It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
why? if they didn't perform why sugar coat it?
To avoid lawsuits.
Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
131–140 of 144 posts
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to be a party pooper but it's unlikely that Google will not undergo some sort of reduction in workforce. I really really hope that I'm wrong but based on the messaging this will happen.
What messaging?
The whole: we need things to be more efficient, we need to focus efforts, etc.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you are the size of Google I’m not sure how to tell managers across the company to assess poor performers and _not_ have it leak to the press. It’s not like this is a company press release.
Was it leaked as "poor performers" (absolute), or "lower performers" (relative)? Relative would imply they have good skills, but don't meet Google's extreme requirements.
Downvoted because I didn't put "extreme" in quotes?
Or because Google is nowhere near being truly "hardcore"?
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#134It’s incredibly shitty to telegraph to other employers that all the people you’re about to layoff are damaged goods. Completely unnecessary.
why? if they didn't perform why sugar coat it?
Because "didn't perform" without any explanation is just defamatory. It could be health, family or work issues. Or surprise, surprise! the evaluation could be wrong and they over-hired post covid boom.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Early on, they set out to keep the “startup” culture internally - to drive ongoing innovation There are a lot of companies outside the US that keep their original culture way into their maturity at global scale. Hetzner, for example - started as an upstart hosting provider that prioritized engineering. It became a global entity with DCs in Europe and the US, possibly the biggest datacenter operator and cloud provid…
> If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders, the shareholders have a right to sue.... That's not actually true, except insofar as anyone can file a lawsuit for basically anything. Long discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674 but in brief, Dodge v. Ford is a tough case that gets overinterpreted. More recent ones give enormous latitude to the compa…
> More recent ones give enormous latitude to the company's management.
That's the problem with common law - more recent ones set a different 'precedent'. The next case can set a totally different 'precedent' and you as a ceo can be part of that 'precedent'.
Still evaluates to the same.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Sorry that was a rhetorical comment, meant to imply that the top performers understood what the current management was like and noped the hell out of there
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I don't want to be a party pooper but it's unlikely that Google will not undergo some sort of reduction in workforce. I really really hope that I'm wrong but based on the messaging this will happen.
Interesting: two conflicting reports from inside Google (assuming they are really working for Google). Perhaps only some departements are affected from reduction in workforce.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#138I was told at some point by someone that a layoff can’t be done based on performance, because that would mean it’s a firing instead. An amazon manager told me they were careful to avoid mentioning perf as a factor in their latest layoffs. Is that accurate and if so how does this jive with that at all?
I don't know how it works exactly but there is a meaningful difference between being fired "for cause" vs just being fired in many jurisdictions. For instance, if you're fired for cause then you may not be eligible to collect unemployment insurance. But as I understand it (and IANAL) this would apply only to things like gross misconduct (eg stealing from the company, assaulting colleagues, showing up to work drunk, e…
> [...] but the burden of proof is generally on the employee to show that they were wrongfully terminated [...]
This is same for Switzerland and probably Europe. In Switzerland you have three month's notice for resigning and for being laid off. You can be fired for cause without notice, but this applies only if the cause is severe enough that a continuation of the employment shouldn't be asked of the company or the employee any more. This has consequences for unemployment insurance. Usually the ex-employee needs to wait 4 weeks for unemployment benefits. It's the same if the employee resigned.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#139Why 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…
Because it's an excuse to fire people, what else?
Also the company is producing bad products and nothing innovative at all. They just try to copy and fail, look at Stadia and others.
Without count Angular and everything around it.
Re: Google to lay off 10k “poor performers”
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Sorry that was a rhetorical comment, meant to imply that the top performers understood what the current management was like and noped the hell out of there
Hi,
Thank you. I figured as much, but I will admit if still irks me a bit how what was mostly a good company was run into the ground, so whenever I am given half a chance, I vent. :/