> Shouldn't it be in some organizational unit's interest to cut people who are not productive, regardless of where they work from? Well... if you have, say, 80 people working for you, and you discover 15 are dead weight... cutting them would mean you can do your division's job with 65 people. You wouldn't have any room to argue for budget increase. That's a cynical view, but one I've seen played out a couple of times…
Firing people is emotionally taxing. That's honestly probably 85% of the reason why shitty employees can keep their jobs. Managers hate firing people and most will procrastinate endlessly if that option is available.
It matters to the people you leave, too. When people spend a lot of energy recruiting you, doing due diligence on you and you on them, it (hopefully) builds a fair amount of trust and mutual respect. When you leave after a short time, that trust is violated, often in both directions. Barring something somewhat unusual ( cough Clinkle cough ), people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to…
I've also seen where people come into a role being promised autonomy and once they start finding that they're stuck into a pre-existing strategy or hierarchy that doesn't want to change.
Trust has already been broken there. If the job is a bait and switch, why would you expect someone to stay if they have other options?
"another worried about the ability of managers to stanch the flow of valued employees." That is the problem right there: shitty managers at Yahoo. I spent a few years there, and despite being in the industry for many years, I've yet to find a more dysfunctional setup. Managers have absolutely zero accountability at Yahoo. In any other place, if engineers start leaving a manager, it would be cause for concern; if too…
It only really matters in the eyes of potential future employers, so consider how it looks to them. Having done interviews and resume screening myself, I wouldn't balk too hard at one quick departure, but I would want to hear a good explanation for why you left so soon. The job and/or company being very clearly something different from what you were told would be a good one. Multiple quick departures in a row are kin…
It matters to the people you leave, too. When people spend a lot of energy recruiting you, doing due diligence on you and you on them, it (hopefully) builds a fair amount of trust and mutual respect. When you leave after a short time, that trust is violated, often in both directions. Barring something somewhat unusual ( cough Clinkle cough ), people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to…
> people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to help with a turn-around.
Really? I've never had an interview where I've been told the team has constant high pressure arbitrary deadlines, a culture of micromanagement, a lack of autonomy, no career progression, low skilled colleagues, etc. Yet these kind of companies are the majority.
Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance are quality products.
Yahoo Sports was a quality product,until the redesign that I understand Mayer micromanaged. Now I find it unusable and I find myself going to nfl.com, mlb.com, or ESPN instead.
what's wrong about it besides the blurred background photos?
The buzz about their work from home program was that people were abusing it and not doing actual work. I agree, they should be able to work from home, but when she did this, she was basically firing a buncha losers. They should allow people to work from home again, though.
Well not every job is well suited for remote work. As a developer, you know if they're not cranking out code. You miss sprint goals. Sprint demoes are a disaster. You don't see commits. When QA or design work from home, it's not as easy to tell whether or not they're actually working. That's been my experience at least. That said, I think it was a poor choice to abolish the WFH policy.
When designers don't work, your developer or your marketing department (or whoever they produce designs for), they will tell you they are missing the designs and are blocked for this or that.
When QA does not work, there will be very few bug reports, and your support will see the number of tickets shoot up.
But you must have some process in place to really identify the bottleneck. Something I assume a big company should have.
Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the whole "work in our offices or quit" memo sent to virtual employees a while back not paying the dividends she had hoped. Adding insult to injury, perhaps her build-out of a full private nursery in the executive suite staffed with her personal nannies while simultaneously requiring staff to stop working remotely, even part time, had a deleterious impact on morale and w…
And perhaps putting extra emphasis on educational background over talent and achievements is running things aground. "Mayer, who habitually asked deputies where they attended college, balked at hiring her as a contributing editor for Yahoo Food. According to one executive, Mayer disapproved of the fact that Paltrow did not graduate college." http://www.businessinsider.com/mayer-refused-to-hire-gwyneth...
Both your and the parent's suggested explanations seem to me to be more about pushing an agenda than an actual explanation. I'm sure there's no one reason that people are leaving Yahoo. It's possible that their interest in educational background in hiring and retention, and/or the work-from-work policy that received several orders of magnitude more media coverage than its actual effect on employees, have been factors in some departures. But it's much more likely that the biggest factor overall, and probably the single most important factor to most of the people who have left, is the fact that Yahoo is a zombie. There's little or nothing interesting happening there, the company is shrinking steadily, and its long-term prospects are not going to inspire or excite anyone. At this point, it's basically another AOL; the days of it being an important player are long gone and will not be coming back regardless of who the CEO is, what kind of strategy they pursue, or just how long the company continues to exist on paper (which may well be a very long time; e.g., AOL). It's over, and it's been over for a long time. People who have other career options don't tend to stick around such places, and it's hard to blame anyone for leaving.
OK, armchair CEOs: how would you turn Yahoo ! around?
Sell the company if anyone is willing to pay a premium to the current share price. Otherwise liquidate most of it, perhaps keeping a small rump if that rump can churn out enough cash to keep the lights on and a small dividend flowing. An ad company can be run profitably with very little ongoing investment and minimal staffing, and that's all Yahoo is at this point.
There's not going to be any turnaround. All that trying to turn it around is doing is enriching the senior executives at the shareholders' expense. The above plan will maximize returns to the shareholders, not hiring another whiz-bang CEO to make a nine-course gourmet meal out of this pile of fetid dung.
It only really matters in the eyes of potential future employers, so consider how it looks to them. Having done interviews and resume screening myself, I wouldn't balk too hard at one quick departure, but I would want to hear a good explanation for why you left so soon. The job and/or company being very clearly something different from what you were told would be a good one. Multiple quick departures in a row are kin…
It matters to the people you leave, too. When people spend a lot of energy recruiting you, doing due diligence on you and you on them, it (hopefully) builds a fair amount of trust and mutual respect. When you leave after a short time, that trust is violated, often in both directions. Barring something somewhat unusual ( cough Clinkle cough ), people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to…
I suppose it could seem unprofessional to the company you're leaving, depending on your perspective on things. But unless you're in a very tight-knit community, exactly what your previous company thinks of you usually has no relevance to your future employment options - specifically because it's a matter of perspective whether the departure was justified or not, and whether you'd be likely to leave the new company.
If your field really is that tight-knit, then you'll have to use your best judgement. If the employer you're leaving really is that bad, then you have to trust that everyone knows it, and nobody will blame you for leaving them. They might more wonder why you hadn't heard about how they really were ahead of time. Or if you actually are uncooperative, unprofessional, or otherwise unproductive, expect that to get around too.
"another worried about the ability of managers to stanch the flow of valued employees." That is the problem right there: shitty managers at Yahoo. I spent a few years there, and despite being in the industry for many years, I've yet to find a more dysfunctional setup. Managers have absolutely zero accountability at Yahoo. In any other place, if engineers start leaving a manager, it would be cause for concern; if too…
what is the tech stack...
Primarily Yahoo Pipes with a PHP and COBOL backend. All stored in Microsoft SourceSafe, if the project you're working on is even using a VCS.