210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by hydrogen18 » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

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…

The company I worked at "solved" this problem by offering the same package but with a clausing stating "key employees are not eligible to receive this package". There was some legalese at the end of the document that deciding who was "key" was ultimately up the company and no explanation was required.

As one of my co-workers explained it: If you're incompetent you can get a great payout and then go be someone else's problem.

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

#162

Post by 1123581321 » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #146

1123581321 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tension meeting makes it hard to avoid asking for support because it's so easy for people to bring up small problems as they're noticed and get quick resolution. Also, responsibilities are worded as objectively and measurably as possible (like good KPIs) to increase transparency into how people are doing in their roles. If a circle in an org like yours needs to avoid showing weaknesses to clients and to suss out…

"I think one of the bets holocracy makes is that a group of people with a better understanding of their responsibilities and who receive quicker, clearer feedback will naturally be more proactive about problems." Who provides the feedback? Based on what credentials? Explain why that person not a manager.

Tensions, which are problems or issues or defects, are provided by anyone who notices.

In addition to that, some roles may have responsibilities to provide particular support and feedback. For example, in a team of developers, a developer who has a code reviewer role may have the responsibility of providing feedback on others' code.

Other kinds of feedback-providing responsibilities could be proofreading, listening to sales calls, QA on manufactured items, feedback on negotiations, etc. Anyone could be assigned these roles/responsibilities.

Traditional managers usually see these responsibilities as their job and other employees don't easily get involved in the manager-employee feedback relationship.

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

#163

Post by swombat » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #116

ValentineC wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are articles on how Valve has "hidden management" cliques though [1]. I'm not sure if this was ever addressed by Valve itself. [1] http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hi...

It's very similar in holocracy: the people who are natural leaders will fill the management needs of the organization; it's just more chaotic, less predictable, and not as good. The lack of structure brings out the worst in human behavior. In my experience, it is a horrible system in which to exist. It's highly ignorant of psychology and behavior theory almost intentionally, and it creates far more drama and politics…

> The lack of structure brings out the worst in human behavior.

Well, that's your experience, and you're entitled to it. I'm finding the opposite. Though describing holacracy as a "lack of structure" seems like a pretty serious mis-statement. Holacracy is extremely structured - way more, and way more explicitly, than most organisations.

It's kind of like the classic traditional observation that "agile is basically no processes". Yeah, if you use agile as an excuse to throw out process, you might equate the two. But actually agile (at least at its beginnings) involved a lot more process and rigour than traditional waterfall development. Agile is not an absence of process. Holacracy is not an absence of structure.

I guess humans will be humans - which means they will misinterpret, distort, exaggerate, etc, especially when exposed to newness.

I have little comment about what holacracy is like to work in, because I haven't worked in one. But I started a business that now operates by principles fairly closely related to those underlying holacracy (though the implementation is fairly different). We have less structure than holacracy, however... and yet what I'm seeing is that quite the opposite of your statement, it is bringing out the best in people.

Then again, I've not implemented a fake holacracy for all the wrong reasons. We're still in the relatively early days of this sort of culture. There are many more ways to get this wrong than right. Unless the people making this happen are truly committed to creating an open culture, and are doing it for the right reasons (i.e. this is the way they want the business to operate because it's good - not "well, this seems like a good tool to get people to be motivated without paying them nyeh nyeh nyeh dr evil laughter"... unless it's done right, it will probably be a horrible distortion of what it's meant to be. Kind of like what you describe.

I think you should consider the possibility that the allegedly holacratic organisation you worked in just got it really badly wrong.

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

#164

Post by cwisecarver » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

rifung wrote: post #150

sliverstorm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of reasons to stick around that aren't religious zeal.

There certainly are but are there that many reasons that are good enough to make someone stick around instead of taking 3 months pay while not having to work? I imagine most developers could find a job with similar pay in a month or maybe one and a half, so the reasons would have to be strong enough that you'd give up an extra 10% in salary, or even being able to take a 3 month long vacation. On the other hand, if th…

Henderson is a suburb of Vegas. You wouldn't have to move unless you wanted to walk to work.

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

#165

Post by ksherlock » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

lmg643 wrote: post #94

exelius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lea…

it's easy to forget that zappos was acquired by amazon. i am interested to what extent sales growth or lack thereof, would be a driver of radical restructuring.

Amazon implemented pay ($2,000 -- $5,000) to quit about a year ago.

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

#166

Post by detaro » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #149

detaro wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics isn't tied to job titles. There still are people with different amounts of influence that try to influence others for their own goals. FWIW, Jeri Ellsworth (who was hired to do hardware stuff, didn't do well there and was fired in the end) described office politics at Valve "like back in high school". Not saying that it can't work, but it also is not without its flaws.

I wasn't aware of who Jeri Ellsworth was, but a cursory look says that she was fired by Valve. Were her comments before or after she was fired? I'm not sure that if it was after, we can necessarily count on it being objective. I've heard plenty of people make comments that aren't exactly the most accurate after they've been fired.

True, should have mentioned that (edited it in). Relatively certain it was afterwards.

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

#167

Post by varunjuice » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

Given 3-5 year tenure of a typical employee at a typical tech company, this is less than expected attrition at a company.

It is not inconceivable that anyone who wanted to leave the company between now and the end of the year took this.

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

#168

Post by Zombieball » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

ksherlock wrote: post #165

lmg643 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's easy to forget that zappos was acquired by amazon. i am interested to what extent sales growth or lack thereof, would be a driver of radical restructuring.

Amazon implemented pay ($2,000 -- $5,000) to quit about a year ago.

For warehouse associates. This doesn't apply to engineers.

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

#169

Post by stove » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

I wonder what percentage of the 14% are existing managers that perhaps can't or don't want to move on to different roles?

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

#170

Post by logfromblammo » Fri, May 08, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #106

jackmaney wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was unclear what his intentions were. To determine loyalty to the company, possibly. Corporate loyalty has been dead for many, many years.

Corporate loyalty died when companies stopped paying pensions, or severely reducing pensions. Our parents always worried about pensions and corporate loyalty. In our generation, and especially technology, we make a lot more money, and can generally make even more by switching jobs. Therefor, corporate loyalty, in the current tech industry, is virtually dead. The one case that it isn't is perhaps companies like google…

Corporate loyalty is a two-way street.

In medieval times, the vassal paid homage and swore fealty in a commendation ceremony, and the lord granted him a fief. The vassal had a duty to aid his lord, and the lord had a duty to protect his vassal. The vassal gave loyalty, and got a secure income in return. It was a permanent relationship. To dissolve it, you had to use an axe, rather than a pink slip.

Corporate loyalty died when management culture forgot that the company owes duties to its employees in addition to its shareholders. Defined benefit pensions became defined contribution retirement plans. Then the employer contribution disappeared. Health insurance plans dwindled from all medical expenses paid to you paying 80% of the premium, $30 co-pays at every turn, and deductibles that are met midway through the twelfth month of the plan fiscal year, then reset. Training programs evaporated. Severance packages got smaller, or vanished. Even the amount of notice I get whenever permanent layoffs are to occur has become days, rather than months.

So there are no more loyal vassals. We are all mercenaries now. I'll start sending out resumes if I so much as notice that the building has a new janitor.

  H. R. tells new hires:
  "How great it is to work here!"
  Give me cash, not lies.

If corporate loyalty is dead, it is because corporations have killed it.