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Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#111

Post by jdmichal »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #68
tikhonj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between "things change" and "mass top-down layoffs are an effective way to adapt to change"!

> There's a big difference between "things change" and "mass top-down layoffs are an effective way to adapt to change"! I worked at a company that tried to avoid mass layoffs at all costs. Whenever it became obvious that change was necessary, they'd do little cuts here and there, or they'd force people into roles they weren't familiar with (think front-end devs moved to cloud backend dev) to try to salvage people at…

Exactly this. Bleeding small numbers of people is absolutely terrible for morale. Everyone will be wondering whether it's their turn this week, and that will 100% have knock-on effects. If you have to do a layoff, your goal should be to make it deep enough to only do it once and allow the healing process to start.

If your goal is to avoid layoffs, the solution is to build a war chest with months or even years of runway. If you hit hard times, freeze hiring and attrition will help some as you burn through that runway. (But also be careful of piling on the same workload to fewer and fewer people!)

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#112

Post by outside1234 »

karaterobot wrote: post #16

> Imagine you had a dog... Imagine that instead of a dog, it's an adult who makes their own choices and gets paid money, and who signed a contract where the terms of employment were spelled out very clearly..

Imagine it was a contract where the only two options were "eat" or "not eat"

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#113

Post by foobiekr »

tablespoon wrote: post #92
bena wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies typically don't layoff because they want to have a laugh. Companies layoff when they're in some sort of trouble. If you don't have the cash to support the staff, you can't will that into existence. So it follows that companies that laid people off struggled for a bit. Because they were already struggling. It's not an instant cure, or even a guaranteed one. It's a measure to spend less so you can ride out th…

> Companies layoff when they're in some sort of trouble. If you don't have the cash to support the staff, you can't will that into existence. No, companies layoff when they want to spend less money paying people. Being "in some sort of trouble" is only one of many reasons why they may choose that course.

You’re missing a number of critical factors. One of them is that companies have largely abdicated performance management and managing out underperformers, and layoffs are a primary means to get this done. Another issue is that larger companies have incentives problem when headcount justifies manager-track promotions. Layoffs are a way to force them to address dead weight headcount.

You should think harder about what might drive layoffs.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#114

Post by recursive »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #91
brookst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Next you’re going to find fault in my analysis that proves CPR kills people, as evidenced by the number of people who die after receiving CPR compared to those who just have a normal day.

You have to prove that CPR works. The burden of proof is not on anyone to prove that CPR does not work. In that sense the idea that the difference becomes insignificant after just 3 years is quite damning

Damning to which side of the argument? Sounds like evidence that the layoffs worked to me.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#115

Post by lapcat »

notinfuriated wrote: post #101
lapcat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Group 1: companies in a good enough financial situation to not need layoffs Group 2: companies in a dire financial situation requiring layoffs None of the big tech companies are in a "dire" financial situation. Indeed, some of them have just announced modest revenue increases this week. Yet they still conducted big layoffs. Did they "need" to do it? (Note in contrast that Apple announced a significant revenue decre…

Depends on your definition of "dire." Perhaps some companies have Finance departments that believe they're in a dire situation when they have less than six months runway if all revenue stopped. I don't know what they factor in to the decision other than they believe their costs are too high given the current economic conditions. It's kind of like me having plenty of money, right now, to afford Netflix but cancelling…

> because I feel $14/mo or whatever the price is still too much for the value it delivers in the current year, and generally worried that I might need that $14 in a year

What if you're wrong, though, and indeed what if many people are wrong in the same way, cancelling Netflix and passing up the opportunity of enjoyment to save a little money, but in the long run it makes no difference, and only hurts them in the short-term by depriving them of the enjoyment? That's the point of the article, that layoffs are empirically self-defeating.

It's not about a mythical "obligation" to employ someone. The cruelty comes from laying off people unnecessarily, when there's no benefit.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#116

Post by jeffwask »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

Nobody likes getting laid off. But it's weird to see all of these think pieces implying that once someone is hired into a job, that job should exist forever. Things change. Company growth isn't monotonically increasing. Not all positions will exist forever. Joining a company was never a guarantee that you'd have a paycheck and work to do until you decided to leave. Also, pointing out that companies that did layoffs h…

There are two different contexts around layoffs.

1) The company is struggling, losing money, etc and needs to tackle corrective action before everyone loses their jobs. 2) The company is generating record revenues, profits are high, but growth will be 4% instead of 5% so we need layoffs.

There seem to be a staggering number of layoffs from camp two.

> But it's weird to see all of these think pieces implying that once someone is hired into a job, that job should exist forever.

It's also really weird to see:

- Rescinded offers - People hired and let go in 3 months (not for performance but because oopsie we miscalculated) - Entire teams built in the first half of a year let go in the second half - People with 10+ years of exemplary service dumped without even a phone call.

This is all also happening against the backdrop of low unemployment, high demand for tech labor, and a skills gap that's growing.

The analysis was of Fortune 1000 companies which typically aren't companies that would be suffering from long term declining performance which would imply the layoffs are a reaction to a short term fluctuation rather than a long term trend that needs to be corrected.

And I don't think the author is saying that laying people off won't balance the financials for that year or that quarter but that the ripple effects from a layoff can actually do more harm than the calculated returns.

- snap back attrition - loss of knowledge - opportunity cost - lost productivity from demoralized workforce

Nintendo is a great example of a company that when confronted with economic hardship due to bad strategy avoided layoff and instead reduced executive compensation.

https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/5/4496512/why-nintendos-sator...

Satoru Iwata effectively stated the same conclusions this article did that such moves might resolve short-term difficulties, but always proved counter-productive in the long-term. Long term thinking versus short term thinking not surprising for a company that has been around since 1889 and has evolved constantly.

It's almost like maybe investor sentiment and stock price is not a good metric for actually running a successful business. Just look at Apple this morning...

Revenue: $117.1 billion versus $121.1 billion expected

Investors are pulling their hair out because Apple only made $117 billion. Is anyone really going to miss that $4 billion? You'll hear investors and talking heads calling for corrective layoffs when in reality nothing needs to be done. They are still ridiculously profitable and will continue to be.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#117

Post by motbus3 »

The default state for a company is to produce a yearly layoff. This has been dramatically reduced since gen y hit the work market because they were leave the company instead of stressing and they were important as they were bringing the tech power to the industry

Now they are getting old and there is no short of people to work on tech so the cycle restarts.

Honestly if I do get in a company that practices this I will quit. It has done horrors to people close to me and they will never recover.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#118

Post by jonny_eh »

abeppu wrote: post #85

I think the crappy thing here is because upper management wants to plan a layoff in extreme secrecy, they put themselves in the position of not being able to consult with the parties that have the most context. The cuts end up being crude and poorly targeted because of this secrecy. Because the assumption is that an employee who is being laid off, or thinks they may be laid off, becomes a liability immediately, no kn…

Makes me wonder why employees are expected to give two weeks notice when they choose to leave, write docs detailing knowledge transfer, etc. Why can't we just "disappear", as if we were laid off?

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#119

Post by techsupporter »

fsociety wrote: post #66
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

Nobody likes getting laid off. But it's weird to see all of these think pieces implying that once someone is hired into a job, that job should exist forever. Things change. Company growth isn't monotonically increasing. Not all positions will exist forever. Joining a company was never a guarantee that you'd have a paycheck and work to do until you decided to leave. Also, pointing out that companies that did layoffs h…

No one is saying you should have 100% job security, or never be let go / fired. People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. Layoffs are not always a result of declining performance. We have seen several now where quarterly results point to increased performance but layoffs still occur as an…

> People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe.

Exactly this, though I also propose as the end of your sentence, "...as CEOs and investors claim." We get told a lot of false or true-but-in-the-abstract motives.

The McSweeney's article[0] nails it perfectly for me. I am in the gap in the middle, where stable pensions were on the way out at the same time as companies dropped loyalty to employees into the bin. So I started my working life with the cultural expectation that existed--work for the same company, or maybe two companies, for 40ish years, then leave the workforce knowing I'd be stable--and am now expected to cover all of my years of life solely from the resources I can scrounge together. This, in a word, sucks, and it's part of why layoffs--especially when companies are still hiring in other areas is so jarring to me.

(Does it suck more than the generation or two who have come after me, who had neither the expectation of a pension or potential job stability? No! It's far worse for those later than me; their only "benefit" is people younger than me didn't start out with that false hope. They've always known they're screwed unless they can horde as much as possible in as little time as possible.)

0 - https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-ha...

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#120

Post by outside1234 »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #57

Layoffs are like going on a diet: in the short term companies are able to maintain discipline through a mixture of execs getting their feet held to the fire by shareholders and employee panic. In the long term, execs are gonna do the same old shit that they always do.

The execs will never stop doing the same old shit. They will still fly business class and have concerts with Sting (ht Satya). The only change is that they will temporarily work everyone else harder.
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