It's the only schedule I've ever worked, except for when I had an overseas rotational assignment. But all 3 companies in Houston have been a 9/80 schedule. Looking back that may be self selecting because my first job was a 9/80 and I haven't really considered a 5/40.

flown-the-coop said:

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No reason a salaried position should have either a 9/80, 40 hour week or any sort of PTO. By nature, a salaried position indicates said employee is in control over their daily work. If they are not, they will be considered non-exempt and subject to overtime rules. Have fun sorting that out in court if you want to be hall monitor on hours.

I have a small business, less than 50 employees, so what we have works. We have no hourly employees unless its temporary and task specific. We ask for normal and respectable work hours (6pm to 2am is a no, 2am to 10am is a no). But i would probably consider the rest.

We have a no-vacation vacation policy. Over 10 years and not a SINGLE issue or complaint. You want time off, work it out with your schedule and job responsibilities.

Now, this works in a professional setting. I understand if you are working in fast food, manufacturing, or other areas that require humans to be available. Those workers are called HOURLY / NON-EXEMPT.

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Your system works because you have placed control into your employees hands. They will perform far better for you than when you dictate strict hours and hard hourly requirements. I have seen this through several O&G corporations. It scales quite nicely. Hire good people and it will always work no matter how large you get. If more employers operated like you do, we wouldn't have threads like this.

as long as there are sheety employees and sheety managers, these (non)systems will not work well for most companies.

Vernada said:

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as long as there are sheety employees and sheety managers, these (non)systems will not work well for most companies.

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Hire slow, Fire fast.

This is where corporate america fails. But if you are a business owner, you can make it happen. You can't get rid of anyone quickly in corporate america. We used to have a model like the one above, and eventually they went to one like you are suggesting. It created lazy workers. Missed deadlines. General F-offery. And still....because it had to go through 13 people....

Eventually, everyone just quit or changed jobs and they company hired H1B that they could abuse. And abuse they did. Those guys are working 50+ hours a week, holidays, no vacation unless someone lets them, etc. They hate their lives. And they are paid 40% less. Win win win for the company.

sorry. 'Lazy workers' isn't why companies have defined benefits and set policies. But I get it, to some people companies never do wrong. It's always the 'lazy worker'.

Tree Hugger said:

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I've noticed a lot of younger applicants are asking for things like this. I interviewed one person for an entry-level position a few months back that took it to the extreme though. I opened the interview with the usual overview of the company and the asked if she had any questions about the company as a whole before we started discussing the duties of the position she applied for.

She started by asking about a 9-80 schedule and I responded that we have some people that work on that schedule but it doesn't necessarily work for every position but it can always be an option down the road. She then asked about working from home and I responded similarly that some people do that, but it isn't always the best fit for every situation but it always something that can be evaluated further down the road after a person has been on the job for a while.

She responded that she couldn't possibly consider accepting an offer from us unless the 9-80 was an option from day 1 and that she would need to work from home 2-3 days per week because going from not working to having to go into the office 5 days a week would be too much of a sudden change for her. (Backstory here: She finished her undergrad degree and then took a two year victory lap for travel and "self discovery"). She also mentioned that she would NOT work in a cubicle and would have to have a proper office with a door.

Obviously I was pretty soured on this person by now and I told her that the 9-80 and work from home options are only available AFTER a person has proven themselves on the job and IF they were proven to be capable doing their job with an alternate schedule. To turn it back to how she worded things, I added that I couldn't possibly consider making her a job offer unless she was capable of accepting these very basic and very reasonable requirements.

After we stared at each other in silence for a few moments I asked if she was interested in continuing the interview, she replied with a very sassy "definitely not."

I need to go back and find her name and look her up on LinkedIn to see if anyone aside from Starbucks has been dumb enough to hire her.

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Yikes..

We've had a good, long, economic expansion... going on several years.

Nothing like an ass-kicking recession to force people to get real about going to work 5 or 6 days a week... and being grateful for it.

First job out of college had a "half day Friday" schedule. One of my coworkers, who had been there for a few years already, said the only reason it was like that is so the "big guys" could leave at 11am on Friday's, and they knew we would stay there working until 4pm. We were salaried, so the company didn't have to worry about paying OT

I'm on my third job in 7 years in Houston and only ever worked 9/80s. None of these jobs had us clock in and out and as long as you were getting your work done there wasn't a lot of oversight on your hours. It's hard to put a dollar amount on how much it's worth but I would need a substantial bump in pay and PTO to consider 5/8s.

The VP at my second company didn't like 9/80s but knew there would be a flood of people leaving if they got rid of it.

I love our so far sole H1B employee. For our firm it makes a lot of sense to just sponsor, put somebody on the figurative hook with a guarantee.
But we do treat this employee the same as all of our other employees. They get the same benefits and perks.

We have a supervisor and up work from home policy. As long as you don't abuse it and get your work done, nobody gives a flying eff.

We let go of a lot of Americans because they didn't want to work weekends or 60 hour weeks. They had pesky families and stuff. I swear to God one of my managers asked our h1b guys "so you guys don't 'do' thanksgiving right? So y'all are available those days, yes"?

But they also worked Christmas and New Years, remotely, in the office, 6am to 6pm... you name it...

Sorry for the ignorant question - what is an H1B employee?

Lost a millennial Friday. He had a legit beef on salary and our corporate structure could not accommodate the kind of increase it would have taken to keep him. Good engineer, good guy, left for more money, good for him, I wish him all the best.

He gave me an honest exit interview when I asked him to help his co-workers and my management team do things better. Number one complaint was "coverage requirements." We are an engineering support group that supports 24 / 7 / 365 production teams. Every person we have hired in the last 10 years has gotten my Good / Bad / Ugly speech that highlights all the crappy stuff about being a production support group. The night and weekend coverage expectations, the fact that 98% of the company gets a paid week off between Christmas and New Years but that we have to have people on-site, and that basically every paid Holiday has coverage requirements. This sucks, everyone understands it sucks, but it is the reality of our function and everyone knows it when they accept our job offer. But after the salary beef this was the #1 complaint. It's hard to swallow since it was a known issue that we have done our absolute best to inform prospects of. We allow coverage to be on-call, or paid OT on-site, we do everything we can to share it fairly across the entire group, including the 35 year career engineers and the 1 year "new folks." I'm just venting. It's the reality of our work. Sounds like I need some H1B folks, whatever they are.

H1B visa workers are not citizens and require sponsorship by a company for their visa. Supposedly they are here because we have a lack of technically qualified people in USA. Think about every non-US masters or grad student from A&M. They were trying for an H1B.

htxag09 said:

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Just because it's known when hired doesn't mean it's fine in the long run.

If you're going to require that of your employees, the pay should reflect it. The fact that he left for, what I'm assuming is, a job with more pay and more flexibility says more about your company than him.

Until pay matches requirements, you're going to be used as a stepping stone.

Just my honest opinion.

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I agree, we will continue to be a stepping stone. It is what it is. We are a niche field, and you either love the work and want to own it, or you don't. Anyone that just treats it as a job and doesn't get excited about the "noble cause" (defense industry) will leave when their resume is decent after 3-5 years. We can make it work, it just sucks. I'd love to give everyone huge raises for the crap we ask them to put up with, but it isn't possible. As a Gen Xer that identifies as a Boomer, the Millenials seem to have weak stomachs and a huge sense of entitlement that makes them unwilling to suck it up. And if they can leave after 3 years and do better why should they suck it up. I agree with the poster above, we need a downturn in the economy or the defense industry to damp out this cycle, but wishing for that seems foolish. H1B won't work for me based on citizenship requirements. I need to look at contract engineers for the undesirable shifts, but most contractors are more than happy to play on the internet all weekend making the big bucks when no one is around to monitor them. Again just venting about a situation I have no control of.

I'm an "old" millennial and I made a choice a few years back to leave Biglaw proper salaries are high, expectations are high, billable hours are high, and work-life balance is low. I went to what is known as a well-regarded boutique firm with a good reputation for ability to make good money but to maintain a manageable lifestyle. About a year ago, the partnership decided that they weren't making enough money and started turning the screws on themselves and really the non-partner attorneys to up their billable hours to BigLaw levels but without the commensurate compensation.

I'm frankly surprised that they were surprised when 2/3 of their associates departed for proper BigLaw or other jobs, all citing comp as the reason for the departure.

I went right on billing at the pace I was before. I caught some heat, but after turnover started ramping up, the heat faded.

Quote:

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1) yalls generation raised us, so any of these entitlement issues came from there.

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Don't blame me. It's not my fault.

If you could have just worked in a 'it's not fair' you could have nailed your generation's anthem.

(Poking fun - laced with more than a dash of truth)

htxag09 said:

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Roger350 said:

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htxag09 said:

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1Just because it's known when hired doesn't mean it's fine in the long run.

If you're going to require that of your employees, the pay should reflect it. The fact that he left for, what I'm assuming is, a job with more pay and more flexibility says more about your company than him.

Until pay matches requirements, you're going to be used as a stepping stone.

Just my honest opinion.

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I agree, we will continue to be a stepping stone. It is what it is. We are a niche field, and you either love the work and want to own it, or you don't. Anyone that just treats it as a job and doesn't get excited about the "noble cause" (defense industry) will leave when their resume is decent after 3-5 years. We can make it work, it just sucks. I'd love to give everyone huge raises for the crap we ask them to put up with, but it isn't possible. As a Gen Xer that identifies as a Boomer, the Millenials seem to have weak stomachs and a huge sense of entitlement that makes them unwilling to suck it up. And if they can leave after 3 years and do better why should they suck it up. I agree with the poster above, we need a downturn in the economy or the defense industry to damp out this cycle, but wishing for that seems foolish. H1B won't work for me based on citizenship requirements. I need to look at contract engineers for the undesirable shifts, but most contractors are more than happy to play on the internet all weekend making the big bucks when no one is around to monitor them. Again just venting about a situation I have no control of.

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As a millennial that thinks there is plenty wrong with my generation, this pisses me off.

1) yalls generation raised us, so any of these entitlement issues came from there.

2) work life balance is not an area where I think millennials deserve criticism. You live to work, great. That's good for you. I don't, I work to live. I bust mass when I'm at work and do everything i need to do to get the job done. I've worked 80 hour weeks, I've put in the hours and sweat. But sorry, I expect a normal week to be 40 hours. I expect to be able to go home and hang out with my family and partake in my hobbies. If not, why bust my ass to make the paycheck anyway. Yea, there are exceptions like a previous poster said. But you're in denial if you don't think there were lazy, worthless, pieces of crap in every generation. Let's not act like this is 1) something new to millennials and 2) the vast majority of millennials.

3) millennials are the current generation entering the work force. Instead of *****ing that millennials do this or that. It's the responsibility of managers to learn to manage them. If you can't, maybe you shouldn't be a manager.

Guess I'm venting similarly to you are.

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1) Yes, the people raising your generation did you no favors. My daughter is 12, so it wasn't me.

2) Work / Life balance is one of the huge things your generation needs to accept criticism for. Sorry, life isn't fair. If you want high pay, significant responsibility, and real career growth, then you need to do more than bust your ass 40 hours a week. Guess what, busting your ass 40 hours a week is what we expect from everyone. It's average. If you want anything above average for compensation, advancement, etc, then you aren't doing enough. If you are cool with average compensation, advancement, etc, then what you are doing works great. Life is a series of trade offs. If you are willing to be a role player, and be put in positions where your unwillingness to work more than 40 hours a week isn't a liability to the team, then everyone wins.

If you really bust your ass 40 hours a week you are not the normal for your generation. Most of your generation is at work 40 hours a week, but if we subtract phone time it might be down to about 24 hours a week of work at best.

3) Yes every generation has slackers, deadbeats, and oxygen depleters. Comparing yourself to these below average slugs and saying you're great because you work hard 40 hours a week is denial.

4) Yes, managers like myself need to figure out how to accommodate your lazy entitled generation. Usually it involves a revolving door and riding the backs of the few dedicated people that we find. And most of your generation seem to despise those few because they are wrecking the curve for everyone else.

Rant / vent returned.

Roger350 said:

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Sorry for the ignorant question - what is an H1B employee?

Lost a millennial Friday. He had a legit beef on salary and our corporate structure could not accommodate the kind of increase it would have taken to keep him. Good engineer, good guy, left for more money, good for him, I wish him all the best.

He gave me an honest exit interview when I asked him to help his co-workers and my management team do things better. Number one complaint was "coverage requirements." We are an engineering support group that supports 24 / 7 / 365 production teams. Every person we have hired in the last 10 years has gotten my Good / Bad / Ugly speech that highlights all the crappy stuff about being a production support group. The night and weekend coverage expectations, the fact that 98% of the company gets a paid week off between Christmas and New Years but that we have to have people on-site, and that basically every paid Holiday has coverage requirements. This sucks, everyone understands it sucks, but it is the reality of our function and everyone knows it when they accept our job offer. But after the salary beef this was the #1 complaint. It's hard to swallow since it was a known issue that we have done our absolute best to inform prospects of. We allow coverage to be on-call, or paid OT on-site, we do everything we can to share it fairly across the entire group, including the 35 year career engineers and the 1 year "new folks." I'm just venting. It's the reality of our work. Sounds like I need some H1B folks, whatever they are.

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Note my original post. I agreed he deserved more money. I never said he's going to a place with better hours. In fact, he and I both know that in order for him to advance at his new company he's going to have to get a Masters in Aeorospace Engineering, which is going to take a hell of a lot more effort than being on-call a weekend or two a month. As far as work hours go, neither he or I know what he's in for. Most companies in this industry down play the real work conditions and sell flex time, 9/80s, carpools, etc, and don't bother to mention that if you want to work on important things and want real advancement then none of that will actually be available to you. That was my only beef. I shot him and all my people straight when they were hired. Having the truth I sold them kicked back in my face on exit just rubbed me the wrong way.

This became a millenial against the world thing when you got pissed. The rest of us keep hoping your generation will eventually grow up and become adults like the rest of us had to. I don't think it's ever going to happen. So yes, if I want to continue to succeed I'm going to have to figure out how to pump sunshine and koolaid up your butts, give participation trophies to the whole office, and figure out how to cut budgets somewhere else because I have to carry 15% more engineers so everyone can go home at 3:00 to play video games and wait for the next episode of GOT.

Lots of good points. Especially about Millenials being more vocal and entrpreneurial about fixing work / life balance. And it is easy for us olds to classify it as whining and lazy. I agree that the reason it is easy to classify it that way is I'm rationalizing that I wasn't entrepreneurial enough to come up with solutions in my day, so I sucked it up and busted ass under the reality that I was unwilling to try and change.

I also have every generation working for me, and recognize the danger of stereotypes. I have hard workers and below average people in all of them. I don't have any boomers that are the smoking, e-mailing, time wasters you speak of, but to be fair the last one of those I did have took a voluntary retirement package a couple years ago.

I'm going to say my Millenials probably fit the same bell curve every generation fits for performance and dedication. It's easy to let the top 15% and bottom 15% color your opinions. And I'll admit my venting is focused on the bottom 15%.

Again, this person didn't leave for better work life balance. He left for more money. And I've said repeatedly he deserved more but that I couldn't come close to matching it if I wanted to. He poked at the work / life balance on his way out, knowing full well his work / life balance isn't going to improve at his next job because of the education requirements, and the nature of the business. That rubbed me the wrong way because he knew about this aspect of the position before he took it. Had I lied about this when I hired him, or refused to consider and implement changes to improve things then it would be 100% on me. That's not the case here.

Something doesnt add up. You say you're focused on the bottom 15% of millenial employees, but you're mad this person left for a better job. Seems you'd be happy that a bottom performer were leaving. Also seems a bottom performer would have trouble finding a better job unless you work for a crappy company.
Oh.