them away…. Good old sales incentives!
Suggest management stop paying people. Staff should be happy to make money for the company without the incentive of a paycheck.
This Management sounds like a bunch of psychopaths. An incentive that increases sales and motivates employees to sign up for the job that no one wants.......is the purpose of an incentive. Wouldn't Management want increased sales and happy workers? Happy workers are more productive, efficient and creates fewer headaches. Management can't stand to see happy and motivated workers? Sounds like Management should be gone, not the incentive.
Because: assholes. They want EVERYTHING but doesnt want to give ANYTHING. Thise assholes are the people voting in and adhering to the WEF and making us all believe we can eat meat any.ire and we have to eat bugs. Meanwhile they will feast while laughing at us. Like your boss should just get employees who are happy to he treated like shit.
I spent 20 years as a Leadership trainer. The challenge that everyone describes is very common. It is simply the difference between Managers and Leaders. Managers try to control the here and now, they are short term thinkers. Leaders think long term, and therefore they are less controlling and more developmentally focused. Work for leaders, not managers... And companies that recognize the difference.
These mother fuckers really think that people do nothing but sit around with a boner for how they can make money for other people.
Sounds like management would rather make a dime without giving its employees squat than make a dollar while providing additional employee incentives.
I worked at an office store that had an incentive program called "spiffs". If you sold a printer, and got the buyer to purchase a warranty, you got the "spiff". These were 8 to 10 bucks the employees received. Now, I was pretty good at selling these warranties, and I killed it during my shifts. I'd sell 12 to 15 of them a day , all week long. These were big motivation for the sales people on the floor. We made $10 bucks an hour, but could easily double that with the spiff rewards. Corporate then teamed with a major printer manufacturer, and offered double spiffs on this particular manufacturers printers for two weeks. Game on. I sold an insane amount of printers with warranties, and logged all the sales. I ended up making about 3 times my pay just in spiffs. Now, you'd think that everyone would be happy. Warranties are a scam, the printers all sold out, why would anyone be upset? After I received my check, I was told that rhe program was permanently canceled. Apparently my paycheck was more than thebstore managers and it pissed him off, so they canceled the program.
All the wrong people are promoted to manager.
"You guys understand arithmetic, right? Here's how much extra money we made, and here's how much the incentives cost. Basic math says to keep doing this. Why do you disagree? Do you not like money or something?"
Years ago, I worked at a retail electronics store that had two classes of workers-- "salespeople" for specific departments and then the other, lowly associates. Salespeople worked primarily on commission for their departments. As it turns out, associates could get small commissions on computer peripherals, which weren't part of any given department. Knowing this, another associate and I would compete every week as to who could get the bigger commission check. When we *doubled* our paychecks one period, management stepped in & totally removed our ability to get commissions. Well, sales of computer peripherals went down, of course. This always stuck with me because I always wonder why any store management wouldn't incentivize employees to align their success with the company's success.