I've always thought of work mechanics in the Sims 4 as somewhat easy, tedious and boring. We should add some events and new game features for careers. (Base game)
Here are my list of ideas:
The ability to set the amount of hours to work for the Sim. Sims will receive the amount of pay per hour and more promotion increases at the expense of gaining stress and burnout, and less free time. Vice versa for working less. There can be an event where your boss asks you to work more hours, saying yes improves performance and no lowers it. There is a mod that allows this but it should be default.
Characters already can get laid off in Growing Together, however generally people get laid off when they are new to the career rather than in an established state. I believe it should be swapped.
In some careers Sims can be called to go to work while not working, pre-notifying the player that they need to go. I believe Secret Agent and some other careers would fit that. If the sims doesn't go on call than it MAY lower performance depending on the job.
When at a certain position in some careers (especially Business and Criminal), starting from around level 3-5, the player would be responsible for managing a team which increases with progression. (random townies in the career) Their performance would affect yours, which you can increase relationship and try to make them work harder to increase yours too. Also therefore you'd have a boss in all careers, and having a good relationship such as "sucking up to boss" would increase the relationship.
Salaries are the same across all cities, but what if we adjust based on the cost of housing? You pretty much cannot make a living as a level 4 Assistant Manager. Pay should be different among each world.
The career that you got fired in you won't be able to join for a bit of time.
Rarely a work event where the Sim would be brought to the office for using "Slacking off" or "Take it easy" too much, or poor work performance. You can then tell your boss that you are trying, or you can argue with them about it. Politely telling them would decrease performance and be off with a warning, with a slight debuff mood. or could possibly fail and you could have your wages cut or possibly be fired. Arguing would decrease relationship and has a much higher chance of getting fired, etc, causing a much stronger bad moodlet. It could either be your boss or the resources department.
Skills shouldn't be a requirement for promotion, but a high skill increases the chances and if you have a very low skill you can lose performance. Will count as "Fired for performance" if fired.
On the other hand, you could also rarely be praised for working hard or getting frequent promotions, resulting in a positive moodlet or even a low chance of a raise or promotion.
Chance cards should be weighted, more towards the good and honest choice.
A Sim can be occasionally reprimanded or yelled at for misconduct. That is by choosing a bad decision on a chance card, starting workplace pranks or sometimes coming into work angry. There is a higher chance of action taken against you. Again a moodlet can be given. Missing too many days can also result in misconduct.
In an extremely rare case (like VERY low of a chance), the workplace can be robbed or faced with extortion. The Sim can either lose money from their bank. get their wages cut by a large amount or even possibly laid off.
Getting laid off is milder and has less reprocussions. The player can reapply in a shorter time.
Temporary flags should be added to the Sim if they were recently fired, one being misconduct, and the others being laid off, poor performance, etc.
If after someone gets fired simply for poor performance or laid off, they can recieve unemployment benefits before claiming a new job, and money depends on wages.
A random list of jobs and companies that are swapped each day rather than just one company, with more random pay.
Some of those companies can offer severence pay which gives them money based on vacation days left, wages and how they get fired.
Education. Some may disagree on this, but any Young Adult Sims would normally start with a Bachelor's. University should be already included, and some careers would not be available depending on education.
Athletic careers carry a chance of injury, which may require the Sim to call in sick.
So note that these ideas are just out of inspiration and are unlikely to come soon. I hope the Sims could revamp career systems.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
I am NOT part of anything in EA and I'm just a player. I try my best to answer questions in the Sims forums, and showing info about the Sims, even posting answers and thoughts of feedback! I have been playing the Sims 4 for 2 years.
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