Seems a bit low - I'm thinking more people would have taken the buyout but aren't very confident in the job market right now.
210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
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Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#22I work at a company that was in bad shape during the financial crisis. A temporary CEO was put in charge. Ultimately, a number of companies were merged to create one company that could survive. In the end, one of the CEO's of the merged companies became the CEO of the final company. His first act as CEO was to offer everyone in the company a tenure-based package to leave the company. I don't know the full numbers, but nearly everyone in the IT department took the deal. And I am aware of many people in other departments who took the deal as well. Rumors were that between 30 and 40 percent of staff took the deal. Once this happened, the company got rid of that CEO and had to then offer alternative packages to people to stay. Basically the same amount you would have received if you left, but paid out to you over a few years to guarantee you'd stay.
It was unclear what his intentions were. To determine loyalty to the company, possibly. But what actually happened was that people who were good at their job, and could find work elsewhere, left. So they would have had all of the top talent leave the company and the remaining employees would be the people who did just enough to get by. The company is still trying to make amends with the employees.
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#23>John Bunch, technical adviser at Zappos and leader of the Holacracy transition
...right
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#24Strange it isn't former CEO as you wouldn't have a CEO in a flat company. Seems hypocritical to me, but maybe it isn't and I don't get the distinction.
Someone has to talk to the investors though, right?
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#25I applaud him for experimenting and trying unconventional ways of doing business.
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, I wish my company would do something like this - middle management is clearly slowing us down and adding very little value right now. I can't wait to read that book.
You're making a flawed assumption many people make: because many managers are poor managers, management is bad. Be careful what you wish for. A company without management is like a boat without a captain. You might appear to be fine for some time, but eventually you'll be hopelessly adrift at sea.
A company without management is not the same as a company without managers. Not having managers doesn't mean not having executives.
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#27So just the managers and supervisors left then?
I can't even tell if this is being spun as a positive or a negative. That is a radical change and if anything it seems like a low number of people to take the severance. Whether the new policy will work out in the long term remains to be seen. I believe I read that Google tried a flat hierarchy for a few months and found that it did not work quite how they wanted. Also, what will Tony Hsieh be doing in the new manage…
Google did indeed try it[0].
"In 2002 they experimented with a completely flat organization, eliminating engineering managers in an effort to break down barriers to rapid idea development and to replicate the collegial environment they’d enjoyed in graduate school. That experiment lasted only a few months: They relented when too many people went directly to Page with questions about expense reports, interpersonal conflicts, and other nitty-gritty issues."
[0] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on-man...
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#28Strange it isn't former CEO as you wouldn't have a CEO in a flat company. Seems hypocritical to me, but maybe it isn't and I don't get the distinction.
Just because you don't need management doesn't mean you don't need leadership.
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#29So just the managers and supervisors left then?
I can't even tell if this is being spun as a positive or a negative. That is a radical change and if anything it seems like a low number of people to take the severance. Whether the new policy will work out in the long term remains to be seen. I believe I read that Google tried a flat hierarchy for a few months and found that it did not work quite how they wanted. Also, what will Tony Hsieh be doing in the new manage…
>I believe I read that Google tried a flat hierarchy for a few months and found that it did not work quite how they wanted.
Once you grow beyond a certain size, you have to have people who function as communication hubs to deal with the n^2 connections between employees. The hubs end up consolidating power, and then you have management. There are probably ways to limit this, rotating managerial duties and such, but it's much harder than just adopting a hierarchical structure.
Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum
#30I stopped buying shoes from Zappos because I don't like their selection of shoes any longer. Not because I thought their management structure needed a drastic, messy public overhaul. I dunno, it just seems silly and fanciful to me but then again I'm not Tony Hsieh.