Comment by waps | Hacker News Reader

Comment by waps | Hacker News Reader

Another way for big companies to more accurately exploit their workforce under market-based conditions. If this software goes through, the only possible way to get a raise is if the program believes not getting a raise would actually cause you to quit. There's only one reliable way to make the program think that : make sure you actually would quit if you don't get it.

In other words: expect a massive increase in job hopping as people find the only possible way to negotiate with this program : quit.

> By morning, he says: "If a customer has thousands of people in similar job types, our system can predict accurately on a given day which individuals are most likely to quit." In response, Evolv then offers employers "what-if types of analysis" by which if they change certain incentives – a bonus, training scheme, change in environment – they can see exactly what effect it is likely to have on a particular person's behaviour. In this way Evolv advertises average reduced employee attrition rates among its clients, who include one fifth of Fortune 100 companies, of up to 15%.

This sounds horrible. It would force employees into quit-to-improve-working conditions dynamics. Constantly interview, at a non-ridiculous rate. If you get offered better conditions, either Evolv will offer you the same at your current position, or you should quit.

Of course that's already mostly true : my advice working for a fortune 100 company that isn't Google or Facebook : prepare to quit after 1 year or less. Regardless of whether you want to stay or not, have a serious discussion with your boss about quitting after 6 months at most.

I wonder if it would defeat the negotiation tactic used by "Evolv" here. If you can call it a tactic, that is.

Once you have a sufficient percentage of a job market gated by these types of algorithms, the individual worker literally cannot win. Adversarial approaches to 'beating' the algorithm can be detected and compensated for within the algorithm. Ironically, it'll just be right back to forming unions, except you'll be negotiating against algorithms.

Seriously, almost any type of 'optimization' on the half of companies/employers right now is bad news for employees and job seekers. We call it optimization because its nice and clean. But the effect of every optimization is to squeeze out every last bit of productivity out of a given work force as possible.

Honestly, I hope this type of thing is never developed and deployed to the degree to which some of the proponents in the article wish it to. They can paint starry eyed pictures of a future where everyone gets to work the job that fits them the best, but all I can see is a future where everyone who has a job is scared shitless of losing it, since it'll blackmark them forever.

This type of optimization has been happening since the beginning of the assembly line or even before it. Plus, employee/employer relationships are always adversarial. I want as much as I can get out of the company and the company wants to get as much out of me as possible.

As for it going into production I don't see why it is a bad thing. You could turn the whole thing around and help job seekers find companies where they know they would be happy and productive. After all it is a similar kind of optimization but from a different perspective.

When I saw the the headline that's what I thought the article was about: "Oh joy, someone has found a way to use hadoop to better inform job seekers."

Thats a highly cynical view. There's plenty of optimization problems that aren't about squeezing out productivity at the cost of anyone, but rather about improving productivity and employee satisfaction at the same time.

For instance - lets say that I realise I have a problem with turnover that I want to fix, because my costs of replacing staff are too high. To address that I want to spend 1M on retention activities in a year. Should I spend that on additional vacation days, or should I spend that on extra events for the staff, or on extra training opportunities? If I spend that money, will the impact on my turnover costs be positive enough to warrant the spend?

That's the kind of discussions that always pop up. Being able to quantify the impact would make it easier to do the right thing that both benefits employees and the employer.

Oh, I agree that there are ways to improve productivity and employee satisfaction at the same time, and some companies might choose to do that.

But let's be real - there are likely more people that jobs that they are willing to do in the US for the short to medium term. As the 'jobless' recovery showed, companies were perfectly able to squeeze out additional 'productivity' (ok, I'll agree that the way we measure market performance isn't really that great, but it's the metrics that we largely agree to play the game by) while cutting labour force, and maybe even per-worker pay, and likely driving down employee satisfaction, other than how glad they were to still have a job.

As long as 'hey, look be glad that you have a job' is a legitimate threat, for the majority of workers, they're really out of luck, cause again, let's be real. The right thing that benefits both employees and the employer is not the same thing as the right thing that benefits both the employees plus the guy you just fired and the employer.

Ironically, it'll just be right back to forming unions, except you'll be negotiating against algorithms.

An algorithm can't 'negotiate' with a strike, or other more extreme forms of trade union actions (like burning down the compeditors, shunning scabs, etc.)

Think of the algorithm as playing a game against a human, where the human players' goal is to maximize compensation/opportunities/generally feeling good or at least ok about work. The algorithm's goal is to maximize the business's surplus (productivity minus cost). This game is competitive (but not zero sum).

You are claiming that the human cannot beat the algorithm, because the algorithm can always adapt. But humans are still better than computers at some games (Arimaa, Havannah, Hex, Go) and worse at others (Chess, Checkers). So your claim needs a lot more justification.

The comparison is worrisome: depending on how good these algorithms get and how zero-sum the competition is, we could be screwed. But we don't know.

I wonder about that. There'll be a motivation for companies to defect.

If I can get awesome people to work at my company just by offering them a reasonable amount more than at Evilcorp, I'm just gonna do that. If it forces Evilcorp to raise their wages, then that's good for me - EC is spending more to get what they'd get anyway - and if they come work for me then that's good too.

Wage fixing, is a problem, don't get me wrong. However, it's a problem regardless of how efficient you are in hiring.

Or you can see it as finding out how to take the issue of money and other hygiene factors off the table.

Money isn't a great motivator. Lack of decently accurate compensation is a very good de-motivator. Same goes for a bunch of other things - I dont want to have to think about them, but if they aren't thought about it will annoy and demotivate me. Find a way to script that and it will increase my happiness by decreasing irritants.

I think threatening to quit or quitting with a better offer has always been a guaranteed way to get a raise. These new startups are not going to change that dynamic.

Funny you should mention the 6 month rule. I've kinda stumbled on it through trial and error but it seems like a pretty good checkpoint for salary discussions.

Care to elaborate a little more about this 6 month rule, please?

What I think the 6 month rule is:

After 6 months, your employer can more accurate judge your work and it isn't necessary to wait until the "annual" review. It's an opportunity to adjust salary upwards because you've proved your value. Remember, the original negotiated salary was based on pre-job leverage (skills, knowledge, etc) and not how well you exceed in the role. You could prove to be a bigger value-add than was expected.

You don't have to pose it as an ultimatum (Pay me more or I'll quit), because you can also use it as an opportunity to find out how to adjust in order to get the raise at the 1 year mark, which is in another 6 months.

Yup.

> Regardless of whether you want to stay or not, have a serious discussion with your boss about quitting after 6 months at most.

To get a raise you mean?

In my experience, mostly to guarantee you get a raise at the end of the year. At the six month mark I'd settle for a concrete promise doubling inflation (but not easily). Make sure to both ask what you're doing right and wrong and make sure to discuss what the company is doing right and wrong.

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