The employer is paying you for the product, not the effort. I see no moral quandary here, nor any compulsion to notify the employer. They're getting what they want, that should be the end of it.
EDIT: And I would add, for anyone that has automated their job in this way...what you should really be doing is scaling it up, and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a service.
>and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a service.
Careful, if it gets out that you wrote the code to automate your job as a coder while actually at your job, your company most likely owns that IP.
True, though presumably if you have an automatable job, you're not actually employed as a programmer and as such may not have a clause like that in your employment agreement.
You probably do. IP assignment is boilerplate. I had it in my contracts at Ross (the discount clothing store), Radioshack, and a local cheesesteak joint between 2012 and 2015.
I am still in academics so I have a question about this. If your company owns this is, what shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it? They are making money out of your extra effort/work. I get that employees who want their own ip should have the right but if the company is paying you extra and giving other rewards and removing the headache of managing your own company, is that not good?
shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it?
Yes, in theory.
In practice, an employee's power to negotiate wages is limited. At some point, the employee just needs to work to eat/pay rent/etc.
Now, in most areas (of the US), software developers already are paid generously. Even in lower paying secondary markets, software dev are usually paid significantly above local averages.
And, anecdotally, that pay is often for a much "easier" job, where "easier" means less stress and fewer hours than professions that generate similar salaries (engineering, accounting come to mind).
Only if your employment agreement says so. Most people hired as programmers, yes, that's true. People who are hired as other things, and end up automating things, well, that's not so clear.
> for anyone that has automated their job in this way...what you should really be doing is scaling it up, and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a service.
These tasks might not be worth selling as a service, they could be relatively trivial yet very context specific... I suspect this is the case, and that the real issue is with the employers lacking the insight to realise the these tasks _should_ have been automated and have the initiative to do so as soon as possible.
More specifically they probably neglected to employ people between the grunt worker and executive positions that would _have_ the insight to automate these tasks as soon as possible. That's basically corner cutting in terms of employees, in which case perhaps they deserve to be exploited, the funds are correctly being appropriated to the people who realised they needed to be automated.
EDIT: to be clear I don't find it 100% morally acceptable, going behind the employer like this is underhanded of course, but it can be somewhat justified as I outlined above. I suppose the alternative is to explain to the employer how it should be done and do so and hope to gain some kind of promotion or compensation, but that entirely depends on the moral standards of that company.
Maybe we both have loose morals but I don't see it as cheating the employer anymore than one "cheats" an employer by driving to work instead of walking.
I'd say it's that driving is easier for you, but they get the same result - you attend as necessary. They shouldn't care how you get there as long as you do your job.
I completely disagree with your first point, and agree with your second with caveats. The employer is usually not paying the employee for "the product"; they're usually paying for the employee's time and general ability. You can see this simply by the fact that most employees are explicitly paid a rate per hour/day/year and not something closer to a piecework basis. Differences in productivity don't effect the pay rate nor does the estimated value of the product. Employees don't work on a "fixed fee basis" on their assignments and for maintenance like work their pay doesn't fluctuate downward when the value of their product diminishes nor upwards when it increases. The product is a consequence of how the employee is directed to spend their time. If the trade is something else, it should be clearly stated in the employment agreement/contract that they employee is paid on some other basis. Unilaterally recasting the terms of your employment into some other basis is merely rationalizing not providing the real thing for which you're being paid.
For those that might say that a job description sets product based terms for employment, it's rare that they are offered that way. Almost all the job descriptions that I've ever seen (and all that I've written) have some sort of phrase to the effect of, "...and other work as might be assigned." A job description isn't a Statement of Work, they're usually just general expectation setting devices.
The employer chooses what he wants to pay for, unfortunately. Some employers will feel like doing this is a breach of trust, and some will use it as a base for firing, and some might even call it theft and press charges.
EDIT: And I would add, for anyone that has automated their job in this way...what you should really be doing is scaling it up, and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a service.