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Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

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Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#51

Post by kkielhofner »

fvrghl wrote: post #10
ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

In the US, that does not happen. The expectation is someone only gets terminated in the first year if they are terrible. Unless it’s a tiny startup, such a stint would raise concerns.

There's actually a debate in the biz/MBA world on "hire slow, fire fast"[0].

I believe Reed Hastings at Netflix has advocated in the past for a hybrid approach "hire fast, fire fast" - interviews can be nearly useless and unfair. See people who are excellent employees but poor "test takers" vs people who are actually terrible and incompetent but can crush an interview.

In my experience you just don't know what's going to happen until "the rubber meets the road".

[0] - https://hbr.org/2014/03/hire-slow-fire-fast

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#52

Post by JazCE »

superjan wrote: post #49
JazCE wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with judging any of this is the same as knowing your history lessons and sources. All we've really got to go on is Brittney Peaches account and Matthew Princes account and neither are going to be reliable sources. We'll never know if what Brittney Peach said is reliable and we'll never know if what Matthew Prince says is true.

Why is Brittney’s video not a reliable impartial account? Also note that nothing she says about her performance and feedback is in any way disputed during the call. They had nothing to say to the contrary.

We don't actually know what her manager said to her during all her one to ones. We don't know what feedback she was receiving. Just because the person on the other end of the call did not dispute any of the things she raised, it does not mean she was correct and not biased.

We also see from Matthew Prince's reply to the video that he is also an unreliable participant as he is suggesting that a manager would always be involved in redundancies, and we can see from the video that was not the case.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#53

Post by tatpacc »

ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

> "managing out" process.

as someone who is unaware of related laws in UK/US, can you elaborate more? or if possible cite some examples? Thank you.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#54

Post by ceuk »

JazCE wrote: post #26
ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

> In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) People keep saying this, but I'm not at all convinced anyone commenting really understands UK employment law. It's really only after 2 years of working for the same company that you get any decent employment protection. It takes a bit more legal work, but if within the first 2 years they don't want you, they can get rid of you. If y…

So I made a very vague comment about it being more tricky to get rid of employees in the UK. If you think it's not actually that hard as "it takes a bit more legal work", great.. but we still seem to generally agree. It's a bit patronising to imply I know nothing about UK employment law because we have a small difference of opinion around how robust we would say the protections are.

It was a minor anecdotal comment based on my own experience of hiring/managing employees. Maybe I'm a crap manager but I've always found it labourious to get rid of people (especially passed the 2-year mark as you say). I may as well add that my wife has worked in HR for coming up to 15 years as well and I've been privy to all sorts of juicy legal drama via her.

I generally try and give every response to me some consideration but I'm not sure what else to say. Seems like maybe you just wanted to use my comment as a segway into your point about the erosion of employee protections, which you're entitled to do of course.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#55

Post by ChoHag »

ceuk wrote: post #54
JazCE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) People keep saying this, but I'm not at all convinced anyone commenting really understands UK employment law. It's really only after 2 years of working for the same company that you get any decent employment protection. It takes a bit more legal work, but if within the first 2 years they don't want you, they can get rid of you. If y…

So I made a very vague comment about it being more tricky to get rid of employees in the UK. If you think it's not actually that hard as "it takes a bit more legal work", great.. but we still seem to generally agree. It's a bit patronising to imply I know nothing about UK employment law because we have a small difference of opinion around how robust we would say the protections are. It was a minor anecdotal comment b…

[dead]

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#56

Post by intunderflow »

ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

Unless you've worked at a UK company for at least 2 years you are effectively at-will and can be terminated for any or no reason, except a specifically illegal reason.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#57

Post by ceuk »

tatpacc wrote: post #53
ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

> "managing out" process. as someone who is unaware of related laws in UK/US, can you elaborate more? or if possible cite some examples? Thank you.

Basically, once you've worked somewhere in the UK for 2+ years you generally have some statutory/default protections. One of which is a set of laws around unfair or "constructive" dismissal[1].

e.g. if we had a falling out and I fired you on the spot, you could take me to an employment tribunal. Likewise, if I made your life hell and essentially forced you to quit, it would amount to the same thing.

These laws ensure that formal, standardised disciplinary processes are followed. This makes sure that employees are subject to the same process as their peers and aren't treated unfairly and that there is a formal, documented justification if an employee is ever terminated.

From an employer POV, this is sometimes a bit annoying when an employee is a bit shit because -- barring cases of gross misconduct -- you still have to put them through the disciplinary song and dance before getting rid of them. "Managing out" is the process of essentially setting them up to fail, you put them on a PIP or something (Performance Improvement Plan) where you'd basically say "you need to be hitting these targets by this date or you're gone". A lot of the time both parties know the individual in question won't hit set targets so the whole thing often feels like a bit of theatre. Keeps things fair though and stops employers taking the piss.

I'm not an expert on US (or UK) employment law but my understanding is that terminating an employee in the US requires far less oversight/justification.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/unfair-and-constructive-dismiss...

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#58

Post by throwup238 »

ceuk wrote: post #54
JazCE wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) People keep saying this, but I'm not at all convinced anyone commenting really understands UK employment law. It's really only after 2 years of working for the same company that you get any decent employment protection. It takes a bit more legal work, but if within the first 2 years they don't want you, they can get rid of you. If y…

So I made a very vague comment about it being more tricky to get rid of employees in the UK. If you think it's not actually that hard as "it takes a bit more legal work", great.. but we still seem to generally agree. It's a bit patronising to imply I know nothing about UK employment law because we have a small difference of opinion around how robust we would say the protections are. It was a minor anecdotal comment b…

> Seems like maybe you just wanted to use my comment as a segway into your point about the erosion of employee protections, which you're entitled to do of course.

That’s like a quarter of the comments on HN at this point (minus the employee protections bit, usually it’s something much more insipid). It’s pretty much impossible not to trigger someone. Everyone’s got their pet issues and culture wars these days.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#59

Post by ameister14 »

fvrghl wrote: post #10
ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

In the US, that does not happen. The expectation is someone only gets terminated in the first year if they are terrible. Unless it’s a tiny startup, such a stint would raise concerns.

That's interesting - I have always treated the first 3-6 months as a period to make sure the person is a fit and is ramping at the right speed, and letting them go if there is an issue within that period makes way more sense to me than keeping them on to struggle for a year. It's not a greater red flag for me to see someone got fired two months in than a year and a half in - in fact, the year and a half would cause me to ask a lot more questions.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#60

Post by albert_e »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #27
JazCE wrote: post #23

You can also see a comment from Matthew Prince on this video: https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1745697840180191501?t=... Edit: Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38969065

> "W-we actually didn't fire that many people." > "I-it could be that she didn't actually listen to the feedback, guys. What if she had bad feedback?!" (Implying, without evidence, that the employee is at fault. The most tone-deaf part of his response.) > "Maybe she'd be a star on another team!" (Pointless sports analogy. Another tone-deaf moment.) > "W-we'll do better next time." An embarrassing display.

But I am not sure what else he could have said to claim this may not be as bad as it looks to save face; or to remind people that the video is but one slice of all facts and any black-and-white judgement one may make solely from it may be imperfect or unfair to parties involved. He did accept blame that they did not get this one right and that it was painful to watch. What else does public with near zero stake in the situation need to hear to be satisfied.

If I were a potential hire / investor / client -- yeah I may pay more attention and make some mental notes about how much I respect them as a company. But I dont think this was embarassingly bad to become a dealbreaker for any stakeholder. For me it mostly adds one more bit to a gestalt of how corporate functions and tech companies work these days.

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