On 6/6/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The net result is to encourage competition among the staff rather than a sense of collaboration and teamwork.
I worked as an IT consultant for a Fortune 100 financial company in New York City a few years ago. There was a system similar to this although it was more arbitrary and more focused on (a rather large) bonus than pay. On the theme of competition I should mention that this company attempted competition in about every arena other than competition between our wages and their profits. They tried to set up the staff to compete against the consultants, telling the consultants they might in-house positions, telling staff they might out-source positions. They tried to get consulting companies competing against each other for contracts, always playing one off against the other. I once got my hands on some management documents which talked about business units of the company not being business units but "virtual companies" that had to compete within the company. Among the staff, other than dangling the possibility of management positions for "hard work" (literally meaning working 70, 80 or more hours per week instead of the standard 60), the bonus pool was a zero-sum game which was all about encouraging competition among the staff rather than a sense of collaboration and teamwork. It worked rather well, as many of the staff attempted to make others look bad so as to decrease their amount of the bonus, and thus increasing the bonus pool for all other than that person. The competition also was in where the jobs would be. The company had offices in Brooklyn, Connecticut, New Jersey and White Plains and extorted massive tax rebates from New York City at the same time it was sending one billion a year in dividends to its shareholders. I was a consultant and like many consutants at the time had my salary cut shortly after being there despite an average work week being 60 hours a week, at all hours of the day and weekend. I quit shortly thereafter.
