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spwrozek posted:I think we will just have to disagree. A company severely understaffs a team, and that is the team's fault?
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Mar 10, 2021 13:52
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I am interested in the different responses to this question because I think that it's very dependent on the type of work environment you're coming from. If it's professional services, the people's work hours are the explicit product, so if you have more hours to sell that you're not selling to clients, it's like building too many cars or widgets or whatever. Some of that's inevitable but you try very hard to minimize it, so when someone leaves, there is certainly a scramble to cover the hours requirements, and that usually occurs in the way that TooMuchAbstraction is talking about - internal projects get pushed. In a team with actual defined responsibilities and specialized expertise I think it's very hard to have true cover until you get to big scale. The idea that in other jobs people are just kind of fungible and the same types of shifts are possible is a little bit strange to me. If you have a team of three planner/buyers, and one leaves, you will inevitably have two planner/buyers doing the work of three for a period. Is the expectation that companies should carry capacity for every role? I understand lots of people are overburdened but that just isn't how it would work in the end - the amount of work would expand to absorb the excess capacity and then would never actually shrink in the event someone leaves. Teams with defined responsibilities should be staffed to meet the leanest possible requirements, but that includes known non-productive requirements like vacation, holiday, sick, etc in addition to base tasks being done. If teams are already actively understaffed below that that's a different issue. Of course leaving tends to happen due to burn out and frustration which is more likely to happen on understaffed teams so there's definitely a vicious cycle there. Lastly, I think a lot of this is more about how leadership reacts than actual staff levels. In a properly lean team, when someone leaves, you decide what you aren't going to get done until you get capacity back, or what you won't get done forever. Unfortunately, for most companies, lean just means low resource not any kind of thought process or philosophy. I've also found that the team itself is frequently disinclined to give up tasks, which is always interesting. You tell them "OK you're short, stop doing X" "No we can't stop doing X it will blahblahblah" "ok what can you stop doing" "nothing! it's all equally important!" yeah there's no fuckin way.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:17
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I think, as you call out, you’re describing a fairly well run organization, which is a bit of a unicorn. Lots of organizations are always running with 3 FTEs doing the job that 3.5 or 4 FTEs should be doing, because they’re running too hard to spend the time needed to staff up, or because they’re trying to save money. They never catch up.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:40
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I was thinking more in shorter terms like anyone taking PTO creates serious problems. Longer term, if someone leaves, then of course there would be staffing shortfalls. Any company that is not dysfunctional would handle it as just another problem to resolve i.e. prioritize work items. A dysfunctional company that had issues when fully staffed just from people taking PTO would be a complete mess. And that would entirely be the company's problem of their own creation. Either they were understaffing a team that had high priority work that is important to the company or the work doesn't have that much priority, in which case it should be easy to prioritize what will not be getting done until the team is fully staffed again. I get that companies aren't paying people to sit around just to stay 100% ready for all contingencies, but building out staffing where PTO or god forbid someone leaving increases every other member's workload catastrophically is bad management. Smaller teams/companies might have exceptions to this. A two person team is going to have major issues if one person leaves. But again, any non-dysfunctional company would recognize this, and easily realize if one person leaves that team and all of the work MUST be done, then they will need to replace that person nearly instantly short-term. That company (and employee) should be able to recognize what this would mean for the salaries related to these kinds of small teams, especially if the position's responsibilities are really that important.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:41
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To be fair--and I know you come from consulting which is a very different beast from the rest of the corporate world, KYOON--employees with any experience have developed a very healthy fear that when management tells them "stop doing this function that is part of your job description" they're being set up to be fired or at least refused raises/advancement on grounds of "you failed to accomplish your objectives" later.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:43
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What I've found interesting in this space is the concept of (optimally) how burdened each employee should be. I think the numbers I've seen are something like 80% - this would (in theory) give everyone one day a week to work on incidental stuff, keep documentation updated, etc. In practice I feel like the company I worked at for the last 13 years kept us burdened somewhere over 100%.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:47
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Zarin posted:What I've found interesting in this space is the concept of (optimally) how burdened each employee should be. I think the numbers I've seen are something like 80% - this would (in theory) give everyone one day a week to work on incidental stuff, keep documentation updated, etc. In consulting this is a thing. Different firms will have different metrics but both of the firms I’ve worked for have expected junior resources to be 95%-100% billable, but as you go up in level that expectation drops, to the point that a manager or senior manager being 100% billable is not viewed as a positive. You’re always going to do stuff on the side of your desk, but if you always operate with the side of your desk starting at the 41st hour, it inevitably leads to burnout. If you’re always billing you don’t have time to grow the practice / service offering or find new work.
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Mar 10, 2021 14:52
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downout posted:I was thinking more in shorter terms like anyone taking PTO creates serious problems. Ok I will jump back in..... Zarin posted:Yes, I know, it's just business and all that, but I feel bad for the people that 1). pulled for me to join their team and 2). have to pick up the slack while I get backfilled This is the bolded part that started this. Zarin was never saying that he was run into the ground. he was saying that he feels bad that the rest of the team will have to pick up his work for a bit. key being a short period of time. (e: I see his other post that he feels like the whole team was at 100% but I was responded to the reaction of the bolded part) Having your team plan out PTO and get it on your calendar is easy and not something that impacts work load. There is always going to be a bit more work for everyone between employee leaves and employee gets backfilled. How you are able to handle it will vary. I can give an example of what one guy on my team is going through right now. He has two projects right now and had a junior engineer under him on the project (we have a team of 6 engineers). The junior engineer put in his notice December 18th and left the 30th. I submitted for the backfill, Covid policy require all kinds of approvals, got approval Feb 24th, posted job Feb 25th and hopefully will do interviews next week, back ground and all that maybe new engineer starts end of April. So what do we do for 4 months. The projects have to keep going, material has to be ordered, outages are set so we have to meet them and the ISD. Usually I can kick anything over to a consultant but at the stage of the projects that will really not work. I looked at the rest of my teams work and they all have their own projects and can't really drop those. So I pull/delay what I can from the lead engineer and try to get him help but ultimately until I can get the new person on board he is just going to be a little busy. He will still be working 40 hours maybe a couple longer days here or there. He will be a bit more stressed though. We have discussed it 3 times what else we can pull from him or how I could get more help but we both know that it is going to be just a bit of a struggle for 2 more months. I have never worked anywhere that someone on the team leaving didn't result in something like the above. spwrozek fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 15:06
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downout posted:I was thinking more in shorter terms like anyone taking PTO creates serious problems. oh yeah that's obviously not acceptable as a matter of course Eric the Mauve posted:To be fair--and I know you come from consulting which is a very different beast from the rest of the corporate world, KYOON--employees with any experience have developed a very healthy fear that when management tells them "stop doing this function that is part of your job description" they're being set up to be fired or at least refused raises/advancement on grounds of "you failed to accomplish your objectives" later. sometimes i think i wanna go internal at some point but then i read poo poo like this and it's just like... uh... yeah nah
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Mar 10, 2021 17:38
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spwrozek posted:Ok I will jump back in..... Thanks for providing more context. I was envisioning harsher and higher workloads for those remaining when someone leaves.
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Mar 10, 2021 18:36
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:oh yeah that's obviously not acceptable as a matter of course I made the jump and I will never look back. But I definitely landed well with the new job. I have yet to run into *most* of the standard issues that crop up in this thread but who knows how long that'll last!
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Mar 10, 2021 22:26
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Chaotic Flame posted:I made the jump and I will never look back. But I definitely landed well with the new job. I have yet to run into *most* of the standard issues that crop up in this thread but who knows how long that'll last! Same. Spent almost 10 years in software consulting in various capacities and mix of onsite and offsite. And now almost 2 years in-house at a very good company that mostly doesn't use contractors. There are trade-offs but the net result has been hugely positive. It's really fantastic to have words like timesheets, billable hours, utilization rate, SOW, client engagement, invoices, etc, etc banished from my everyday vocabulary. I could, however, see a possible return to it if it were part-ish time and at a chill boutique place. Never ever doing big consulting.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:08
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George H.W. oval office posted:3 years of salary history? Why does that even matter one bit? It probably doesn't, but he dismisses them on the fact that they lied. If they had just put 1 dollar would the situation have been different? Edit: Gay quote from a previous page cause I'm a shitposter. Also, the invoice finally went through and I'm putting the thread ad up now. https://forums.somethingawful.com/adlist.php It's paid or w/e, it will show up eventually I guess. nazca fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 00:20
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Previous page is an interesting way to frame where that quote is from lol I went reading up the page and glossed over the March posting date and didn’t clue in to the 20th or 2016 for a minute.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:35
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Related to the previous page, does anyone have experience negotiating for more pay when your counterpart leaves? I share a job title with one other person at my company who is about to give her 2 weeks notice. I've already put in for a 5% raise, and should hear whether I'm getting that by the end of the month. However, once she leaves I'll be taking over her duties, and will now be the only person in a a 500+ person company with 40+ products doing my job. I'm going to push hard for them to replace her ASAP, but historically they haven't been very fast or good about this. I know the answer is find a new job, and I've started brushing up my resume, but I like my benefits and the prospect of selling myself, finding, and starting a new job in a pandemic is the last thing I want to do. What is a reasonable ask for the interim period when I'm working alone doing 2 people's work (really the work of 3-4 people)? Has any company ever been willing to increase someone's pay when this happens?
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Mar 11, 2021 17:18
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Thinking I may have been double-ghosted, lol. For the property management place: Remember when I proposed $150k, then they countered with $130k but $20k in 'signing bonus', with $10k immediately and $10k at 'some point that we're still ironing out'? I told them I appreciated the offer but really needed to be at $150k due to more expensive healthcare and lack of bonus in the new role. That was Tuesday afternoon and they never responded to my last email. For the analytics agency: Responded to them saying I needed to be at $160k instead of the $130k they were offering, again due to healthcare and bonus issues. They said they would check on if they could do that on Monday evening and haven't heard anything back since. I'm cooked at both these places, right? lol
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Mar 11, 2021 18:28
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stellers bae posted:Thinking I may have been double-ghosted, lol. Businesses move slow, sometimes you won't hear anything for a week or more and then they'll call back. In the cases of these particular two companies that so clearly are only interested in filling the job as cheaply as possible, sure, you're "cooked" because you won't undersell yourself. The silence is almost certainly because they're working down their list to second choice, third choice, etc., looking for someone to take the lowball. Etuni posted:Related to the previous page, does anyone have experience negotiating for more pay when your counterpart leaves? I share a job title with one other person at my company who is about to give her 2 weeks notice. I've already put in for a 5% raise, and should hear whether I'm getting that by the end of the month. However, once she leaves I'll be taking over her duties, and will now be the only person in a a 500+ person company with 40+ products doing my job. I'm going to push hard for them to replace her ASAP, but historically they haven't been very fast or good about this. I know the answer is find a new job, and I've started brushing up my resume, but I like my benefits and the prospect of selling myself, finding, and starting a new job in a pandemic is the last thing I want to do. What is a reasonable ask for the interim period when I'm working alone doing 2 people's work (really the work of 3-4 people)? Has any company ever been willing to increase someone's pay when this happens? I don't want you to feel I'm blowing you off or anything, but the fact is, you can ask for whatever you like, they're going to say no (or "maybe later", which means "no") and go on enjoying having you working two jobs for the price of one. Your energy is better spent pushing hard to find a new employer than pushing hard to get a raise or a new co-worker for yourself. Why'd she leave? Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 18:30
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also, from the other side of the table - you are not the biggest priority to me and if I have to run it up the food chain you're a progressively lower priority the higher you go
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Mar 11, 2021 18:35
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Businesses definitely move slowly, but in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the slow part is usually between the interview and the offer- any time I've countered it's been on the phone and they just needed like 2 minutes to say "yeah we can do that". So yes, they're probably weighing their options with other candidates, though it's not necessarily impossible that they are clearing a higher salary for you with HR (would not bank on it though).
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Mar 11, 2021 18:37
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that probably means that either a) you responded within their range or b) they're really nonhierarchical or c) both
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Mar 11, 2021 18:46
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Eric the Mauve posted:I don't want you to feel I'm blowing you off or anything, but the fact is, you can ask for whatever you like, they're going to say no (or "maybe later", which means "no") and go on enjoying having you working two jobs for the price of one. Your energy is better spent pushing hard to find a new employer than pushing hard to get a raise or a new co-worker for yourself. No worries! I've been reading this thread for a while and know that's the answer, but was curious if anyone had successfully negotiated in this case. Also I don't want it to be true because inertia.  She's leaving because we're underpaid and expected to cover too many products with not enough people, of course!
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Mar 11, 2021 19:00
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Fancy that.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:05
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Etuni posted:She's leaving because we're underpaid and expected to cover too many products with not enough people, of course! Sounds like it might not be a bad idea for you to consider the same, especially now  You can certainly try for a raise in light of her departure, but I think I know the likely outcome already.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:05
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Etuni posted:I know the answer is find a new job, and I've started brushing up my resume, but I like my benefits and the prospect of selling myself, finding, and starting a new job in a pandemic is the last thing I want to do. My perspective as someone who started a new job a few months ago, finding a new job right now is frankly easier than it was before. Everything is being done online and via Zoom. No having to make some crazy excuse for a half day off to go to an in person interview. Everyone is working from home. Certain jobs are in high demand... I'm an IT worker of course, and left for a job with better benefits, better pretty much everything, and 25% more base cash compensation. I couldn't be happier right now. You owe it to yourself to put the effort into finding a new job. Worst Case you keep working in your current job. There's a lot of better case options though. I spent 17 years working for the same succession of companies (acquisitions...) Change is scary! It's totally worth it though if you find the right company to leave for.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:34
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Etuni posted:Related to the previous page, does anyone have experience negotiating for more pay when your counterpart leaves? I share a job title with one other person at my company who is about to give her 2 weeks notice. I've already put in for a 5% raise, and should hear whether I'm getting that by the end of the month. However, once she leaves I'll be taking over her duties, and will now be the only person in a a 500+ person company with 40+ products doing my job. I'm going to push hard for them to replace her ASAP, but historically they haven't been very fast or good about this. I know the answer is find a new job, and I've started brushing up my resume, but I like my benefits and the prospect of selling myself, finding, and starting a new job in a pandemic is the last thing I want to do. What is a reasonable ask for the interim period when I'm working alone doing 2 people's work (really the work of 3-4 people)? Has any company ever been willing to increase someone's pay when this happens? The high risk semi-long-term solution is to keep doing exactly what you're doing now without picking up any slack and make them realize how much extra work you'd be picking up and how bad it is when no one does it. This involves risk of being terminated and possible trouble from here on out if it works. On the other hand, if you're essential and hard to replace, you're in a good spot financially for some time. My anecdote here is a former workplace where 5 out of around 300 people had their own private offices: the 4 people on the board and a niche computer toucher. The latter was basically the only person who could fill the role, and he knew it. I wish I could have seen his negotiations, and his other results. Incidentally, he also had a habit of ignoring orders if he didn't agree with management. I imagine he occasionally mentioned retirement just to remind management that he didn't need them.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:54
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It seems like the rules are soooo much different between working in consulting or "professional services" (are those the same?) than working for a "regular" business. Being dumped into consulting out of school was/is disorienting after being in like, manufacturing and retail roles previously.
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Mar 11, 2021 20:13
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Consulting sits within the broader umbrella of professional services, yes.
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Mar 11, 2021 20:52
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Target Practice posted:It seems like the rules are soooo much different between working in consulting or "professional services" (are those the same?) than working for a "regular" business. Being dumped into consulting out of school was/is disorienting after being in like, manufacturing and retail roles previously. I went into consulting / professional services when I graduated as well and yes, it's a bit "more" than you probably expected. I spent almost a decade in that field and only just recently took up a "normal" job and can tell you from experience that it's worth it. You will absolutely be cutting your teeth in that realm and the experience you'll gain long term will be invaluable. Try to stay realistic though and have some sort of exit strategy in mind. Eventually it will open up doors not available to most other people and you'll be able to line up your dream job. The hard part is not burning out before that happens and taking any random gig that happens to be available when you're at your most vulnerable.
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Mar 11, 2021 21:27
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PIZZA.BAT posted:I went into consulting / professional services when I graduated as well and yes, it's a bit "more" than you probably expected. I spent almost a decade in that field and only just recently took up a "normal" job and can tell you from experience that it's worth it. You will absolutely be cutting your teeth in that realm and the experience you'll gain long term will be invaluable. Try to stay realistic though and have some sort of exit strategy in mind. Eventually it will open up doors not available to most other people and you'll be able to line up your dream job. The hard part is not burning out before that happens and taking any random gig that happens to be available when you're at your most vulnerable. Consulting/PS definitely accelerated my tech career. Project and client churn means that you're going to work on so many more varied things compared to working internally at one company for the same time period. And every time you switch projects and/or customers is an opportunity to "renegotiate" your role, so to speak. It gives you a ton of breadth and exposure to a lot of different industries and business practices, for better or worse. It can be stressful and is an incubator for imposter syndrome as you repeatedly get thrown into situations as the expert when you don't actually know anything. Fake it until you make it. And then coming out the other side of it you tend to have a much greater appreciation for the business and relationship building side of things and how tech/engineering/product fits in to an organization and its goals. It also gives you a ton of experience and context for choosing a good company/industry that you want to go internal at. Caveat: my experience was in smaller boutique consulting firms ranging from 50-200 people but working with large companies. Working for one of the giant consulting houses may very well be a different experience so YMMV.
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Mar 11, 2021 21:41
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Yeah, my company is about 100 people. My division is myself, two amazing CAD guys, and my division manager, an engineer with about 10 years experience on me. He's the only one between me and the CEO, which is cool. I wish I had another person with my same title for compensation information but oh well. I feel like I have such a hard time figuring out if I like it here or not (I'm sure KYOON rolls his eyes at my posts and I can't blame him at all, lol) because when projects go right it's great, but when they go poorly it sucks a lot. I take my professional mistakes and missteps personally, despite (from what my boss/CEO allude to) apparently hitting above my weight for someone less than three years out of school and zero previous PM experience. Hell, it's with a safety net, but I've been given the reins to a $1.5m EPC project and I haven't hosed it yet. I'm learning to not take things personally and holy poo poo leaving work at work. That's been a struggle.
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Mar 11, 2021 22:02
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Nah dude pro services is 100% highs and lows. Whether you can survive or not basically depends on (the cliche of) not letting the highs get too high or the lows too low. The people who burn out bad at my firm derive a huge amount of self worth from their job and very little from the rest of their life so my best advice is maybe try not to do that. Generally being underpaid in consulting at least is not really a thing especially at junior levels. It's a highly benchmarkable market, full of companies who are trying to attract talent. I suppose your firm could be the exception, but I know we pay a bit below MBB for incoming college grads but in line with say, 3rd tier firms. I suppose if you went to Wall Street you could get paid more as a fresh college grad but that's about it. In general you get what you get for your level and to get paid more you need to advance levels.
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Mar 11, 2021 22:42
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Worst part of consulting is the curse of knowledge when you know this poo poo has all happened before but the client won't believe you. So you ride the rollercoaster all over again. Every drat time. They hire you for your special knowledge and then "yeah we're different" and don't listen. until enough goes wrong that maybe they get their $ worth and actually listen. Or they fire you or the strangest option: continue to ignore you but sign more SOWs ask for more consultants. That's why I left. Idk if my experience matches others here.
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Mar 11, 2021 22:53
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I left because ultimately very few people hire consultants when things are going well. It sucks working on engagements that you know are doomed from the outset. I also left to make a lot more money We even used the metaphor of being smokejumpers as marketing material. You bring us in when you've hosed yourself and need help. The other common reason for being brought in was to be the "outsiders" that could skirt all the corporate rules and politics to actually get poo poo done. But this was also often predicated on some internal attempt having been tried and failed, or some manager that doesn't have enough clout internally to drive projects with internal resources.
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Mar 11, 2021 22:58
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Xguard86 posted:Worst part of consulting is the curse of knowledge when you know this poo poo has all happened before but the client won't believe you. So you ride the rollercoaster all over again. It’s this. Worst part of consulting is when your coworkers are idiots selling snake oil. I don’t mind when my clients are dumb and need help and don’t accept help, but I loving hate consultants who sell trash like it’s filled with diamonds.
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Mar 12, 2021 01:24
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I followed up with the property management company and they instantly responded telling me they wished me the best. This is a bummer, not because I wanted this job, but because I don't know how hard to push when I next negotiate. I usually push like a feather, this time I pushed with a sledgehammer, and failed. How do you find the middle? Experience?
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Mar 12, 2021 16:21
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Based on what you said earlier about needing the extra salary to offset the benefits/bonus you'd be leaving behind, I don't think you went in like a sledgehammer at all. It sounds like you had a number that you needed to reach at a minimum to leave your current job and that they couldn't meet it. Just keep looking- you did nothing wrong.
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Mar 12, 2021 16:25
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And it's more than they wanted to pay. Which is fine too (in the context of your negotiation) So in a way this was a success because no one made a deal they wouldn't/couldn't fulfill.
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Mar 12, 2021 16:47
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stellers bae posted:I’m not really looking to jump ship unless those offers get WAY better.
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Mar 12, 2021 16:48
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stellers bae posted:I followed up with the property management company and they instantly responded telling me they wished me the best. This is a bummer, not because I wanted this job, but because I don't know how hard to push when I next negotiate. I usually push like a feather, this time I pushed with a sledgehammer, and failed. How do you find the middle? Experience? It just seems like you are hard core seeking validation.
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Mar 12, 2021 16:51
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spwrozek posted:It just seems like you are hard core seeking validation. yeah OP needs to figure out a better way of getting validation
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Mar 12, 2021 16:52
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