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Why top firms fire good workers

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Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#131

Post by anal_reactor »

kamaal wrote: post #107
mcoliver wrote: post #4

No. The reason top firms part ways with good workers is usually political. Either the manager doesn't like the person regardless of their work abilities, or the manager is not politely savvy enough to ensure their team is being recognized for work that grows or is valuable to the business. Or they get caught up in the endlessly popular reorgs (again management failure). It's a failure of management. Nothing more. Not…

>>the manager is not politely savvy enough to ensure their team is being recognized for work that grows or is valuable to the business. Actually in most companies, no ones watching whats happening, no ones watching who performs, who slacks, or anything for that matter. Companies are basically a kind of a loosely assembled random crowd, where no one cares a thing about anything. In this kind of a set up both hardwork…

The problem is that as you go further up in hierarchy, people by definition have less specialized, and more general knowledge. This means that there are things that lower-level employee understands but their manager doesn't. This in turn means that it's impossible for the manager to tell whether the employee is doing a good or a bad job because the manager simply doesn't understand the details of the job. This is open door for slackers and low-performers, because from certain perspectives, they're indistinguishable from hard workers.

I used to be a hard-working high-performer, but then I understood that because of numerous management problems that are beyond my control, the reward is very loosely correlated with my efforts, and given an existing job contract, the best way to maximize the reward/effort ratio is not to put more effort hoping for disproportionately higher rewards, but to put significantly less effort because the reward will drop just slightly. Do you want to up your hourly salary 5 times? Simply take 5 times as much time to deliver same feature. You might not get the 0.05x salary bump but that doesn't actually impact the calculation that much.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#132

Post by skirge »

consp wrote: post #72
zwnow wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech salaries are too high for people to do that. At least in Europe. Having an union will fuck with peoples salaries.

The vast majority of IT jobs pay pretty meager here. There are some exceptions but not that much. You gave to be "manager" to get any decent pay most of the time.

"decent" is undefined, IT is far above average in most countries, and it's nice work in warm office.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#133

Post by ikari_pl »

Popeyes wrote: post #119
baq wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most everyone is a temporarily embarrassed unicorn founder around here.

Just one line of code away from being an alpha tech bro with Elon's number on their phone.

the line must be the Permenance Code.

Jeez, it was such a stupid movie ruining the franchise. Nobody needed a rushed sequel.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#134

Post by tonyedgecombe »

z3dd wrote: post #100
zwnow wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech salaries are too high for people to do that. At least in Europe. Having an union will fuck with peoples salaries.

I don't think you know what you're talking about, or you are omitting western Europe. In Germany/Austria most workers are on collective bargaining agreements (different and specific for each industry, incl IT) which is regulated by unions plus org-specific councils (Betriebsräte in AT/DE, similar in other countries). Similar for Switzerland, also Collective labour agreements in Netherlands. Seems to be similar in Spa…

Yet isn't it a regular complaint that European tech salaries are half of what they would be in the US?

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#135

Post by impossiblefork »

instig007 wrote: post #130
vincnetas wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sweden has unions and sweden has software companies. could it be that reasonable approach that benefits both parties can be achieved?

Sweden isn't famous for good tech salaries and stock grants though, even among the best/high profile engineers.

Yes, to get rich in Sweden you have to start a company. Wages are terrible.

But this is, I think, a result of a historical government strategy to favour exports by keeping the Swedish krona weak rather than a result of unions. This whole business with alignment between the Swedish social democrat party and the big industrial export companies are a thing which simultaneously allowed Sweden to develop but which also brought enormous problems. The immigration madness of, 1990 to now is probably also a result of this alignment.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#136

Post by Bombthecat »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #74
idiotsecant wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.

And when has a union ever stopped a multinational company from just closing shop and opening up overseas? If a company making physical things can do it, how hard do you think it would be for a software company?

Or close the location and just reopen later on.

Story time: Berlin in Germany is pretty left leaning. So there was / is a MC Donalds which regularly formed union for employees, MC Donalds just closed the restaurant and reopened later, several times lol

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#137

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

idiotsecant wrote: post #65
autoexec wrote: post #56

> The firm starts to underpay those better workers who kept their jobs, akin to making them pay for being “chosen.” Consequently, profits do not decline and may even increase. > “Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” This is exactly…

For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.

Historically in the US, American devs have done a tremendous amount to undermine their own bargaining power by (a) starting bootcamps and other "learn to code" initiatives which flood the market with new devs, and (b) creating AI tools which automate away jobs for devs. Any software developers' union almost necessarily needs to take an anti-AI position at this point. Got to move fast before it is too late.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#138

Post by Havoc »

Was at a firm with a up-or-out policy. It doesn't sound like author has much real world experience with what they're studying...

The really good people have leverage so the can stay or go as they please. Meaning the people that get hit are average-ish (in the context of firm, not wider market). People good enough to make it to middle management but no further. You don't need to fire them either - they catch the drift when they don't get promoted, and those too stupid to notice were never "good".

>“Firms now essentially can threaten the remaining employees: ‘Look, I can let you go, and everybody’s going to think that you’re the worst in the pool. If you want me not to let you go, you need to accept below market wages,’” says Kaniel.

The below market rates are primarily an effect of CV-prestige rather some intricate machiavellian mind game. People tolerate it because "I was a senior role at X" has value long after you left.

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#139

Post by baq »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #134
z3dd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you know what you're talking about, or you are omitting western Europe. In Germany/Austria most workers are on collective bargaining agreements (different and specific for each industry, incl IT) which is regulated by unions plus org-specific councils (Betriebsräte in AT/DE, similar in other countries). Similar for Switzerland, also Collective labour agreements in Netherlands. Seems to be similar in Spa…

Yet isn't it a regular complaint that European tech salaries are half of what they would be in the US?

Half? Most folks would be eternally grateful for half

Re: Why top firms fire good workers

#140

Post by brianmcc »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #74
idiotsecant wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason collective bargaining is wildly unpopular on HN, which is ironic because tech workers are exactly who should be organizing their labor.

And when has a union ever stopped a multinational company from just closing shop and opening up overseas? If a company making physical things can do it, how hard do you think it would be for a software company?

I don't think anyone's saying unions can do that? They can protect workers and provide some balance in the power dynamics, but there absolutely are limits.
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