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Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

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Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#91

Post by throwawayJPHK »

I work for a fairly large manufacturing company in Japan (about 15k employees). I don't think it will go bankrupt, but I think it is unhealthy and will eventually be automated with most people being made to leave, or it will lose a fairly large chunk of its market share and be dismembered and rebuilt by the American office.

Some things I observed that led me to doing a job search.

> Insurmountable Recruiting difficulties

I was promised a team of 5 junior devs under myself, but that never happened. There was always a new process, or a new form that had to be filled out; they got filled in and nothing happened.

Eventually the company started projects to hire people with disadvantaged career histories (Chinese / Korean residents, women who had left their previous job after pregnancy, et cetra). I felt this was a great policy but I was eventually clued into the real origin of the policy and why I never got the team I was promised.

Apparently, we had (and still have) an excessively poor reputation. Not criminal; just in terms of leadership (at all levels), salary and work load. Successful mid-career job seekers could not be expected to join. As such, disadvantaged workers and the lowest level of university graduate comes (the kind who has "Tennis Club" as a prominent part of their university "experience"). My lack of experience at large Japanese corporations is also why I didn't have the foresight to check 2chan or Vorkers (glassdoor-like company in Japan)

> New Emmanuel Goldsteins on a regular basis.

"We would be great but... is terrible" is a constant refrain at these sorts of companies. You can fill in the blank with a C-Level executive, a new employee, or a clique in the office. If you are assigning real people in a capitalist enterprise the role of "villain", then the environment is not going to improve. It is like saving a marriage after you tell friends to take sides.

> Inappropriate focus on loyalty

I have literally experienced a C-level officer making these statements in a work environment, about people who are so low in rank so as to be below his level of concern. If a junior accountant leaves for a better position at another company, one with less stress and better pay, it is the obvious and correct decision, not an act of "disloyalty".

> No objective source of truth or success

While I ran a business previously, I could be convinced by objective measures of truth (profit being #1). At my current office, there is no single source of truth, nor a single measure of success. This creates a difficult spiral of wasted time and effort when starting projects; in the end, calling in "outsiders" to resolve the issue (by giving them superuser access over the project structure) simply delays the hard questions (who is in charge / gets credit & blame / by what measure are we doing something), and further infantilizes the office.

> Senior people left and were never replaced

Literally the second most senior person in my part of the org left and wasn't replaced for more than 2 years. Junior managers reported straight to the C-suite. His eventual replacement lacked his depth of knowledge and greatly damaged the collegial atmosphere that existed within the Japanese team before her hire.

> Easy things are difficult

There are X (where X is a number greater than 5) different approval processes for me to pay a vendor who has already finished the work.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#92

Post by matt_wulfeck »

gwbas1c wrote: post #87

TLDR: You assess health by if you're getting paid what you think it's worth to stay in the job. If you're okay with the pay, and you like the job, be a pro and stay as long as the pay comes in. A big warning sign was that my employer interview great candidates, make offers, and then the candidate didn't accept. The problem was that we weren't paying competitively. I tried to express this to upper management, and then…

And how did you personally make out, after taxes in said acquisition? Was it worth being underpaid for some amount of years?

I left a job where I was underpaid for $BIGCO, even after their acquisition I still came out ahead of my peers because the reality is most people just don't get much, especially after taxes.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#93

Post by wand3r »

bungie4 wrote: post #82
tiredwired wrote: post #14

They suddenly decide to inventory equipment (determine company value or collateral). Cutting back on benefits like 401k matching. Delays buying new equipment. People quitting and not being replaced. Senior management having all-day private meetings. They request your background information as if to determine if you are qualified for current or new positions (if company is discussing being acquired). Hackathons with a…

This. After being sold and resold, aqui-hired etc, I can attest to the accuracy of these observations. You'd do well to remember this post.

If you were caught off guard (and wouldn't mind sharing) what was an anecdote that in retrospect you realized was an obvious red flag?

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#95

Post by arethuza »

futhey wrote: post #85
arethuza wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Multiple sets of men in suits touring the office" New tenants being shown round the office you are in can be a bit worrying...

Not to discount what you're saying, but there are several sets of “men in suits” that appear long before you lose your office space. Some are your investors (or work for them). Some are consultants or advisors, promising to solve all your problems. The service provider you're re-negotiating payment terms with. Potential acquirers, etc.

Absolutely, I used to work for a large company that did a lot of acquisitions and I was on the pre-acquisition due-diligence team for a few of them and I recognised the enquiring but slightly worried looks of employees. I've been on both sides!

NB I didn't wear a suit though, I do have some standards ;-)

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#96

Post by sidlls »

coldpie wrote: post #59
majewsky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if these things never were there in the first place, it just means that you're not in the SV bubble.

Yeah, here in St Paul, we get only coffee paid for and we're quite healthy, I think. Not everywhere gets a smorgasbord of free food and snacks and I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile expense.

Have you ever experienced it? I used to think it was silly, too, but I've come to appreciate the convenience of not having to buy and pack my own snack items. It's also much cheaper than salary and benefits to extract extra work out of younger and naive developers. Sorta like giving the newly hired former intern the title "senior engineer."

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#97

Post by mljoe »

awkward wrote: post #70
pgt wrote: post #18

Cutting of catered lunches is a strong signal that the company is in a cash crunch. You can try to propose a weekly catered lunch at your company to "encourage communication" and watch it is a signal. In the past I instituted weekly catered lunches at a company, which were halved from weekly to bi-weekly the moment finance knew there was trouble. Other indicators: delayed salary reviews, senior staff leaving (and not…

Any rollback of free food perks is a bad sign. It's not always a sign of bad health, but if it's not it means the company is softly lowering the status of it's rank and file in order to put in another layer of management.

Does this often happen? Saving money on lunch might delay a company's failure for a week at best. My perspective is most startups will maintain all benefits until the bitter end explicitly to avoid giving their employees this kind of impression. Hints like this might cause critical employees to jump ship during a financial crunch time.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#98

Post by maccard »

coldpie wrote: post #59
majewsky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if these things never were there in the first place, it just means that you're not in the SV bubble.

Yeah, here in St Paul, we get only coffee paid for and we're quite healthy, I think. Not everywhere gets a smorgasbord of free food and snacks and I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile expense.

It's not these specific things, it's losing trivial things that are supposed to be quality of life improvements. They're not saying any company that doesn't offer these is in trouble, they're saying any company that offers these, and then takes them back is in trouble.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#99

Post by just4themoney »

kzisme wrote: post #84
just4themoney wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you haven't gotten a raise in a year and a half? (In my experience, if someone really deserves it then either a bonus or an out of cycle raise or promotion will be given, I've gotten both.)

I've never heard of a bonus being awarded (or a signing bonus of sorts when first starting being given) Being my first FT position after finishing school I wasn't sure what to expect for reviews/raises/etc.

When people get raises and/or bonuses it's usually not announced publicly.

If your a jr software engineer you should be having regularly scheduled performance reviews. Everyone should be having at least yearly performance review and salary increase (unless you don't deserve a raise, I guess). You shouldn't be going a year and a half without a raise.

Push for a review, insist you need formal feedback on your performance as a jr. During the review bring up salary increase.

The job I worked when I was jr had a 3 month review and a 6 month review, and maybe a 12 month review. These reviews on came with small raises depending on performance. Plus everyone has a yearly review at the same time of year.

(But sometimes someone's performance is strong enough to warrant not waiting for the yearly review/salary increase)

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