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210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

businessinsider.com

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Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#31

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #19
basseq wrote: post #13

Thought experiment: ignore the holacracy angle and offer everyone in any company 3-months severance if they quit by a certain date. What percentage would quit? I wouldn't be surprised if the average was 10-20% and a vast majority of these people are taking advantage of what they see as a good deal irregardless of their feelings on holacracy as a management style.

It's like cleaning your email subscriber list every few months.

Not really; people who can't get a job elsewhere possibly because of skill wouldn't be taking the offer. But someone who gets constant job offers by other companies? Unless you're absolutely in love with Zappos why wouldn't you? I know I would have.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#32

Post by lojack »

kelukelugames wrote: post #5

I just finished Tony's book "Delivering Happiness". I admire how positive and optimistic he is. And I even agree with forcing self improvement on the employees. But he also stresses running the company like a family aka cult. One of the advantages of moving to Vegas from SF was the employees were forced to spend more time together. He even said Zappos is his tribe. I wonder how these experiments would fare at a large…

Yeah, I read this article and for whatever reason had a sense of this being very cult-like. The terminology being used is similar to how cults load the language to make everyone feel like they are part the in-crowd. And, his offer to pay severance to anyone who wanted to quit just felt like how a cult leader will say "the door is always open if you want to leave."

Of course, he isn't actually building a cult, but I find the similarities of indoctrination very interesting.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#34

Post by velodrome »

basseq wrote: post #13

Thought experiment: ignore the holacracy angle and offer everyone in any company 3-months severance if they quit by a certain date. What percentage would quit? I wouldn't be surprised if the average was 10-20% and a vast majority of these people are taking advantage of what they see as a good deal irregardless of their feelings on holacracy as a management style.

What percentage would quit? The ones that could land another job by the quit date. They would essentially get a 3-month "bonus" for doing nothing. I would say this is only possible if the these people were looking to jump ship anyway.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#35

Post by maxxxxx »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #15

Strange 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.

" "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#36

Post by k__ »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #16
grecy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

Middle management just seem to be a bad process in many companies, not more not less.

They shouldn't hate the players, but the game.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#37

Post by exelius »

logicalmind wrote: post #22

I 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, bu…

I think the idea with Zappos is that they're supposed to be such a great place to work that you wouldn't want to leave.

And in Zappos' case, I get why they offered severance deals. They were embarking on a radical experiment in organizational structure, and not everyone is going to be on board with it. Rather than having a bunch of people at the water cooler talking shit about the changes, you offer them money to leave so that people who aren't on board with the changes get out of the way.

I would guess that many of the people at Zappos who took the deal were managers themselves. If you're a middle manager, you have skills around managing people but maybe not so much with doing the actual work. If your skill set doesn't align with the new job you're being asked to do (which is effectively a demotion), and the company offers you a buyout to leave, what would you do?

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#38

Post by jquast »

My experience working for one of "the big 3" automakers is that the very best employees take the buyout offer, confident that they can find a better job for better pay elsewhere. Years after the employee buyout programs began in the auto industry, they were requesting buyout packages of their own to save the company as a whole.

I believe this is the beginning of the "death spiral" described by PG in his "What happened to YAHOO" essay.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#39

Post by basseq »

velodrome wrote: post #34
basseq wrote: post #13

Thought experiment: ignore the holacracy angle and offer everyone in any company 3-months severance if they quit by a certain date. What percentage would quit? I wouldn't be surprised if the average was 10-20% and a vast majority of these people are taking advantage of what they see as a good deal irregardless of their feelings on holacracy as a management style.

What percentage would quit? The ones that could land another job by the quit date. They would essentially get a 3-month "bonus" for doing nothing. I would say this is only possible if the these people were looking to jump ship anyway.

Or the ones that think they can find another job with 90 days, or the ones who want to try their own thing for a little while (subsidizing the first 90 days of startup runway: enough for a MVP).

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#40

Post by broknbottle »

a3voices wrote: post #24
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #15

Strange 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?

bill in maintenance will take on that role.
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