Who would you give a raise to?

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Purely hypothetical. You are the guy who pays the checks at some company. The salaries of three employees depend on you.

Employee A: Spends far less time at work than B and C, but it turns out the result of his work has the top quality by an objectively measurable metric.
Employee B: Works overtime, but it turns out the result of his work has the worst quality. Although the quality is acceptable, A and C did a better job.
Employee C: Mediocre quality and time spent.

My answer is give the raise at random.

I fire employee B and give his salary to employee A.

You don't say anything about the quantity of output. I answered assuming the quantity is the same for all three, and picked the closest answer since my actual answer isn't one of the choices.

Its all about productivity.
Lets lump quantity and quality together under productivity.

Employee A apparently is somekind of genius who is able to make the clients happy and produce value for you the employer while hardly breaking a sweat, so he gets the raise.
The fact he doesnt break a sweat is irelevant.

Employee B sounds the type who fill in for someone in an emergency since hes so willing to put in overtime. So that would deserve kind of acknowledgement. But that isnt stated in your hypotheical so- the way youve set it up- if there is only one raise to hand out- Mr. A would get it.

Also you dont want your competition to lure him away if hes that talented.

I would give person A the raise, and find out why person B is putting in all the extra hours, it could be person A could teach person B how to do the work faster and at a higher quality.

I second that motion. It is obvious that employee B should be sacked. He is costing the company additional in wages and not turning out a good product.

ruveyn

Well, the answer would seem to obviously be A, unless there are variables hidden here, or assumptions you wanted us to make but didn't make explicit. Even further, if this is constant quantity and higher quality output for less time for employee A, then paying him more actually costs you less than paying the other employees more. (B, actually costing you from an hourly employment perspective the most, as overtime pay is above regular pay, but in fixed proportion to it)

I have worked with Employee B in the past. Employee B actually happened to be a good friend of mine, but he was completely useless at the job we were assigned to do, and this created more work for me when I had to clean up his mistakes. He was industrious and diligent, even pulled a large number of all-nighters off the clock to do work, but in the end nothing he produced was of any use. It would have been less work for me had he simply not been there at all, so perhaps I just have a bit of a personal bias towards firing Employee B.

I agree Employee A is the one who deserves the raise .

Hmnn, that sounds like commie stuff.

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The reason I didn't make more options is that some options like (Fire A) are not disjoint with "Give the raise to B". The original plan was to have such things, but then I noticed that sweet beautiful Ann... err phpbb does not allow multiple choice polls.

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New question, unrelated to the poll. If I said "a promotion to supervisor" instead of "a raise", would you have a different opinion?

Employee C.

Because I'm in a rare, fence-sitting mood.

Def fire employee B and give raise to A. A substandard worker shouldn't be getting extra hours.

Thats employee D. Actually produces BAD work. Employee B does acceptable work thats just not as good as C or A. Not quite the same.

I would give the raise to whoever added the most net value to my firm in the past year. If B can get a lot more mediocre work done than A, then I might have to go with him.

Possibly. Quality of work might not correlate well with supervising ability. Even further, a supervisor might be more desirable as someone willing to work long hours(especially since many supervisors are salaried and not hourly). I wouldn't feel comfortable making this decision without more knowledge of variables for a supervisor issue.

The logic of employment and production clearly implies that B should be sacked. Feelings have little to do with it. B could be the most likable person in the company. He still should be sacked.

ruveyn

Well this is a pretty easy question. Person A of course.

How is that commie stuff? Commie stuff would either be forcing person A to teach person B rather than suggesting person A to voluntarily do so or giving the raise to the least productive worker in the name of equality.

Nope. Raises and promotions should both be based on merit.