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Subject:Re: Employees who hate their tools From:Ray Bruman <rbruman -at- RND -dot- RAYNET -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 6 Feb 1995 11:05:05 PST
Chet Ensign <Chet_Ensign%LDS -at- NOTES -dot- WORLDCOM -dot- COM> writes:
> Speaking as a manager, I can say that few people (me included) are happy with
> anything less than state-of-the-art equipment. Someone in a management role
has
> to balance a limited number of $$$ against many competing demands. If employee
> a tells me that he hates his PC and he could get his work done much faster
> with a better machine, but his projects are getting done in a time frame I can
> live with, I don't have much incentive to push for a new PC. But, if employee
b
> shows me that she could half the turn-around time on her projects with the
> right equipment -- and that turn-around time matters to me, I've got some real
> motivation to get her what she wants.
Chet, thanks for offering the manager perspective. I've always wanted
to ask managers if the following argument has any fallacies, mistakes, poor
assumptions, or whatever:
"Let's see, we're paying her $50,000 year salary and she also costs us
about $15,000 a year in overhead. She's a valuable worker and I know
there are other employers who would like to lure her away with perks
like state-of the art hardware and software to work with, learn, and
enjoy. Man, if we lost all her training and specialized knowledge about
our operations, and had to hire and train someone else to take over for
her, that would cost us another two month's costs to catch up, say about
$11,000 easily. Possibly a lot more, plus intangible losses.
On the other hand, she's asking us to add about $6,000 on our capital
budget. But, then, her old equipment would be freed up for other workers who
would actually appreciate the upgrade on their tools. Sounds like a
win-win-win decision; let's get her the new tools. Or, if we really
can't afford it, let's make sure she understands why we can't."
Am I missing something here?
Ray Bruman In this establishment,
Raynet Corp. we DO NOT DISCUSS
rbruman -at- raynet -dot- com race, religion, politics,
415-688-2325 or nutrition.
