What I hope: the comments on this article don't become yet another conference of blowhards and apologists.
The frequency at which I've seen comments paraphrased as "So you hate your work; welcome to life, now shut up and get back to it," is disheartening. I am surprised the number of people, even on HN, who see this mutual antagonism as not just a self-fulfilling prophecy, but one that can and will sustain itself indefinitely.
I honestly don't think it will. In fact, I think it already failed some time ago, and we are feeling the effects of it right now.
The article brings up the number of people who are, or at least feel that they are, stagnating at their current jobs. It also draws the connection between the feeling stagnation and a reduction in productivity and competitiveness. But stagnation isn't typically a temporally local phenomenon; a person does not usually become redundant or stagnant overnight. However, their realization that they are redundant or stagnating can occur overnight, often after ignoring the warning signs for as long as they consciously can.
But productivity isn't just affected by the feeling of stagnation and vulnerability; it is affected by the actual stagnation that an expectation of mutual loyalty causes. The worker can become lazy with the expectation that the employer will keep them on anyway, provided they aren't completely incompetent. This is a considerable threat if the worker doesn't give a damn about their work past the paycheck; what incentive do they have to be anything but as lazy as possible. They were clinging on to their jobs before, but the recession made them acutely aware that they were doing so and how tenuous their grip has now become.
This apathy also negatively affects productivity and competitiveness. But no one notices, because it is business as usual; at least it was. But now employers have started to notice, but they are solving the wrong problem; they assume the problem is one of insufficient data or insufficient supervision. They never assume that one or more of their underlying assumptions about their workforce, and what makes them most effective, might not be true and might never have been true.
I hope that people wake up to the larger lesson this turmoil is wanting to teach all of us. Unproductive people working in what are effectively sinecures are not a sustainable way to run an economy based on the production and distribution of wealth. Eventually, someone will ask where all this wealth is, and won't abide a waffling, noncommittal answer.
Not entirely sure what you're trying to say, but just because someone is unhappy doesn't make them unproductive - certainly and quite likely less productive - but not unproductive (and almost certainly productive enough to be worth more than their cost). While the Economist tries to point some of the blame on measurements on performance, I would make the argument that it's the wrong measures that are the problem. After all, churn/attrition obviously greatly affects productivity/performance as can happiness.
I suspect employers have and do get better at managing people as it's always the best ones who are able to (and often do try to) find work elsewhere in good times and bad. For the employers who don't change, they're left with the results of adverse selection.
the actual stagnation that an expectation of mutual loyalty causes
So you're basically advocating that employers and employees should not be loyal to each other, so there won't be any feelings or expectations of loyalty that can negatively impact productivity. That completely ignores the positive effects of loyalty, which are well documented.
You're being an armchair economist, that has identified a single relationship that he uses to explain everything.
advocating that employers and employees should not be loyal to each other
Unfortunately I have yet to personally see an example of a corporation being loyal in my lifetime. On the contrary I have seen the trust of family members abused by their employers.
I do believe in positive effects of loyalty, but that loyalty can only function when it is mutual. The reality I have seen for myself and my family is that corporate loyalty does not exist. Individual humans can be well-intentioned but organizational behavior is the ultimate arbiter of the relationship.
One definite misfortune of the current state is that the power relationship between employer and employee is unbalanced. In theory that relationship is a capitalistic trade of time for money, but the severing of that relationship is far more disruptive to the individual. I think much of the resentment found among employees results from the loser's choice between a poor employment situation and the uncertainty and upheaval of changing employers.
Only I can take responsibility for my own well-being.
Edit: The one counterexample I have seen is SAS. That privately-owned company treats its employees extremely well. Its turnover rate is also nonexistent.
In theory that relationship is a capitalistic trade of time for money, but the severing of that relationship is far more disruptive to the individual.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. A startup I'm consulting for recently lost an employee, and it hurt us far more than the employee.
In general, a recurring trade creates wealth. Ending the trade tends to hurt whoever is getting the lion's share of the wealth created. In the case of unionized workers, that tends to be the employee. In the case of high value workers, that tends to be the employer.
You'd be hard pushed to find an organisation that is able to be loyal to it's employees. There are some but they're in the minority, especially if we're talking about a company that can employ a lot of people.
The whole employer-employee relationship has inherent friction due to pay. This affects trust and loyalty. It is an employee's responsibility to ensure they maximise their earnings for the skills they have and it is the company's responsibility to keep outgoings low. Such a scenario will always breed suspicion if the working relationship is not sweet and parties do not spell out their long-term expectations.
The frequency at which I've seen comments paraphrased as "So you hate your work; welcome to life, now shut up and get back to it," is disheartening. I am surprised the number of people, even on HN, who see this mutual antagonism as not just a self-fulfilling prophecy, but one that can and will sustain itself indefinitely.
I honestly don't think it will. In fact, I think it already failed some time ago, and we are feeling the effects of it right now.
The article brings up the number of people who are, or at least feel that they are, stagnating at their current jobs. It also draws the connection between the feeling stagnation and a reduction in productivity and competitiveness. But stagnation isn't typically a temporally local phenomenon; a person does not usually become redundant or stagnant overnight. However, their realization that they are redundant or stagnating can occur overnight, often after ignoring the warning signs for as long as they consciously can.
But productivity isn't just affected by the feeling of stagnation and vulnerability; it is affected by the actual stagnation that an expectation of mutual loyalty causes. The worker can become lazy with the expectation that the employer will keep them on anyway, provided they aren't completely incompetent. This is a considerable threat if the worker doesn't give a damn about their work past the paycheck; what incentive do they have to be anything but as lazy as possible. They were clinging on to their jobs before, but the recession made them acutely aware that they were doing so and how tenuous their grip has now become.
This apathy also negatively affects productivity and competitiveness. But no one notices, because it is business as usual; at least it was. But now employers have started to notice, but they are solving the wrong problem; they assume the problem is one of insufficient data or insufficient supervision. They never assume that one or more of their underlying assumptions about their workforce, and what makes them most effective, might not be true and might never have been true.
I hope that people wake up to the larger lesson this turmoil is wanting to teach all of us. Unproductive people working in what are effectively sinecures are not a sustainable way to run an economy based on the production and distribution of wealth. Eventually, someone will ask where all this wealth is, and won't abide a waffling, noncommittal answer.