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Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

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Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#21

Post by tmpz22 »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #17
icedchai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know guys who've gone from job to job basically doing nothing, just collecting a fat check. It's incredible how much dead weight there is in these companies.

And... how is that relevant?

Your grandparent comment insinuates that executive measures to increase productivity are broad and actually hurt productivity.

I agree for what its worth.

But what these executives and their supporters think is that productive employees will stay the same productive employees with the changes, and that only the unproductive employees will face consequences.

Of course this is ass backwards and we all know it, the innocent are always somehow the biggest victims in war ("blood in the streets" as this executive cheerily calls it).

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#22

Post by IceMetalPunk »

3throwaway3141 wrote: post #18
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #2

Can someone explain how burning out your employees, freezing hirings, possibly laying off a large number of your employees, in a market where people are actively quitting en masse... is supposed to increase productivity? Or are company execs just under the impression that "the beatings will continue until morale improves" was seriously good leadership advice?

I'm a tech worker and I have found the market to be as friendly as ever; I expect to get multiple offers as per usual.

Oh, I'm sure. Because with tech workers quitting at high rates, companies are giving many offers to try and replace them. It's definitely a candidate's market, not an employer's market, right now in tech.

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#23

Post by deepdriver »

emptysea wrote: post #6

The quote from the article specifically mentions the Google Cloud sales org: > Employees who work in the Google Cloud sales department said that senior leadership told them that there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general.”

Not a surprise. When I was at G, Cloud was the fastest-growing org by far. You can't grow an org that fast without an inevitable decline in hiring standards, as many discussed at the time. That's not to say the regular Google hiring process is fair or even usually makes sense.

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#24

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #8
Ferrotin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unproductive employees aren’t the ones quitting.

...I mean, all I have to go on is my own experience and what I've seen from the workers around me, but your claim doesn't line up with that data at all. For instance, my team just lost three (out of 8) of its most talented and most productive developers (including our lead developer) who quit over corporate policy changes, including WFH changes. Obviously, to reiterate, this is a small sample size and sampling bias,…

High performers will never have an issue finding work and they know this.

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#26

Post by aetherson »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #16
aetherson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't quitting en masse.

If you Google "tech industry quitting", all the results seem to paint a different picture. Some articles even call it "The Great Resignation".

Yep, those articles have been discredited.

The labor market has been tight! There was a wave of job changes back a year ago -- but to be clear, those were not people who were leaving the labor force, they were people who got new, better jobs.

That wave is definitively over in tech, and has been for about four to six months. The labor market in tech is slacker than it has been in a decade: it's harder now to get a new job in tech than it has been in the duration of many people's careers. And since people are not leaving the labor force, the quitting (to take another job) stuff is now much diminished.

This does not mean, of course, that there are not still people getting hired or people changing jobs -- just much less than before.

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#28

Post by bena »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #8
Ferrotin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unproductive employees aren’t the ones quitting.

...I mean, all I have to go on is my own experience and what I've seen from the workers around me, but your claim doesn't line up with that data at all. For instance, my team just lost three (out of 8) of its most talented and most productive developers (including our lead developer) who quit over corporate policy changes, including WFH changes. Obviously, to reiterate, this is a small sample size and sampling bias,…

I can see how it's a scare tactic in general.

You try and scare the unproductive people into being more productive.

And you try and scare the productive people into staying by implying that the market may not be all that hot outside. Or whatever. Scare tactics don't exactly rely on rational thinking.

Also, you are reclaiming the work being done by the fired. That work can be reassigned to the people not fired. And hopefully, those people will be too busy to quit.

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#29

Post by bell-cot »

Is the real story that Google & Facebook have decided that their prior starve-off-possible-competition strategy - of paying "all" the top tech. talent sky-high salaries to mostly twiddle their thumbs - is not looking so smart anymore?

Re: Google execs threaten workers with layoffs: ‘There will be blood on the streets’

#30

Post by IceMetalPunk »

tmpz22 wrote: post #21
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... how is that relevant?

Your grandparent comment insinuates that executive measures to increase productivity are broad and actually hurt productivity. I agree for what its worth. But what these executives and their supporters think is that productive employees will stay the same productive employees with the changes, and that only the unproductive employees will face consequences. Of course this is ass backwards and we all know it, the inno…

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, from various discussions with the VP of my department, it's become clear to me that execs and other higher-ups have very... fantastical ideas, to put it lightly, about what actually happens in their employees' daily lives, and how their policies will affect those workers.

I've had my own fantasies recently about telling the execs to spend two weeks sitting in the office between us devs and taking notes about what actually happens, to use as reference material when discussing policy changes. But then I realize that the very idea of requiring evidence to support one's decisions is what separates the lowly devs like me from the big-shot execs with name plaques on their office desk and a few extra zeroes on their paycheck deposits. Which is... quite depressing when you consider we're a STEM field, so evidence and logic should matter throughout our hierarchy, but then again, capitalism and corporatocracy have perverse incentives, I guess.

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