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Comment by jackTheMan | Hacker News Reader

If you read the book of the book Work Rules! of Laszlo Bock (HR in google) you will learn that parties and group binding is appreciated more than salary by workers.

So if you see from the money side of things, you can get/keep (more) highly talented people for less money.

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>parties and group binding is appreciated more than salary by workers

I'd be surprised if this is true for more than a tiny fraction of workers. Given the high salaries at Google, maybe it's more true there than at other places.

why do so many companies throw holiday parties then? according to the top few google results, a typical company party costs somewhere in the vicinity of $75/head. they could instead just add $75 (minus additional tax liabilities) to everyone's bonus and call it a day. is it just to be nice, or do executives believe that throwing a few parties is a cheaper way to boost retention?

I don't know. I can think of some possible reasons, for example: the people who decide to have a company party do want to be nice, and/or maybe they want to party themselves, and/or maybe they see it as an opportunity to get publicity and network, and/or maybe they do it because other companies do it and so it's just "what is done", and/or maybe they do it because they think it'll raise morale and team bonding.

But I don't know. Maybe someone who has personal insight into the matter can chime in.

If you’re only in it for the money, you are a mercenary in all but title.

People quit because nothing at the company is enough to make them stay. “Enough” is a complex thing and often the oddest details can be the last straw.

I like to go to going away parties for people and listen to their reasons for leaving. I doubled down on better onboarding experiences when I noticed how often people were uncomfortable from day one on the job and they never shook that feeling. At a good employer, the only one who expects anything from you in your first week is yourself, but those feelings of alienation can stick around.

You don’t have to go to the parties, but other people need to. And really, you should go too. You’re missing out and driving yourself to burnout.

In nonprofits, burnout is the boogeyman.

Yes, I'm only in it for the money. So are almost all other workers. I've been to work parties. I'm a very social person but work parties never did much for me because you can't talk freely at them. I don't need work parties. If I want to go party with coworkers, I can organize that myself, I don't need the organization to do it for me. Or I can go party with people who are not coworkers. I do understand that maybe some people are too shy to party outside of work, but I think that they would probably benefit from becoming less shy. Work parties at almost all organizations are not events where people can really be themselves, and I don't think it's a good idea to have all your eggs in the one basket of work anyway. But as for people who like work parties, I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't go to them. More power to them.

I seem to find a lot of people on HN who aren't just in it for the money.

Mind you, they wouldn't do this for free, and the money certainly helps. A lot. But it's not enough.

HN probably disproportionately attracts people who are well-off enough that they can afford to be choosy about work. There also might be some bias because working just for the money is the default and working for things other than the money is the exception, so people in the latter category are more likely to write about it than people in the former category. Also, some people who claim to be working for more than just the money might just be saying what they want to be true rather than what is true. It's not that they're consciously lying, cause there would be little reason to do that on HN, it's more that to believe that they are working for more than the money makes them feel good. Also, admitting that you're working just for the money is taboo in a large subset of corporate culture and, while there is not much reason to avoid violating the taboo on HN, the taboo may nonetheless spill over into outside-of-work thinking.

I'm currently working for the money[1]. I still couldn't tell you if it's crushing or liberating. Given the Pandemic, all options are on the table. I know I've invested about 800 hours in a passion project in the last year, which may turn into 2 or hopefully not 3 this year. I don't know if that would have happened if I loved my job, pandemic or no pandemic.

I think the working for more than money thing goes back to the 'do what you love for a living' advice that many of us think is actually pretty bad. Or at least a good way to get exploited, and ultimately burnt out.

1. I have relatives whose lives fall apart if they aren't working. One ended up working through retirement despite not needing the money. I appear to be somewhat similar. So I say I'm working 'for the money' but it's also to keep the wheels from falling off.

>If you read the book of the book Work Rules! of Laszlo Bock (HR in google) you will learn that parties and group binding is appreciated more than salary by workers.

it is written by an HR - it is their job to sell such a proposition and they get recognition for supposedly successfully substituting larger expenses like salaries by the lower expenses like the parties.

> get/keep (more) highly talented people for less money.

exactly - HR is trying to sell themselves as those magicians who can do it, who can beat the power of raw compensation by some tricks and gimmicks and thus supposedly save company money.

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