The CEO of RevolutApp on Slack: “Why Aren’t You Working on Weekends?”

EDIT

Let me explain why this is good. First as your boss, I'm not your friend. I'm not your pal. My sole responsibility is to ensure that I communicate clearly and effectively what needs to be done and make sure it happens. That's it. Does this mean, I'm not compassionate? No, of course not, but what it means is that I am tasked having uncomfortable conversations about things that need to be done and to make it understood. Have I asked people to work nights and weekends? Yes. Several times? Yes. Do I like doing it? No. This is the job. If you want to quit over this. No hard feelings. I make it clear that this is what we have to do. Have I fired people for under performing? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? No. That's my job. I feel bad, when I have to let someone go, because we don't have the money to keep them. When management says, "lose two heads, because we want to cut costs," and they were good employees. I feel bad then.

Working weekends sucks, I agree, but sometimes you have to. If you've never worked for a company that is on the brink of bankruptcy, you really don't understand what it's like to have to lay things on the line. The CEO is being honest about consequences. We honestly, don't know the situation from that blurb. It sounds like he's being an ass, but there maybe an underlying reason for it. (Probably not, but you never know.) Whether you choose to keep going is your choice.

A previous company I worked for, was on the brink of going out of business. Only a few of us knew (out of 200+ employees). We had a shortfall of money and we didn't know if we were going to make payroll that month. They didn't want to tell anyone (in fact I was instructed not to), but I knew, because I knew several of the executives. I pushed my staff, and myself for those three weeks, because I knew that if we didn't bill, the company could quite possibly go under. People say working weekends crosses a line. Knowing that your co-worker (or employee) may get evicted from the country, lost their house, etc., because you didn't do your job for those couple of weeks, I can't do that. That's crossing a line for me.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-peter-ohiggins...

Reasonable KPI's are good, and people should be able to work as much or as little (within reason) to meet those targets. The problem is ownership always wants more.

And KPIs are actually benchmark indicators [hence the name], not explicit targets. Sure, you can try to make goals, even have certain contractual rights or obligations pegged to them, and CEOs can even communicate these to employees, but demanding to meet those goals, to place these goals above personal well-being is a very short sighted strategy.

They were using hiring process for unpaid work.

It's worth remembering that the only reason employees get these concessions is because unions and governments forced companies to do so under threat of (sometimes direct) violence, and that part of the "disruptive" philosophy of modern startup culture is an attempt to undermine and roll back these gains in labor rights under the pretense of free-market efficiency.

We really shouldn't encourage this type of work ethic in any way or on any step of the ladder.

Obviously the pressure from the CEO is meant to trickle down to the line employees.

Edit: Oh SNAP! :) Ok now I read it, a parallel HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279746

Of course I think you mean to say "the idea of a 7 day work week is stupid"

What difference does that make? If people are behind they're behind. There should be a discussion, not an "work overtime" response. I want to think I'm valued and not just blamed if things aren't going smoothly.

A failure of management either way. Hire the right people, get them to do the right job, give them reasonable targets based on reasonable estimates of velocity and the work required to bring the project to completion, create positive incentives to work instead of casually threatening the employees. You know, manage the employees.

If I worked there and knew I wouldn't meet my "KPIs" because of inept management and learned that they'd hold my bonus hostage even if I was a "great contributor", why would I want to work at all, let alone on weekends?

But this is a start-up with unpaid overtime. There is a purpose to deliberately creating unreasonable estimates, and it's to get people to work for free. Based on what I read it seems par for the course, unfortunately.

You swap a bright pink/orange card for a bright lime green

Why are you stereotyping work ethics among western countries? That's clearly wrong because most of them have the same structure. Believe it or not the worst work environments exist in "poor" countries like India, or Pakistan, or even Balcan countries like Romania. White collars are suffering there that's why their only dream is moving to USA or Germany.

You can ask for a new version of the theory of relativity from the janitor by the end of the week, but if she fails to deliver I would not put the blame on her.

If it is employee laziness or incompetence, the employees should be retrained, demoted or fired. Grinding them on weekends is only likely to make the productivity drain worse and if they are creating bad work outputs, you’re accelerating the compounding growth of their mistakes.

I like what was said in Peopleware about this, “You can kick someone to make him sit up in his chair, but you can’t kick someone to make him work.”

Despite all of the above, 99% of the time this sort of issue stems from toxic & incompetent management. Is your CEO using Twitter to bark workload policy at you? Well, then you know who the problem is.

Also, do you think that (given, again, the general tone) that the management would evaluate a low-performing employee in a fair and objective way?

Even asking people to work on weekend without compensation it's illegal in many countries.

Let's very deliberately not do what China is doing.

Hold on. A firefighter is on call in the in the firehouse during their shift. The aren't (except in emergencies) working straight 24 hour shifts. I see them at the grocery store a lot during the day. How many teams of software developers are gaming, shopping and sleeping during their shifts?

most patrol officers work 5 consecutive 8-hour shifts followed by two days off, though emergency callouts are part of the job.

I don't know any morticians but I assume that is the same. Doctors are in a different category all together, and I'll bet their shifts and culture surrounding their hours are responsible for many, many deaths.

Tech workers are merely making their CEO and some shareholders rich. They should only be working those long hours if it's going to benefit them, and they like the tradeoff.

I'm not implying that it's OK to overwork Doctors / Firemen / Policemen: simply stating that there's real good in the world they do, whereas most tech companies are net loss for humanity, and not worth the work.

That's what an employment contract is for.

If you want me to work on weekends, put that in the contract.

I can then negotiate an appropriate wage.

If it's not in the contract, get lost.

Alternatively propose a new contract so we can re-negotiate my compensation.

If we negotiated for 160 hours of my time / month, then that's what you're getting.

And if you can't wrap your head around that, you are not qualified to run a company and probably shouldn't be trusted with any kind of business transaction at all.

Just because you're a founder doesn't mean you're a slave owner. Those days are thankfully over in large parts of the world.