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SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

latimes.com

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Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#91
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently some managers used to hire sacrificial lambs with the express purpose of culling them to spare the rest of the team.

Can confirm

Were the sacrificial lambs at least told in secret that they were 'hired in order to be laid off' at the next round? I hope they were not just given rote tasks, but allowed to explore their skills while they are in limbo so that they can train-up or look for jobs... Nah that's just wishful thinking.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, rather than a "Don't come Monday" email on a weekend, which effectively gives them 0 working days notice, giving those employees say, 2 weeks notice that they will be terminated at least gives them a chance to re-train for another position or get their resumes together to try and find another job while still getting an income to pay for rent, food etc. FAR less 'cruel' to give them an opportunity to plan their…

This rarely happens because of liability and security. It’s pretty common to be walked out by security after packing up your stuff when you are laid off.

Heh, a hedge fund I worked at didn't even let you back to your desk. You were immediately escorted out by security. "Your personal effects at your desk will be mailed to you." Suppose there were exceptions to say grab keys, wallet or a purse, but you weren't packing up everything.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#93
post #84
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's less cruel? Face to face meetings? Layoffs suck, how is this particularly egregious?

Layoff by email is like breakup via text message. The end result is the same and either way it sucks but certainly doing it in face to face seems to generally be considered more personal and perhaps less cowardly.

Romantic, business and employment relationships aren't the same thing. At all. Do you collect resumes from your dates?

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#94
post #27

According to some comments from employees, the company had an all-hands meeting where everyone was sent home and told to check their email over the weekend to find out if they're being laid off or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/af1n7f/spacex_will_...

Whatever the reasons for the workforce reduction, this way of doing it is just unnecessarily cruel.

I actually like what Musk has done, technology wise, but if this management style doesn't point to him possibly being on the spectrum, I'm not sure what will.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#95
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's less cruel? Face to face meetings? Layoffs suck, how is this particularly egregious?

Seriously, if you cannot see that "fire by email" is far more impersonal and disconnecting than compassionately meeting with the employee 1 on 1 and giving them a definitive exit path along with the financial support to do so, then please do not ever work in HR or be responsible for employing people in the future. To subject ALL your employees to the 50/50 prospect that they will have a job come next working day is t…

"SpaceX is offering a minimum of eight weeks’ pay and other benefits to laid-off workers, according to Shotwell’s email. The company will also provide assistance with career coaching, resume help and job searches." - They are supporting them through it. I think this is as bad as any other way of lay off. Those 1:1s are farcical anyway. Only thing that could be better is to just send the mail only to the laid off employees.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#96
IMHO, If I could guess announcing it all employees tells that you all are expendable. If you are doing that is not important for the company. You could be sent home forever. Gives a sense to everyone to pull up their shocks. Two days to think about your short commings

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#97

Sounds like 90% of their employees will be working an extra 10% more hours per week

i've done a lot of contract work for spacex. imo i think part of the reason they work so much is because they have no formal methods group. everyone seems to solve similar problems in slightly different ways instead of having a vetted and documented 'right' way to approach certain things. i've literally been paid to write code that does the same thing for different groups in slightly different ways. having done a lot of aerospace contracting, this is atypical from what i've seen elsewhere. my point is that if they formed a methods group to formalize and standardize across the entire org they might be fine with a 10% cut if they're not duplicating efforts all over the place.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#98
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's less cruel? Face to face meetings? Layoffs suck, how is this particularly egregious?

>What's less cruel? ANYTHING is better than telling the entire company "go home and compulsively refresh your email all weekend to see if you get to come to work Monday"

Do we know that is necessary? Why would it take all weekend for 700 emails to be delivered? Why not send an email to all the remaining employees to reassure them they are not being fired? That may have happened, we don't know.

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#99

Some think you should do this annually. "Back when he was running GE, Jack Welch famously argued that leaders should fire the bottom 10 percent of their workforce each year, as part of an orderly continuous improvement process." https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-...

Yep, the warped logic of stack ranking still infects HR thought to this day, in some quarters anyway. It's one of those notions that sounds brilliant at first, but then when you think it all the way through, it reveals itself as patently bizarre and misguided. As noted, it creates a really unhealthy intra-team sabotage mindset as everybody competes to avoid being at the bottom of the stack. It puts managers in a horr…

>"If they'd used stack-ranking at Los Alamos, hell, Oppenheimer would probably have had to fire Feynman!"

This seems pretty accurate to me, just imagine what would have happened if the top 10 people in the organization were put on the most important team, and then stack day rolled around...

Re: SpaceX to lay off 10% of Workforce

#100
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the reasons for the workforce reduction, this way of doing it is just unnecessarily cruel.

What's less cruel? Face to face meetings? Layoffs suck, how is this particularly egregious?

1. Prepare the e-mails in advance for each employee that

2. Schedule the "Town Hall" meeting for an important announcement at 4pm on Friday

3. Start the meeting by talking about the company, vision, challenges, recent wins, etc. [Insert a positive announcement here]

4. Tell everyone at 4:20pm that the company will be laying off 10% of the workforce, explain why, etc.

5. At 4:25pm, as you prepare to wrap up the town hall meeting, tell everyone that they will receive an e-mail either letting them know they will be laid off or that they will remain with the company. Thank everyone for their hard work for the company.

6. [Insert another brief, unrelated positive announcement about the company].

7. At 4:31pm, as people walk out the door, have IT send all of the e-mails at the exact same time to everyone who's being laid off. Review the list of employees compulsively beforehand to ensure no mistakes are being made.

8. Together with step 7 send another e-mail to everyone who remains with the company ensuring them they are not being laid off.

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