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Why is every layoff 10-15%?

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Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#111

Post by jasmer »

judge2020 wrote: post #16
slt2021 wrote: post #10

10% comes from the ancient Roman tradition of Decimation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) >> The dual purpose intended was to stiffen discipline amongst the army at large and to demoralise the enemy

I'm sure every executive is calling back to their days studying roman history when they decide how much of a layoff will balance the books/turn the company profitable for its stakeholders.

I think it's entirely reasonable that they come from the same place. 10% is about the right number to apply in both contexts if one was choosing arbitrarily. We are effectively 'decimating' with our layoffs.

Though one notable difference is that with layoffs it's an excuse to drop so-called poor performers, but I believe decimation was more or less random i.e. drawing straws.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#112

Post by Joel_Mckay »

I always assumed it was a ritual sacrifice to telegraph a message to investors that a company is reducing operating costs to pollish the annual report.

This is also why employees should be nervous about firms that sync a hiring cycle with Q2/May.

In the US, a CEO must make the profitable decision, or face direct legal peril. It often has nothing to do with the character of those on the board. ;)

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#113

Post by spamizbad »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #37
bbreier wrote: post #13

> Remote work > Anticipate more mid-size and smaller companies will go back more fully into the office as times get tougher. This will not be one size fits all, but will be an increasing trend. Up to this point in the article, whether you agree or disagree with the points, the author offers some arguments and reasoning supporting each. Here, they simply assert that small and mid-size companies will go into the office…

He seems to be writing for CEOs. Reading further he seems to figure that CEOs will be able to reassert control of employees by forcing them back to the office since employees are not going to be able to easily jump ship for another job. As CEO now is your opportunity to rethink remote work. You may decide you want to continue as is, or you may want to make changes. You have an opportunity to act. Not that returning t…

CEOs are also going to face significant budget scrutiny and will have to really justify signing a 10 year lease (which won't be cheap) instead of investing in things that are proven to drive growth.

Class A office space outside of super expensive cities runs about $35/sqft on average. Employees need about 175 square feet each. So every employee is $6125 more expensive -- but that's only assuming you're renting someplace turnkey, which you probably aren't, so even if you cheap out at an additional $100/sqft ($17,500 per employee) for a custom build-out (one-time cost, but still).

Where is all this money coming from? If your business is perfectly functional remote, with capital costs being what they are, why would you do this?

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#114

Post by diffeomorphism »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #112

I always assumed it was a ritual sacrifice to telegraph a message to investors that a company is reducing operating costs to pollish the annual report. This is also why employees should be nervous about firms that sync a hiring cycle with Q2/May. In the US, a CEO must make the profitable decision, or face direct legal peril. It often has nothing to do with the character of those on the board. ;)

That is at least in part an urban legend:

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

The CEO might still get complaints, but legally there is no obligation.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#115

Post by arpa »

TexanFeller wrote: post #45
UncleOxidant wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He seems to be writing for CEOs. Reading further he seems to figure that CEOs will be able to reassert control of employees by forcing them back to the office since employees are not going to be able to easily jump ship for another job. As CEO now is your opportunity to rethink remote work. You may decide you want to continue as is, or you may want to make changes. You have an opportunity to act. Not that returning t…

> but many CEOs will tend to believe that things will go better with everyone back in the office Many of us SWEs believe the same!

yeah, no, dude. Fuck the mandatory office the same way fuck the meetings that could have been an email.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#116

Post by izacus »

rootusrootus wrote: post #26
grassgreener wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made up a statistic, what good does it do to spread misinformation?

You are calling it false, yet you haven't provided any citations either.

That's not how burden of proof works. You can't just brain fart random numbers and then demand others disprove it.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#117

Post by nhooyr »

marricks wrote: post #15
rootusrootus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we know that to be false, I assume you're just being a smartass. If you disagree, there are more polite, constructive ways to say so.

Sorry if it seems flippant, but I provided just as much justification for my argument as you did.

No, you made a straight up false claim. He was merely estimating at an unknown.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#118

Post by derefr »

synu wrote: post #100
derefr wrote: post #90

10–15% is about the maximum amount of dead-weight employees (the kind who don't have the skills to perform the job-role they're hired for, who were hired due to favoritism, bribes, blackmail, or pure hiring-process "throw a dart" laziness) you can have on a corporate balance sheet before the aggregate lack of expected productivity per OpEx dollar starts to be suspicious. The further below this limit a company is oper…

It seems to me unlikely that they both couldn’t tell who was performing in normal times and then find them with surgical precision while panicking.

How so? You just don't bother to ask these questions, until you need to know the answers. The information is there at the leaf nodes of the org-chart; it's just not normally being propagated up to anyone who can do anything actionable with it. All it takes is asking the hard question, recursively.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#119

Post by calineczka »

nickstinemates wrote: post #95
bbreier wrote: post #13

> Remote work > Anticipate more mid-size and smaller companies will go back more fully into the office as times get tougher. This will not be one size fits all, but will be an increasing trend. Up to this point in the article, whether you agree or disagree with the points, the author offers some arguments and reasoning supporting each. Here, they simply assert that small and mid-size companies will go into the office…

For our ~200 person company, remote has been more expensive than an office in the financial district, sf, fwiw. Cost of travel for team get togethers/offsites for a distributed team is expensive.

Is it more expensive than keeping an office for entire year, though?

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#120

Post by maximus-decimus »

slt2021 wrote: post #10

10% comes from the ancient Roman tradition of Decimation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment) >> The dual purpose intended was to stiffen discipline amongst the army at large and to demoralise the enemy

That only creates discipline if the other 90% of Meta is forced to kill the 10% with rocks though. Also make sure to pick the 10% with the short straw method to let everybody know they're not safe.
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