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Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

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Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#51

Post by Steeeve »

lacker wrote: post #43
Steeeve wrote: post #37

I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…

What style - firing 2% of your employees in a given year? That is not a very high rate for a large company. It's only news because everything Tesla is news.

2% turnover over the course of a year might not seem high. Firing 2% of your workforce in a single day is.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#52

Post by yahna »

Steeeve wrote: post #37

I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…

Netflix is extremely up front about it.

Still have heard it's a constant battle to not get fired. Sounds lousy.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#53

Post by yahna »

emodendroket wrote: post #41
wpietri wrote: post #29

Do other companies do this? Unless this is GE-style force ranking, I've never heard of it. If somebody isn't performing well, I have no idea why I'd wait up to a year to deal with it. And it seems terrible for morale (and PR) to have a regular event where a bunch of people will be let go in one block.

> Tesla said the performance-based departures were not considered layoffs and not subject to state notifications. It also said the moves have generally boosted worker morale, as high-performing employees have been rewarded. Maybe I'm just paranoid but this part kind of smells to me.

Smells like stack ranking.

Apparently seeing MS get lambasted over this for years (and having a pretty terrible rep partly because of it) wasn't enough.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#54

Post by yahna »

tbabb wrote: post #28

The high estimate was 700 fired. Out of 33,000, that's 2%. Culling the bottom 2% performers seems like a reasonable (even healthy) thing to do; not really an upheaval.

Really cause people gave MS endless crap for that style of work.

Course I guess all the arguments against this type of thing are countered by "but it's elon"

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#55

Post by metaphor »

dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

> I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. ... They offered only 2 weeks of severance.

Fired or layed off? I've never experienced either, but I always thought severance pay was exclusive to the latter.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#56

Post by dmode »

viraptor wrote: post #50
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

Do you know if the severance was based on time worked so far, or 2 weeks for everybody? But yeah, this is terrible. If you don't expect you're going to be fired for bad performance, that's a company's failure, not yours.

He worked for 2 years. I am not sure what severance is based on. Also, with this article, Tesla pretty much trashed every employee they fired by publicly saying they are bad performers. Imagine finding a job now that you have been labelled a poor performer

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#57

Post by dmode »

metaphor wrote: post #55
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

> I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. ... They offered only 2 weeks of severance. Fired or layed off? I've never experienced either, but I always thought severance pay was exclusive to the latter.

I am not sure of the difference between firing and laying off. Manager basically said that today is last day, bring in your equipment etc

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#58

Post by semi-extrinsic »

tedsanders wrote: post #40
Analemma_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the fired employees are good, this keeps everyone motivated and allows you to churn through employees to find the really excellent ones worth developing. The system is not inherently good or bad, as long as all parties are aware of it. Everything about these statements is wrong. Take it from someone who worked at Microsoft before and after they finally smartened up and ditched stack ranking: it's horrible.…

The top three management consulting firms are ranked #1, #3, and #11 on Glassdoor's best places to work. Clearly their up-or-out policies aren't seen as horrible by their own employees. And as a consultant who works at one of those firms, I've never seen anyone sabotage someone else's performance, not once. In fact, you are probably rated best when you help support those around you. Certainly the policy causes stress…

People with MBAs have a very different mindset from auto workers. When you've had "this is an optimal system" drilled into your head at school by people you've been told are very smart and you should look up to, you're probably going to think it's a good system. Especially when you know that the probability of harsh financial consequences for yourself and your family from this policy is essentially zero.

The situation for auto workers is very different on both points.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#59

Post by sien »

Animats wrote: post #48

High-level executives at Tesla are bailing out. Back when Musk announced his overoptimistic production schedule for the Model 3, his two top production executives quit.[1] Nine more high-level executives have left so far this year.[2] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/two-tesla... [2] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/08/02/tesla-ts...

That's really interesting. The Economist ran a story earlier about how aggressive Musk's finances are and how there was weird finance going on and that Musk was simultaneously trying to keep things afloat, keep on a super aggressive schedule and keep control.

https://www.economist.com/news/business/21709061-entrepreneu...

Perhaps the wheels are starting to come off. Even if they do, it's been amazing what has been achieved.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#60

Post by ehnto »

metaphor wrote: post #55
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

> I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. ... They offered only 2 weeks of severance. Fired or layed off? I've never experienced either, but I always thought severance pay was exclusive to the latter.

I thing the difference you are thinking of is when someone is being made redundant versus being fired. Being fired implies the employee failed in some way. Being made redundant implies the company changed in such a way that the employee is no longer needed.

Being made redundant tends to be the situation that attracts a severance package of any significance. Depending entirely on the country and state of course.

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