> Employees with passion often perform better

That sounds really weird to me to bring up, regardless of whether it's true or not. As in this makes sense when you're thinking of trying to hire folks trying to gauge passion as a proxy for their performance when you can't directly observe it, but when they're working for you, you don't need proxies! You can directly observe performance!

So passion seems pretty irrelevant as soon as someone is hired, unless you're afraid of them jumping ship. But that's the nature of the beast. Employers can fire employees and employees can jump ship. Such is life.

> there is nothing "unfair" about employers desiring passionate employees

I'm a bit confused; I mean there's nothing unfair about desires in general? Someone could want a billion dollars to fall from the sky into their lap and I might say "good luck," but there's nothing unfair about it. Employers might desire their employees to want literally zero pay and employees might desire their employers to give literally zero work. Good luck to the both of them.

The question then is not so much desires as it is the actual dynamics of the job itself and to what extent those desires are actually manifested in observable behavior.

I think the overarching theme that the_local_host was bringing up has to do with the language of morality in general.

You can talk about the employee-employer relationship in a very dispassionate sense as one of mutual transactional need with one discarding the other when one is no longer needed, which is fine. You can also talk about the relationship in the language of fairness and passion, which is also fine.

But there's something pretty unsettling about crossing the two together, especially when the perceived dynamic is that when it's convenient for the employer they slip into one or the other rather than when it's convenient for the employee.

EDIT: In response to your additional new line: "I agree that passion shouldn't be a requirement per se (whatever that means) if job performance is otherwise good, but passion is very highly correlated with job performance."

I think the original point of the_local_host's comment is that it's just kind of weird to talk about passion at all or whether an employee "should" do something or not or even the notion of employer/employee entitlement.

Just make the job expectations explicit. If an employer wants employees to work weekends make that explicit in the job description. If the employer wants a work product that a typical employee can only produce after 100 hours of work in a week then fine, ask for it, just make it clear upfront. If the employer wants employees to work extra hours for deadlines, fine just make it explicit.

The employee then takes it or leaves it. And from the employer side either the employee fulfills those expectations or doesn't.

But don't leave it implicit and then complain about the lack of passion, which is what I think the_local_host was pointing out.

(There's wider policy questions of whether you want to incentivize or disincentivize that behavior on a societal level, but that's an altogether different scope/level of conversation.)

> You can directly observe performance!

From my experience this can be extremely hard - to be able to know how much one employee is contributing compared to another one.

The thing you quoted literally said it was "unfair" for employers to expect passion from their at-will employees. I guess you're saying it's fine for employers to "desire" passion but not to "expect" it? OK, sure.

> I guess you're saying it's fine for employers to "desire" passion but not to "expect" it?

I'm personally saying it isn't really the business of the employer to talk about employee passion to begin with. In the same way that the employer may desire an employee to keep a clean home and healthy living habits, because of the various signaling benefits it has for their job duties, but it isn't really the employer's business to care.

OK, but that's very far from the quote you originally made. So you can understand my initial confusion.

While I agree that there should not be a specific job requirement to keep a clean home and healthy living habits independent of job performance, I absolutely disagree that employers shouldn't "talk" about it in general terms. It's perfectly appropriate for companies to encourage and help their employees to lead healthy lives (e.g. providing healthy food, gym access, encouraging taking vacation time, promoting appropriate work-life balance, etc), just as it is appropriate for companies to encourage having passion for the mission even if it isn't strictly a job requirement.

> OK, but that's very far from the quote you originally made.

I don't think so. I mean I guess you'd have to ask the_local_host whether I'm accurately representing the thrust of the quote, but the operative word here is indeed "expect" as opposed to desire or encourage.

Rephrasing the original quote in my own language I'd say something like:

Employers and employees can use purely transactional language to talk about employment and it's fine. Employers and employees can use emotional and moral language such as "passion" to talk about employment and that's fine too. But which language to use should depend on what forms the bedrock of the relationship. If the transactional needs form the ultimate bedrock of the relationship, an expectation of "passion" is no bueno.

There is a difference between encouragement and expectation. And I think employees would chafe under the expectation of e.g. eating healthy food or using the gym (probably not vacation time though, although a select few might, in the same way that I don't think, absent flight concerns, employers would be terribly offput by employees refusing raises).

In the same way that team activities, team meals, happy hour, providing materials about the mission etc. can all be viewed as perfectly fine encouragement for passion for both the mission and the company, that is not the same as expecting passion.

Expectations are two way streets. You get things if you meet them. You don't get things or have things taken away if you don't meet them.

Desires and encouragement are not.

> I absolutely disagree that employers shouldn't "talk" about it in general terms.

Talk is indeed too strong of a word on my part in the sense you're using it, but the point I was trying to get across is that if transactional needs ultimately dominate the relationship then those are the ones that should be emphasized.

I would prefer employers tell employees upfront that they're expected to work long hours and nights for deadlines or similar things in that vein, rather than leave it implicit and then tut-tut them for a lack of passion.

And because of that that's why I emphasize the word "expect" rather than "desire."

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