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It's Never Too Early to Fire

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Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#11

Post by chasing »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #2

Weirdly, I think we would all benefit quite a lot from a normalization of fast firing. Part of the reason it's hard to get a job is that companies are afraid to fire you, so they jump through all kinds of strange hoops to try to predict how good an employee you'll be based on, really, no information. This also forces companies to filter out "possibly good" candidates and only hire "probably good" candidates. If it we…

I believe this article is talking about senior execs and you might be talking about general employees.

And your comments feel noble but a bit unrealistic to me as far as general employees go.

First, there's a cost to bringing people into an organization. Letting everyone in and then having some or most of them flame out seems like a huge drain on resources -- including emotional resources.

Second, the idea of being tracked daily against some firing metric sounds a bit hellish for employees. It seems like it'd breed a lot of negative reactions ranging from gaming the system all the way to nasty politics and back-stabbing along the lines of what apparently happened because of Microsoft's stack-ranking system.

So, again: I respect the ideas. But I'd be concerned about how they'd play out in real life.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#12

Post by forgotpw1123 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #2

Weirdly, I think we would all benefit quite a lot from a normalization of fast firing. Part of the reason it's hard to get a job is that companies are afraid to fire you, so they jump through all kinds of strange hoops to try to predict how good an employee you'll be based on, really, no information. This also forces companies to filter out "possibly good" candidates and only hire "probably good" candidates. If it we…

>My next company will have explicit rubrics for what it takes to get fired, and your status will be tracked daily

>You'll know at all times exactly how close you are to getting fired with how much severance

Good luck getting anyone to stick around! People want job security, they don't want to feel like they're walking on eggshells every day. You seem to think the only thing people want out of a job is money.

>Anyone we fire we'll sit down in the exit interview and write a plan for how they can get re-hired in a few weeks or months if they're interested.

I don't think you know what firing means. It's not a mutual decision and you really don't want that employee working for you at that point. It's a serious legal risk to re-hire fired employees.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#13

Post by kartan »

I like the article, and it has some really good ideas. And it is not about making firing people easier or cheaper. It is about on how to decide when to fire someone.

About firing fast and easy, it is a bad idea.

I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about what we expect from her, and what she expects from the job.

I worked previously in Spain, I saw a lot of people fired for no good reason. And they were also hired without too much attention. Shorts interviews, no real testing, are part of a process that ends consuming a lot of effort from everyone after hiring someone that is not the correct person. Other times that people is good, and leaves, because was not the job for them.

Both seem related. Cheap and easy firing produces careless recruiting. And that is more expensive that people realizes.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#14

Post by chrismcb »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #2

Weirdly, I think we would all benefit quite a lot from a normalization of fast firing. Part of the reason it's hard to get a job is that companies are afraid to fire you, so they jump through all kinds of strange hoops to try to predict how good an employee you'll be based on, really, no information. This also forces companies to filter out "possibly good" candidates and only hire "probably good" candidates. If it we…

If someone is so bad you need to fire then after a day or a week then the is something wrong with your interview process. Especially considering the first day is mostly about learning what is going on at the company. But if you think a person should be fired after one day on the job, you should be able to discover that after a full day of interviews... By the same token of something came across in the interview that you liked, you should give the person a benefit of a doubt and give them more than one week. Even if you weaken your k interview process because of the easy firing

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#16

Post by lokedhs »

kartan wrote: post #13

I like the article, and it has some really good ideas. And it is not about making firing people easier or cheaper. It is about on how to decide when to fire someone. About firing fast and easy, it is a bad idea. I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about wha…

I have worked in Sweden, and I would like to offer a counter point.

I don't think we disagree that the reason the hiring process is so involved in Sweden is because it's so hard to fire someone. This results in a situation where the company does everything they can to minimise the risk of hiring the wrong person.

The downside of this is that companies will not take any chances when it comes to hiring people. I believe this is the reason why I have seem some really bad diversity (both cultural and gender) in the Swedish tech industry, compared to other countries where I have worked.

If it's easier to fire someone, it's also easier to take a chance on someone that might night be the "perfect candidate" at first glance, but perhaps he or she will shine if given the opportunity.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#18

Post by teej »

kartan wrote: post #13

I like the article, and it has some really good ideas. And it is not about making firing people easier or cheaper. It is about on how to decide when to fire someone. About firing fast and easy, it is a bad idea. I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about wha…

To be completely honest, the legal and cultural landscape in Europe is nothing at all like the US when it comes to letting employees go. Being US based, I would be extremely hesitant taking your advice if you haven't spent time in the US.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#19

Post by ingenuous2 »

kartan wrote: post #13

I like the article, and it has some really good ideas. And it is not about making firing people easier or cheaper. It is about on how to decide when to fire someone. About firing fast and easy, it is a bad idea. I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about wha…

>Both seem related. Cheap and easy firing produces careless recruiting. And that is more expensive that people realizes.

Well put but doesn't address context.

If I just got gas-fire funding, intending to blow up my company, I will need to hire a dozen people a month.

It is a risk. But so is taking 200 hours to hire 1 person.

We are in the business of balancing many risks with many rewards.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#20

Post by pbreit »

This post left a bad taste in my mouth. Firing can be hard on all parties involved. Your dumb startup is not that important. If you can't figure out how to utilize an employee, that's on you.
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