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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’

#51

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

Obviously the end result of years of being evil - not answering the phone, lousy customer service, ruining people’s lives with no explanation or recourse, damaging privacy, disobeying world governments. Payment due.

Maybe they should go back to not being evil, it seemed to work better for them.

It’s very interesting that Google, Facebook (refuse to use the other name), and Twitter are all notorious for this and all being hit at the same time. I suspect Apple is under stress also but they won’t feel it for a while due to their massive cash hoard. Which unfortunately means Britain will have a king before I can buy another iPhone with Touch ID.

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

#52

Post by IceMetalPunk »

bena wrote: post #28
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 ho…

> And hopefully, those people will be too busy to quit.

Too busy to quit vs too overworked to stay... talk about a hell of a gamble.

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

#53

Post by IceMetalPunk »

xfitm3 wrote: post #37
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?

In my experience the unproductive employees bitch and moan the most, taking valuable time from those who do wish to work and contribute to the company.

That may be true in some cases, but have you ever considered you may be attributing cause and effect to a correlation with another explanation? For instance, perhaps it's not "unproductive employees bitch and moan because they're unproductive and not willing to work", but "employees who are burned out bitch and moan because they're burned out, and also become unproductive because they're burned out"? I.E. not a fundamental attribute of their characters, but an environmental cause, leads to both correlating?

Because that's kind of where I'm at with my job now. For 3.5 years I've been one of the most productive members of my team, but with recent policy changes over the last 8 months, I've burned out entirely. I'm now one of the least productive on the team (self-admittedly) and also have much to complain about. I haven't suddenly changed who I am or how much I'm willing to work, the environment has changed and caused both effects simultaneously. And I'm sure I'm not the only one with this experience.

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

#54

Post by IceMetalPunk »

icedchai wrote: post #38
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... how is that relevant?

Getting rid of those types will increase productivity. You'll get the same work done with less people. Well, probably more, because you won't have guys pretending to do their work and then not actually producing anything.

You'll also get more burnout on the remaining people, which will reduce productivity. It's a balancing act that really shouldn't be dismissed as "just fire anyone who's not productive enough; I'm sure that won't be a problem for the rest of the team".

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

#55

Post by correlator »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #50
correlator wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is really hot right now, and yes, a lot of people may be quitting. There are also a lot of hiring freezes and layoffs happening at the same time. If a lot of people continue to quit while available jobs continue to decline, the result is fewer people feeling comfortable quitting.

So... people are quitting, and in response, companies are enacting hiring freezes, effectively refusing to compete with each other, to make people more afraid of quitting? Does... does that not sound very collision-y to anyone else?

It could be :)

Another possible explanation is: A bad economy lead to a lot of layoffs: https://layoffs.fyi/. These layoffs resulted in employees being upset and quitting in addition to layoffs. Now there are a lot of job seekers and fewer jobs making it a bad time to quit.

IDK :shrug:

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

#56

Post by PuppyTailWags »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #49
correlator wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Team of 5 and 1 person is coasting. Get rid of the 1 and you just reduced burn by 20%. You lose the output of the coasting team member, but that's small to begin with by the scenario's setup. If you believe coasting is contagious (why am I working so hard when clearly I don't have to like this other person), you could potentially see a boost in output. Of course, this needs to be weighed against the risk of ever…

You don't lose the output of the coasting team member (even if you get rid of the right person); that workload just gets transferred to the other 4 people. So let's say you have 5 people, 4 of which each are doing 22% of the work, leaving the one "coaster" to be doing only 12%. You fire the coaster, and now you've got 4 people doing 25% of the work each. An already burned-out team is now filled with people who have a…

Yeah generally even a coasting employee is doing some minimum amount of work. If burnout is a concern it's actually better to hire someone with the intention of PIPing and kicking out the coaster after. Since the coaster has been there as long as they have, a bit of extra time won't really change the situation.

[Note: This is WILDLY different if the coaster is actively generating more work for peers. I'm talking producing mediocre code that needs extra code review or not completing assigned tickets forcing peers to pick up that slack to finish the sprint. Get the team's opinions on the situation in 1:1 and boot ASAP if folks find this is a source of friction for them.]

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

#57

Post by Judgmentality »

correlator wrote: post #55
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... people are quitting, and in response, companies are enacting hiring freezes, effectively refusing to compete with each other, to make people more afraid of quitting? Does... does that not sound very collision-y to anyone else?

It could be :) Another possible explanation is: A bad economy lead to a lot of layoffs: https://layoffs.fyi/ . These layoffs resulted in employees being upset and quitting in addition to layoffs. Now there are a lot of job seekers and fewer jobs making it a bad time to quit. IDK :shrug:

If people are quitting then people are quitting. Whether or not that is a bad idea doesn't seem to matter right now. Maybe it will matter in the future but that's not today.

Employee: I quit.

Employer: That's a bad idea!

Employee: Thanks for the advice. Bye.

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

#58

Post by icedchai »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #54
icedchai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of those types will increase productivity. You'll get the same work done with less people. Well, probably more, because you won't have guys pretending to do their work and then not actually producing anything.

You'll also get more burnout on the remaining people, which will reduce productivity. It's a balancing act that really shouldn't be dismissed as "just fire anyone who's not productive enough; I'm sure that won't be a problem for the rest of the team".

I'm talking about firing the people who are basically doing nothing. They're likely a drain on everyone else already. You get rid of the dead weight, I personally feel morale will improve. Do you like knowing people are making the same salary as you, basically doing nothing? I know of cases where people were doing like 2 hours of work... a week.

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

#59

Post by IceMetalPunk »

icedchai wrote: post #58
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll also get more burnout on the remaining people, which will reduce productivity. It's a balancing act that really shouldn't be dismissed as "just fire anyone who's not productive enough; I'm sure that won't be a problem for the rest of the team".

I'm talking about firing the people who are basically doing nothing. They're likely a drain on everyone else already. You get rid of the dead weight, I personally feel morale will improve. Do you like knowing people are making the same salary as you, basically doing nothing ? I know of cases where people were doing like 2 hours of work... a week.

On the one hand, the visceral reaction is "no, that sucks". On the other hand, that's 2 hours less work I need to worry about every week, which is better than nothing. So it entirely depends on how much work there is, and how much they're actually doing, since it's almost never actually zero. Someone doing 2 hours of work a week is not a drain, they are literally making other people have less work. A drain would create more work (which is certainly possible, but that's a different scenario).

My morale is determined by how much work I have to do, how supported I am by my bosses, and how much input I have on the work I'm doing. That's... really it. Unless someone else is causing me to have more work by being here, or making my job harder, or blocking my input, then I don't really care whether they're doing "as much work as me" or how much they're getting paid. And in that regard, firing them -- which would leave me with more work, as I'd have to pick up the work they were doing -- would lower my morale, not improve it.

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

#60

Post by IceMetalPunk »

Judgmentality wrote: post #57
correlator wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be :) Another possible explanation is: A bad economy lead to a lot of layoffs: https://layoffs.fyi/ . These layoffs resulted in employees being upset and quitting in addition to layoffs. Now there are a lot of job seekers and fewer jobs making it a bad time to quit. IDK :shrug:

If people are quitting then people are quitting. Whether or not that is a bad idea doesn't seem to matter right now. Maybe it will matter in the future but that's not today. Employee: I quit. Employer: That's a bad idea! Employee: Thanks for the advice. Bye.

Related recent anecdote: while the higher-ups at my company have been pushing terrible, burnout-inducing policies on us, my immediate manager is extremely supportive to the extent he's able to be (and always has been). When I recently told him how burned out I am and how I want to quit and find a better job, but the job I'm looking for would require skills that I'd need to learn first, his response was, "Don't quit... until you have those skills... which by the way, you have access to educational resources from the company via Udemy... the access is meant to be to advance your current job, but you have access to everything if you... wanted to check it out... just sayin'. And also apply to the jobs you think you're not qualified for yet, you may be surprised."

In other words, rather than saying "don't quit, it's a bad idea", he said, "it's a bad idea to just quit, here's some resources and advice on a better way to quit; I'll miss you" :D

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