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Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

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Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#11

Post by jackweirdy »

n00b101 wrote: post #7
MrLeftHand wrote: post #2

This is some nasty stuff. I feel sorry for the guy literally working there less then a day and getting the boot. Shows some really serious problems in management. Who the hell hires people when they know very well they won't stay and make the whole staff redundant. Well, except for friends and family of course. Either it was a lack of communication between management and HR, or they just really didn't give a flying f…

I know someone who left a finance job in NYC to move to London. Was fired in his first week; the trading desk he had joined was abruptly closed down. I guess senior management kept the plans secret from the line managers who kept on hiring without knowing what was coming. So I don't think this sort of thing only happens in start-ups (if anything, I would guess this type of thing is more likely to happen in a large co…

That's awful; not least because (depending on their role) gardening leave might apply, preventing them from getting a job in the finance industry for months

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#12

Post by cm3 »

8_hours_ago wrote: post #10

Luckily lots of companies in Toronto are hiring and are taking advantage of this opportunity to recruit the people affected by this move. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23joist60

I've always wondered what happened to the hardware and software talent from RIM, now that they've pretty much stopped producing anything useful.

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#13

Post by yardie »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #2

This is some nasty stuff. I feel sorry for the guy literally working there less then a day and getting the boot. Shows some really serious problems in management. Who the hell hires people when they know very well they won't stay and make the whole staff redundant. Well, except for friends and family of course. Either it was a lack of communication between management and HR, or they just really didn't give a flying f…

It's not just restricted to startups. I know a few stories of F500s who hired people then fired them days or weeks later. In one case one guy never made it to his desk.

I don't think HR was given any heads up. I imagine management wanted to keep everything business as usual until the last moment.

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#14

Post by cm3 »

mabbo wrote: post #9

If anyone whose been let go by Joist is reading this: I'm a developer with Amazon in Toronto. There's a lot going on here- 300 developers in 4 or 5 major divisions doing all kinds of interesting stuff. The pay's good (for Toronto), we're well located (beside Union station), and of course we're hiring. My username, but at my company's name, dot-com. Happy to chat by email, but I'll link you to our jobs site: https://w…

Is it different than Amazon Seattle? I mean, is there a reasonable balance between work and life?

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#15

Post by [deleted] »

jackweirdy wrote: post #11
n00b101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone who left a finance job in NYC to move to London. Was fired in his first week; the trading desk he had joined was abruptly closed down. I guess senior management kept the plans secret from the line managers who kept on hiring without knowing what was coming. So I don't think this sort of thing only happens in start-ups (if anything, I would guess this type of thing is more likely to happen in a large co…

That's awful; not least because (depending on their role) gardening leave might apply, preventing them from getting a job in the finance industry for months

[deleted]

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#16

Post by aquilaFiera »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #4

Now that they've gone to the expense of moving their remaining 30 employees to San Francisco and have demonstrated such incredible loyalty to their employees, let's see how many of those remaining 30 take advantage of the many opportunities in the Valley to jump ship.

I was apart of the reddit exodus when they closed the Salt Lake City and New York City offices (I was in SLC.) It only took me 90 days which was the minimum requirement to not have to pay your moving expenses back. Since then, which happened in January 2015, I would roughly estimate that 50-60% has turned over at reddit.

All of this to say it typically doesn't end well for the company unless this is what they're planning on.

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#17

Post by retube »

jackweirdy wrote: post #11
n00b101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone who left a finance job in NYC to move to London. Was fired in his first week; the trading desk he had joined was abruptly closed down. I guess senior management kept the plans secret from the line managers who kept on hiring without knowing what was coming. So I don't think this sort of thing only happens in start-ups (if anything, I would guess this type of thing is more likely to happen in a large co…

That's awful; not least because (depending on their role) gardening leave might apply, preventing them from getting a job in the finance industry for months

would get gardening leave for sure, prob 3 months. That doesn't stop you looking for new work tho, and the leave itself is not a problem, all banks expect to have to wait 3 months before a new recruit can join.

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#18

Post by jacques_chester »

> to achieve our vision for Joist, we need the best talent in the world

This is a standard mantra of startup lore, but if I put on my nitpicking hat, is it strictly true?

I mean we're not talking about the Manhattan Project here.

Plus it's not as though there isn't intensely fierce competition for talent in the valley. Just because a lot of talented people are there, doesn't mean you'll get to hire them. The "best talent in the world" is already bid up to high levels by those few companies in the Bay Area who are straddling rivers of gold.

Where I work, we have offices all over the world, including one here in NYC and another in Toronto. Because of the timezone alignment and relatively short travel times, we're now experimenting with more and more remote pairing to share projects between the two offices.

In Joist's position I might have considered opening an NYC office instead. It's not as though this city lacks for talent either and if they feel like paying a lot for it, the finance folks have kindly bid up top performers for them. They can get all the difficulties of hiring in the valley, but much closer to home.

Re: Joist lays off 60 employees in Toronto as company relocates to SF

#19

Post by cm3 »

reustle wrote: post #5

> Kathan told BetaKit that the “incredible difficulty” of acquiring senior-level talent in Toronto As some companies are (finally) starting to realize, there are incredibly talented people all over the world, who are not within 1.5 hours of your office. Allowing them to work remotely opens your company up to a much higher caliber of talent for the same, if not lower, cost. The tools are out there now and they work we…

I've encountered companies that are already globally distributed but try to force you to move to one of their offices permanently. I can imagine arguments for it, but the arguments I was presented with were unconvincing and more of the hand-wavy kind.
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