Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 82 posts

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#41

Post by Tor3 »

pjc50 wrote: post #13
sureaboutthis wrote: post #11

> Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the first to go, because they’re in high demand and have more opportunity than most. What’s left is a pool of people who are mediocre at what they do ... And that is when I stop reading any article. EDIT: She's stating rules in the workplace make good employees leave and only mediocre employees remain. The term BS automatically applies here.

Why?

Indeed, why? I've seen exactly that. Stupid rules coming up, extremely performing employees leaving or making it clear that unless that's revoked they'll leave.

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#42

Post by mberning »

Let people work from home at their own whim. Never inquire about their performance. Never document anything related to their performance. Shutter your company in 5 years when you have a bloated payroll, terrible products, and nothing ever gets done on time.

I get that actually managing people and their performance is harshly frowned upon on HN, but it is a very necessary evil. Working in a place where the inmates run the asylum is is not fun either from my experience.

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#43

Post by Klover »

philpem wrote: post #40
realandreskytt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve fired and been fired for sub-par performance. I’m from the EU. Its not that rare at all.

The difference is, it's rarely an on-the-spot firing (at least in the UK). There are usually a few levels of "performance improvement" / "how can we help you get back on track?" before you get anywhere near "you're goneski". Assuming we're just talking about "not quite the best" work performance here.

It’s really expensive to fire people. Not only do you lose out on the recruiting, the training, the profiling. You will have to do it all over again. I’ve never fired anyone in my entire career in the EU. I do not understand how it’s feasible to do it willy-nilly in the USA. Can anyone tell me that? Or is it much more rare than I think?

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

philpem wrote: post #40
realandreskytt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve fired and been fired for sub-par performance. I’m from the EU. Its not that rare at all.

The difference is, it's rarely an on-the-spot firing (at least in the UK). There are usually a few levels of "performance improvement" / "how can we help you get back on track?" before you get anywhere near "you're goneski". Assuming we're just talking about "not quite the best" work performance here.

[deleted]

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#45

Post by rootlocus »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #11

> Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the first to go, because they’re in high demand and have more opportunity than most. What’s left is a pool of people who are mediocre at what they do ... And that is when I stop reading any article. EDIT: She's stating rules in the workplace make good employees leave and only mediocre employees remain. The term BS automatically applies here.

Some rules are good, some rules are bad. Too many bad rules result in people with the possibility of leaving to leave. The better an employee is, the more possibilities it has to leave. In conclusion, given a company with enough bad rules, good people will leave.

I don't see a problem with this premise. You can argue about which rules are good, and which rules are bad, but to skip the entire article (and brag about doing it) is shortsighted.

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#46

Post by rejschaap »

dagw wrote: post #32
nurettin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your world class Y people should have valued communication. They should raise red flags every time they need management to remove an obstacle in order to increase their productivity and realize their full potential.

They obviously should, but many don't. Some people don't like causing 'trouble', some people just quietly do what they're told, some people are just shy or introvert or have trouble communicating clearly. I good manager should be able to work with and get the most out of these sorts of people as well, without those people also having to the managers job for them.

From your brief description that sounds like a useful meeting. Useful enough to do more often than once or twice per year. But it doesn't really sound like a performance review.

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#47

Post by qoi2ijds0 »

realandreskytt wrote: post #36
dalbasal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk about the US, but I imagine it's more similar to the EU than the press suggests.... Anyway in most of the EU, by law and by convention^ people don't get fired often. When they do, it's a part of a greater process where a department is reorganized, jobs have been made redundant or somesuch. Firing individuals for below average performance is rare. It needs to be an extreme. If it is dines, it's done as part of a p…

I’ve fired and been fired for sub-par performance. I’m from the EU. Its not that rare at all.

I've never fired and never been fired for sub-par performance. I'm from the EU. It must be ultra rare then.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#48

Post by shodan666 »

dalbasal wrote: post #35
pjc50 wrote: post #19

> (Don't do) Performance reviews > Trust them to produce, and if they are not producing, let them go. If you are firing someone for performance, you have done a performance review . It's just that it might be entirely in your head or based on office gossip about who appears most productive. You wouldn't optimise a program without a profiler, so you shouldn't make hire/fire decisions on productivity without some means…

Idk about the US, but I imagine it's more similar to the EU than the press suggests.... Anyway in most of the EU, by law and by convention^ people don't get fired often. When they do, it's a part of a greater process where a department is reorganized, jobs have been made redundant or somesuch. Firing individuals for below average performance is rare. It needs to be an extreme. If it is dines, it's done as part of a p…

>Anyway in most of the EU, by law and by convention^ people don't get fired often.

Any source on that? This is simply not true and simply a lie. There is no such "European convention" - as each country have its own history, laws, languages and culture.

In all European countries people are fired every day all year round, with no compensation or any bonuses or whatever.

There are VERY few exceptions like government workers or workers in national owned companies (like defense industry) which are hard/impossible to fire on spot (Unions).

For example I was fired from job about 2 times in past 3 years, and I have seen others being fired. Banking, Consulting, Software Houses.

By convention in Europe you are fired when you are: - not needed, - too expensive, - worse then expected at whatever you are doing, - not liked, - company does not have cash and orders.

Same like in rest of the world.

Also unemployment rate in Europe (7,1%) in general is higher than in USA (3.9%).

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#49

Post by lllr_finger »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #11

> Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the first to go, because they’re in high demand and have more opportunity than most. What’s left is a pool of people who are mediocre at what they do ... And that is when I stop reading any article. EDIT: She's stating rules in the workplace make good employees leave and only mediocre employees remain. The term BS automatically applies here.

I think she was close to figuring out what can happen, but missed the mark. Great developers leaving are your canaries, and the Dead Sea Effect is a real thing. So what do rules and processes have to do with this?

I'm currently happiest at my job that is the most "enterprisey" and has more rules. I can't wear shorts or sandals to work, which perpetually irritates me. I can't run the OS I want at work, and I have a hard time getting simple things like a decently sized monitor because of esoteric rules. A lot of these rules are dumb, and sound like the ones in the article, but I'm planning on staying for as long as I'm challenged and having fun.

Our team runs kanban instead of scrum/sprints, and we're constantly asking to use non-approved technologies (where appropriate) in a traditionally Java-based company. We have individual and team agency, and there is an implied trust that we will prioritize accordingly, get things done, and make good technology decisions. I would gladly deal with a dozen other dumb rules as long as I'm able to hold onto the above, as interesting work and agency to solve it in creative ways is the number one thing I'm looking for.

Contrast that with some of the other places I've worked. I used to be able to drink beer at work, we could have dogs in the office, I had more vacation time, free beverages and snacks, etc. All those things are nice perks, but they came tethered with what I consider the detestable processes that the article glosses over.

Any process related to productivity is designed to set a bar which will bring up your lower performing individuals. This bar will drag down your good developers - that is what makes good developers leave. Knowing how to fix problems and being unable to do anything about it while stuck in an endless barrage of sprint planning, sprint retros, forced demos, velocity tracking, etc. is not fun. Forced consensus on any decisions is like pulling teeth and people end up afraid to contribute or have a dissenting opinion.

The people that are OK with the productivity bar are the ones that stick around for 15 years and become "indispensable" because they know where the bodies are hidden. Anyone good that joins the company probably won't last more than 18 months.

I apologize for the long rant, but it's been a topic I've spent a great deal thinking about in the last 2 years after trying (and eventually succeeding) to find a good place to work.

Re: Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)

#50

Post by shodan666 »

Klover wrote: post #43
philpem wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is, it's rarely an on-the-spot firing (at least in the UK). There are usually a few levels of "performance improvement" / "how can we help you get back on track?" before you get anywhere near "you're goneski". Assuming we're just talking about "not quite the best" work performance here.

It’s really expensive to fire people. Not only do you lose out on the recruiting, the training, the profiling. You will have to do it all over again. I’ve never fired anyone in my entire career in the EU. I do not understand how it’s feasible to do it willy-nilly in the USA. Can anyone tell me that? Or is it much more rare than I think?

>I’ve never fired anyone in my entire career in the EU

You are simply an exception. Typical "Survivor-ship bias".

Millions of people in Europe are hired and fired every single day.

Post reply on HN