quote:
But if your stance is that compensation is going to match job description and not effort, then don't be surprised when employees stick to doing only the job description and not extra effort.

I'm not surprised by anything you said. I've heard it all before, over and over and over. And I have learned that it's pointless to debate it because career employees are incapable of understanding an employer perspective, and populism has become the dominant philosophy in society whether applied to the left or right.

But let me ask you this.

It's pretty well acknowledged that we live in a participation trophy society. I don't think you'll be so dense as to argue that.

If you do any research at all you will see that the HR industry has had to change because of that. It's no longer enough to hire an employee, agree upon a compensation, have them work their job and receive the compensation they agreed upon. That isn't enough anymore. Now employees have to have someone "inspire" them to do their best. Now employees have to have someone regularly express how appreciative their employer is that they did what they were hired to do. Etc.

I'm bringing this up, btw, because it's not a matter of opinion. It's an industry reality. Employees absolutely have changed. It's a universally acknowledged fact. Look it up.

Now, if you think I'm going to buy that our society, with all of its grade inflation, students begging for (and getting) grades, special accommodations for everything from "anxiety" to needing an "emotional support pet" to go out in public, participation trophies, parents having seemingly universally stopped disciplining children or requiring anything of them, everybody on Prozac or going to therapy, people having decided that they can choose whether they are male or female, etc., etc., etc...if you think I'm going to buy that the toxic culture of entitlement that very obviously pervades our society magically stops short of the employer-employee relationship, then I think you're either very low IQ or you are a liar who hopes to pull the wool over my eyes.

Why do you think populism in general has seduced so many people in American society? Because entitlement (and the other side of the coin, victimhood, when people do not get what they feel entitled to) has become an integral part of American culture.

Here's a great blog post on it: LINK

Here's some research on entitlement from childhood to the workplace: LINK

You asked me a question, one part of which I already answered in what I posted to you, but here's the other part—I'm 53. And going back to the part you apparently didn't read, I didn't work for a manufacturing plant until I retired, I owned my own company (until I sold it, just recently).

So now here's your question: Do you come from a middle or upper middle class background? The study I linked to above says there's a great chance that you feel overly entitled if you do. And even if you personally don't, how much of the American workforce do you think that describes?

Also referencing the part you were apparently feeling too entitled to actually read, I never once asked my employees to do more than what they originally signed up to do without paying them for doing it. Which is why your insistence on the broad brush accusation that all employers do so I find not credible. Also because I did some Googling and found nothing really to suggest that that was a recognized trend (like the changes in employees).

In fact, all three times that I tried to institute profit-sharing I did so because I polled the employees and asked them what they wanted. All three times they said they wanted more money. So I went to the trouble of figuring out a way that they could make more money. All three times they refused to do what they needed to do to make more money—which again, in case this part was too much for you the first time—they didn't need to spend more time at work to do—I gave them the time. All they had to do was take more responsibility and think about work differently. They weren't willing to do it.

So yeah, they wanted more money, but only if they didn't have to do anything different to get it. Just like you, I guess.

Anyway, entitled people will not recognize a sense of entitlement in themselves (see the links above) because narcissism is part of the mindset. Which is why these debates always go nowhere. I get it. I've had this conversation 100 times. It's always the employer's fault and anything the employee does is completely justified.

But that inability to be objective is also why people on this board (and American people in general in 2024) will cry and bitch and moan about all the other examples of a toxic entitled society that I posted above, yet go completely blind and buy into the nonsense that their work = them getting screwed while "making someone else rich."

The reality is that some companies treat their employees well and some don't. Some make smart decisions regarding their workforce and others don't. And if any employers were as bad as people always claim theirs is, the company would eventually go out of business.

That seems sufficiently simple and common sense that it wouldn't be controversial, but when you're narcissistic and entitled, common sense isn't your primary compass anymore.

(Downvote if you're a populist, entitled bitch!)