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Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

independent.co.uk

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Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#111

Post by rhapsodic »

baron816 wrote: post #58
sio8ohPi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't blame Google yet. This is Forbes fabricating a story for clicks, and the Independent parroting it uncritically. It's possible (and IMO likely) that Google will undergo layoffs (but you don't need to be Nostradamus to predict "company will undergo layoffs" during a recession), but both Forbes and the Independent appear to be misrepresenting their speculation as special knowledge.

Yes, this is not a real story. Pure speculation. No real sources. IMO as a Google employee, I don’t see layoffs happening. The company has started hiring again. My coworkers are flooded with interviews. We’re still having holiday parties and other “fun” spending seems to have returned. I have no inside knowledge, that’s just my own personal observation.

No post body was provided.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#112

Post by antisthenes »

rvnx wrote: post #92
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not if you are serious or not, but in case you are: it is extremely difficult to assess someone's performance at work in a fair way, especially in tech. The ways to measure performance like LoC are largely inadequate and say nothing about the quality of one's work. And in some areas like DevOps, good luck assessing someone's performance - you can discover your mistake once that person you've fired is gone.

Usually in large orgs there is multi-layer reviews, and this is a quite efficient indicator; if the colleagues say that you are not doing your job well + the managers say you are not doing your job well + the people under you say you are not doing your job well. + the customers say you are not doing your job well. Then why an employee would even stay in a company where literally everybody thinks they are not helpful…

> if the colleagues say that you are not doing your job well

> + the managers say you are not doing your job well

> + the people under you say you are not doing your job well.

> + the customers say you are not doing your job well.

How often is it actually that 1 employee is exposed to all of these groups simultaneously, and all of them are technically qualified and have visibility and insight to pass the judgment about the parts of performance that were under that employee's control?

My bet is somewhere asymptotically approaching 0.

My follow-up question to this would be - how did this person even pass the interview process to get into a position where there are people under them?

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#113

Post by kelseyfrog »

Ferrotin wrote: post #89
kelseyfrog wrote: post #88

Why would Google hire "poor performers" in the first place? Google, in part, built credibility with its talent because it's hiring process selected for exceptional talent and Googlers levereaged this into basically a passport to work anywhere. Google is shooting itself in the foot by framing it this way in the sense that it destroys the illusion that they have better hiring practices has the cost of not attracting th…

It should be obvious that many people who pass an interview, by intelligence or hard practice, will slack off on the job.

Right, and what Google is signaling is that they aren't actually very good at detecting this during the hiring process.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#115

Post by lb1lf »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #104
lb1lf wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-At a former employer, the upper management managed to one-up this by telling those of us still working there that we were the damaged goods; during an all-hands meeting where it was announced that we were to acquire a competitor, our CFO managed to blurt that 'We've learned from past acquisitions, and this time we will ensure that the onboarding experience is a good one. We can not and will not end up with a repeat…

I wonder why the good performers left!

Oh, for the usual reason, I guess. When the acquired company was to be integrated into ours, lots of effort was expended on stating that the new company would try to take the best bits of both companies to make us even better yada yada - after which, any project they'd been working on was promptly killed off, to be replaced by projects we had been working on. HR then promptly proceeded to maim any and all agreements between the old company and the unions, after which pay grades were 'harmonized', which basically meant that all employees of both the aquisitor and the acquisitee (if those are even words...) found themselves taking a pay cut.

The only thing which made me stay on for a couple more years was that we had a couple of customers which were an absolute delight to work with. They are now customers of my current employer and still a delight to work with.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#116

Post by throwaway71271 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #88

Why would Google hire "poor performers" in the first place? Google, in part, built credibility with its talent because it's hiring process selected for exceptional talent and Googlers levereaged this into basically a passport to work anywhere. Google is shooting itself in the foot by framing it this way in the sense that it destroys the illusion that they have better hiring practices has the cost of not attracting th…

in any group of people, half are below average, by definition.

they might still be in the 95th quantile in the rest of the world, and be in the bottom 6% in google.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#118

Post by mkl95 »

throwaway71271 wrote: post #117
mkl95 wrote: post #114

I have an interview with Google in a few days and this is making me reconsider it. I'm not sure it's a good time to join any big tech.

because its great time to join small tech.

I'm getting some juicy offers from small tech so I agree.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#119

Post by humanizersequel »

autotune wrote: post #80
mathverse wrote: post #76

BigTech is ripe for disruption to be challenged by NewTech. We can only hope that can happen fast enough

NewTech was supposed to be “web 3,” so we are going to have to wait a little longer for something real at this point.

You could have said the same thing about internet companies after the first dotcom bubble.

Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”

#120

Post by kelseyfrog »

throwaway71271 wrote: post #116
kelseyfrog wrote: post #88

Why would Google hire "poor performers" in the first place? Google, in part, built credibility with its talent because it's hiring process selected for exceptional talent and Googlers levereaged this into basically a passport to work anywhere. Google is shooting itself in the foot by framing it this way in the sense that it destroys the illusion that they have better hiring practices has the cost of not attracting th…

in any group of people, half are below average, by definition. they might still be in the 95th quantile in the rest of the world, and be in the bottom 6% in google.

I'm glad you brought this up. Stack ranking is known to decimate morale. Microsoft was notorious for this.
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