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Comment by lukeaf | Hacker News Reader

Considering the companies they are talking about here, wouldn't it just be better to work towards a more goal driven work agreement? Show up, do what is required and then the time is yours?

If you're being paid regardless then what does it matter if you're "on the bench" for a few hours or you leave early for the day? A lot, if we're talking about employee morale. Not much if someone is sitting at their desk trying to find stuff to do.

So long as there is effective communication (which I know can be a challenge) then it really doesn't (or shouldn't) matter when a person is working if the gets done. No?

40h (or 32h) work weeks make even less sense when you work remotely.

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Your logic is not wrong, but I think the part you are omitting is that most managers really do not know how to manage. In most companies nobody REALLY has a good feel for how much work someone should get done in a given amount of time, or what fair compensation would actually be. This puts us into the mode of "pay the minimum amount we can, and then try to extract maximum work product".

If an employee is measurably unproductive for a few hours regularly, then the assumption is that their manager has failed somehow. I agree that this is most likely not an accurate conclusion, but it is a prevalent one.

Well, we already got examples with companies implementing the "take as much PTO as you like" benefit, the counterintuitive result is that employees tend to take as much or less days off than what they had before in fixed amount, without QoL improvements. The thing is, the fact that something is possible doesn't mean that people will feel comfortable doing it. Cultural norms, management style or habits aren't easy to change.

I live and work in France, where you legally have 5 weeks of PTO. The 5th week has been introduced 40 years ago. And yet, it's still hard for a lot of HR departments to make sure that employees properly take all of their PTO each year. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, left unsupervised with goals to reach, it seems that most people tend to overwork themselves rather than laze off.

I suppose the main issue here from a legal perspective is the definition of a goal that can even be verified externally in case of disagreement, for instance by a judge. Hours of presence, on the other side, are quite objectively measurable (although becoming harder in a remote-work setting).

I would like to add more subjectively: as a company, I would also be afraid that contracts defining payment based on piece work result in an army of quasi-consultants. This might push the company towards: optimize your efforts against some agreed-upon metrics (see the previous point about goals), and go home. I suppose there is some benefit for a (software) company if its employees spend time at work "slacking" such that they might actually find useful things to do that none of their managers might ever notice.

> Considering the companies they are talking about here, wouldn't it just be better to work towards a more goal driven work agreement? Show up, do what is required and then the time is yours?

People with the liberty to have goal driven work are generally exempt (there is also a pay threshold, but the freedom of goal-driven work usually only comes with sufficient pay to meet it), and not the workers impacted by this bill. Giving people the freedom of goal driven work and the minimum salary for exempt status is a way for employers to not have to worry about this requirement, which does push people to that by making it more expensive not to do it.

It's probably easier to change the law than it is to change the minds of the hour-counters.

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