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When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

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Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#311

Post by tharkun_ »

wolco wrote: post #301
jedberg wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Netflix everyone gets an exit interview, no matter the reason for leaving.

How does it physically happen? Usually you are called into a meeting. Told your services are no longer required. Then you are given career resource support / paperwork with an offer and helped off the property. At what point is there a chance for an exit interview? After they first fire you, you are in shock.

Sooo American. I mean sure if they fire you, that's how it goes usually but even the other way around people leave and are gone in two weeks and there's no way you get a replacement quick enough to have whoever leaves train them. And Co workers are usually told on the day. Such BS.

There are more civil ways where both sides give a couple months notice and giving notice doesn't mean you get escorted off the property. It means you'll still do your job for a couple months, maybe even train a replacement.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#312

Post by therealdrag0 »

jedberg wrote: post #148
sleepydog wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but in the specific case of Netflix, people are let go all the time , and managers have a lot of authority to make the decision to fire someone. Tenure doesn't matter, either -- you could work there for 6 years and end up getting fired when you get a new manager or the existing one decides you're phoning it in.

I think the number of people that are let go is overexaggerated. But yes, it is easy to fire and hire . The two go hand in hand.

This works for high tier companies. But mid tier don’t have the same pull. It’s HaRD to hire good people. The funnel is full of chaff. My team has been interviewing for a Sr engineer for months.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#313

Post by [deleted] »

meej wrote: post #226
BurningFrog wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can be extremely demoralising for co-workers in all kinds of roles when they see that kind of recognition being given to someone who they feel don't deserve it. This is why wages are secret. Everyone is convinced they deserve to be in the top half of earners.

Businesses want wages to be secret and may even adopt policies that ban employees from discussing it, but in the U.S. employees' rights to discuss pay amongst themselves are protected under the NLRA. https://www.insperity.com/blog/when-employees-discuss-wages/

[deleted]

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#314

Post by brianpan »

jedberg wrote: post #107
ping_pong wrote: post #17

This is the biggest problem with stack ranking software engineers, the practice I had to endure while at a well known software company. All it does is create a zero-sum game, so I have no incentive to compliment anyone else. I needed to make sure that my rank was as high as I could make it, which really sucked during performance time. It was very stressful, even though I was a high performer, because it didn't foster…

This is what I loved about working at Netflix. We didn't have performance reviews. It was assumed that your performance was good to excellent, otherwise you wouldn't be working there anymore. You had a constant feedback loop with your manager on performance, but nothing was ever formal. Raises were completely divorced from any performance assessment. You were paid whatever they thought the max was for your skillset,…

How is this not stack ranking by firing instead of by formal review?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#315

Post by kentbrew »

jedberg wrote: post #174
xivzgrev wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you are no longer there - what was the dark side?

Honestly there was no real dark side. I supposed you could say some mangers were a little trigger happy on firing, but in a sibling comment I addressed that. I left to start a startup. I would work there again in second if I ever go back to working for someone else (and they had a role for me).

Same. If you can possibly manage a stint at Netflix, do it.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#317

Post by vidoc »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #36

Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!" centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and projects and gain corporate visib…

> except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!

For that, no internal culture is really needed: Google is in California, a state where the use of positive superlatives is mandatory for every single human interaction :)

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#318

Post by Sophistifunk »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #193
jedberg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as bad as it sounds. Yes, it certainly happens and it sucks for the good person that it happens to. But managers like that don't last very long. When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned, if your manager gave you any feedback leading up to it, etc. And then they follow up if the person says, "it was a total shock". I've definitely seen managers make some bad firing decisions, but…

When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned Why would anyone give any kind of useful information in the exit interview? The only one who benefits is the company, they need to cover their back in case a suit over harassment comes up. If anyone wants revenge over poor management, keep silent, let the fellow continue to lose the company money and set them up for a lawsuit. HR is not on your si…

Yes, all the incentives are perverse during an exit interview. HR is only interested in avoid suits, and the ex-employee wants a good reference, or if not at least their severance.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#320

Post by zjs »

GEBBL wrote: post #72

I hate the fact that in my current role, I am expected to give my colleagues ‘constructive feedback’. It seems like a minefield , when I am trying to focus on my own role, that I have to negotiate the feelings of a colleague as I leave feedback on them. I’d prefer to leave only positive feedback, but what my boss wants is that I need to find an improvement that my colleague has to make. I don’t like it.

Constructive feedback can be positive.

"Hey GEBBL, you did a really good job on that project. It was great that you focused on the end-to-end problem, and not just the main part that PM asked for. This is something you're better at than some other members on your team -- do you think you could help me keep an eye out during design reviews for gaps along these lines?"

It can also be useful to use a related positive to explain a negative.

"Hey GEBBL, you're usually a good speaker, so I thought you'd want to know that I found your presentation this week a little hard to follow. I think it would have been easier to follow with a high-level overview like the one you included at the beginning of last week's."

You can, of course, look at people's weaknesses to find opportunities for improvement, but you can also look at people's strengths. I think think the best feedback is not only constructive, but also motivating and actionable.

For more difficult feedback to navigate, you should be able to funnel it through a manager. "Hey GEBBL's manager, I noticed that GEBBL checked in a change yesterday without testing it properly. It's not a major thing, but I know you're looking for opportunities to give GEBBL constructive feedback." (If you're going to do this, I suggest trying to do it in a balanced way; share positive feedback too so that it's clear you're not complaining all the time.)

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