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A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

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Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#11

Post by js8 »

milar wrote: post #6
manfre wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Empathy. Some people have more of it than others.

Sure. But how does worry help you or the person who is going to get fired? The manager goes through months of stress avoiding the thing they need to do (bad for their health), while the bad fit engineer gets strung along.

Empathy is not worry. It's actually the other way around - you seem to worry that underperforming person is going to bring down the business, empathic people do not care.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#12

Post by jasode »

wun0ne wrote: post #8
milar wrote: post #3

I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Fire them. I’ve been this person early in my life, and deserved to be fired. Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

Firing someone in the case of underperformance (particularly outside of the US) is rarely a straightforward process. You typically need to give the under-performing employee at least a chance to improve and meet the required standard - otherwise the hiring company will be leaving themselves open to a wrongful dismissal suit.

>You typically need to give the under-performing employee at least a chance to improve and meet the required standard - otherwise the hiring company will be leaving themselves open to a wrongful dismissal suit.

In the USA where most states are "at will" employment, a "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan) or providing multiple chances for an employee to become better isn't required by law: https://www.google.com/search?q=employee+%22performance+impr...

That said, some companies in some industries add a PIP as a social norm rather than a requirement of law.

E.g., An underperforming programmer might be put on a PIP. However, in more cutthroat industries... a new car salesman who isn't selling the expected quota of cars or a hedge fund associate who lost several million on a bad stock pick are often fired immediately without any PIP.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#13

Post by danielrpa »

wun0ne wrote: post #8
milar wrote: post #3

I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Fire them. I’ve been this person early in my life, and deserved to be fired. Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

Firing someone in the case of underperformance (particularly outside of the US) is rarely a straightforward process. You typically need to give the under-performing employee at least a chance to improve and meet the required standard - otherwise the hiring company will be leaving themselves open to a wrongful dismissal suit.

Everything you said is correct. And just to be clear, in the US it is technically very straightforward in most states and you can fire people for any (non-protected) reason or for no reason whatsoever without any notice. However, there is always a risk that people will sue the employer by claiming that they were fired for reasons other than underperformance (gender, race, religion etc).

Employers in the US don't care about giving people the opportunity to improve, it's more about documenting the underperformance so there is an airtight case against the employee - nobody can claim a protected reason if the underperformance is very well documented.

All of this said, and this applies to smaller companies more than bigger companies due to the risks involved, if the employer is very confident the employee won't be able to argue that they were fired due to a protected reason, in most states they can just fire them in the middle of the day with no justification: "I don't like you, out of here".

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#14

Post by t344344 »

mkl95 wrote: post #7
t344344 wrote: post #2

Stuff like this is why I refuse to return back to office. There is some sort of relationship play between "nice guys" and managers. Both of them are refusing to do their work, "nice guy" to complete his work and manager to manage. And somehow I am part of this, and have to work extra weekends!

> somehow I am part of this, and have to work extra weekends Most engineers are not expected to work weekends unless they are on call. You don't have to put up with it.

In theory maybe.

My point is why should I even make that fight? I have my own issues, my own life, my own people that depend on me.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#15

Post by xivzgrev »

This article is good but imho misses a big potential issue: the manager’s perception of performance.

Managers, especially newer ones can have lots of biases. Someone you think is underperforming may actually be doing ok, they’re just not approaching the work in the way or at the exact same performance you or superstar Sam does. Not everyone is a rockstar, and if you insist on that you are going to have trouble scaling.

So my first question is “how is this manager evaluating performance?”

Follow ups -have those expectations actually been communicated to employee? -what specifically has been done to help the employee? Is it lip service or actual help? Has HR and managers manager been looped in and do they all agree employee is underperforming?

Only then do I think you should move to reassigning / firing

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#16

Post by krisoft »

milar wrote: post #6
manfre wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Empathy. Some people have more of it than others.

Sure. But how does worry help you or the person who is going to get fired? The manager goes through months of stress avoiding the thing they need to do (bad for their health), while the bad fit engineer gets strung along.

> how does worry help you or the person who is going to get fired?

That is the point. By the point you know you need to fire them it is easy. Getting to that point is the hard bit.

Maybe they just need a different style of assignments? Maybe there are interpersonal issues in the team you as the manager should address. Maybe they have a health issue they can address with time. Maybe they are burnt out and you should reconsider how you are running your team, or even worse how the whole company.

Depending on the situation you have many more things you can do to address an underperforming employee than just firing or not firing them. Whether or not it will be successful depends on multiple factors some in the control of the manager, some not so. A sane manager should not stress or worry over the ones they can't control, but easy to imagine them stressing over the ones they can.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#17

Post by ResearchCode »

xivzgrev wrote: post #15

This article is good but imho misses a big potential issue: the manager’s perception of performance. Managers, especially newer ones can have lots of biases. Someone you think is underperforming may actually be doing ok, they’re just not approaching the work in the way or at the exact same performance you or superstar Sam does. Not everyone is a rockstar, and if you insist on that you are going to have trouble scalin…

Mostly agree but HR would have no clue about that.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#18

Post by ResearchCode »

wun0ne wrote: post #8
milar wrote: post #3

I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Fire them. I’ve been this person early in my life, and deserved to be fired. Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

Firing someone in the case of underperformance (particularly outside of the US) is rarely a straightforward process. You typically need to give the under-performing employee at least a chance to improve and meet the required standard - otherwise the hiring company will be leaving themselves open to a wrongful dismissal suit.

Yeah outside of the US they do constructive dismissal instead, and you'll be paid pennies even if you win the suit (and fail future "background checks").

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#19

Post by dunno7456 »

milar wrote: post #3

I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Fire them. I’ve been this person early in my life, and deserved to be fired. Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

> Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

Unless management is also an enabler/part of such incompetence.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#20

Post by danjac »

milar wrote: post #3

I don’t understand how this is an issue that needs anxiety. Fire them. I’ve been this person early in my life, and deserved to be fired. Incompetent but nice is still, literally, incompetent. Incompetent people get dismissed.

As Kaplan-Moss pointed out in the original article, "incompetent" depends on the context and circumstances, and you may be able to remedy these in order to turn an incompetent employee into a competent one.

To take a very straw-mannish example, suppose you hired a Python developer but due to some admin fuckup they were added to the Android team. The easiest remedy is to move them to the Python team. The second easiest is to ask if they are interested in learning Android, and if so give them the time and support to get up to speed. The worst option here is to just fire them: you lose a potentially valuable employee you spent time and money bringing on board, possibly damage their career as a result, and hurt team morale overall.

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