Item — HN Reader

I vaguely agree with the premise of this post, which I would summarize is "The fear that paying individuals too much is empowering them to leave your organization is unfounded."

My perspective is that if the main force tying people to your company is money, then that's is the root of your problem. If people see it as just a money source that'll affect their quality of work in many other ways.

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What possible 'main force' could there be other than money?

Please forgive me if I'm incorrect but are you implying that the only reason to work is for the money?

Whilst I can understand that most people walk through the door to be able to pay the bills, I would suggest that for most people the greasiest value of work has nothing to do with the money.

It is possible that cultural differences and the existence of social safety nets influence my perspective.

> Please forgive me if I'm incorrect but are you implying that the only reason to work is for the money?

Of course it is. I like my job but if I suddenly won the lottery I would quit in a heartbeat and spend my time reading books, playing video games and just enjoying myself.

Married people like a scheduled unavoidable reason to get away from their partners for a while?

That's the point. Until You have someone that have 'a fuck-you money' attitude it will be the main reason to work. After that, main reasons can be e.g. interesting projects, everyday challenges or just people that work there :)

"main force tying people to your company", not "main force tying people to working at all".

People happily work for £X + a good mission, interesting work, nice office, good team etc; even when they know they could get £X+20% elsewhere.

Well there are a lot of other forces. For one, I take pride in building great things. I code for work, and when on vacation I build side projects, because I enjoy it.

Another is if I see a team trying to get something done, and they need my expertise, I enjoy the act of helping them.

Those employees are really only in it for the money will do the bare minimum. I'd say tops half of employees have this mentality. The rest care (often too much) about what we do.