Why worker loyalty is at a breaking point | Hacker News Reader

Why worker loyalty is at a breaking point

bbc.com

39 pointsrustoo11 comments

Why are we surprised that workers are showing the same amount of loyalty to their employers as employers show to them?

The power dynamic between employer and employee is 100% in favor of the employer. Anything that pushes power back to the employee is probably for the best.

At Me, my employer is my most important resource.

Mission: To maximize my employer's perception of the necessity of my employment.

Vision: To foster business and community conditions that allow Me to thrive.

For some reason this makes me think of how fish pick at debris that collects on sharks and whales, to keep the larger mammal clean and free of infection, so both animals can continue living their lives.

I wonder if the larger animal is even aware of the army of fish it takes to keep it from succumbing to disease and decay.

TIL Symbiosis requires the two members to be of different species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis#Cleaning_symbiosis

Solid article. I understand the arguments against full, 100% remote, but have yet to hear a convincing argument against flexibility in general (whether that means going in a couple times a week or month).

If your job is a desk job that doesn’t require specialized tools or equipment it just isn’t necessary to be at your desk every single day.

TFA focuses on office workers, whose jobs can be done remotely. That's been a problem brewing for years.

But it coincides with service workers also not wanting to go work. They can't do their jobs remotely. But their jobs are pretty terrible, and they too seem to be fed up. In a lot of cases they were literally risking their lives during the pandemic, for minimum wage.

These are workers with very different lives but an interesting confluence of desires. A lot of assumptions going back to the 19th century are being shaken up. I have no idea how it'll resolve, but for the first time in a while I'm actually interested in a change that has the potential to improve people's lives.

"[We’ve also] found that younger workers are more likely than older employees to accept smaller pay increases for non-monetary benefits, including extensive mental health benefits, unlimited sick time, flexible work hours and remote work options"

(potentially noteworthy for future employers; credit PwC survey linked in the article)

The amount of money necessary to have similar impact to better benefits and sick time is ... considerable.

It takes a LOT more money to be able to afford a home, for example; but, another week of vacation time? That has value right now.

Allow me to offer a counterpoint to the claims that it’s the employers who are to blame for this “breaking point”. Might it be possible that employees are feeling empowered to dictate terms, and what we have it not a breaking point issue, but rather two opposing forces of the market:

Business which seeks labor at the lowest cost and labor which seeks employment at the highest cost.

I don’t think this is ultimately winnable by the labor. Companies exist to make a profit, and when they don’t make a profit, things change usually not in favor of labor; outsourcing and robotics come to mind.

Business IMO will not magically begin to care what labor thinks, nor will they capitulate. Unless we are willing to upend capitalism, which I think is not even academically feasible in America, business will eventually win out.

So this breaking point is not really a point, but an aberration that business has faced many times before.

This article is very thin on content.

Lol, ironic