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Why is every layoff 10-15%?

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Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#181

Post by kortilla »

kramerger wrote: post #166

> many companies have had their mission drift during the Trump years and COVID. Rather than founder-led customer-centric mission orientation, companies drifted into a number of other arenas often driven by a small proportion of their most vocal activist employees. What does this even mean? How would "activist" employees change the company directions and its finances?

The more obviously related changes were the variations of moderation on free speech. “Fact checking”, “hate speech moderation”, “community guidelines”, etc.

Apart from completely illegal stuff, all of these platforms more or less just let whatever fly until the Trump era began.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#182

Post by jowdones »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #173
heurisko wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If employers offered the same working environment as a home office, it would be much more expensive. Open plan is only cheap on the books. It costs a lot in decimating the focus of people working there.

Ymmv, but for me work from office is far more productive than from home. It also allows a very effective context switch so you don't feel like working when you are at home.

My commute to and from the office took 3 hours+ per day.

Now I work from home 2 (two) jobs, one full time that used to be the office and one contract. I make 2x what the single office job pays me and only so I'm close to a decent pay while still below US average for developers (I live in EU).

No ducking way I'm going back to half pay plus wasting half a day in traffic for free.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#183

Post by rightbyte »

55555 wrote: post #150
Kibae wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a story I heard about Steve Wozniak's time at HP: They were going to lay off 10% of the staff, but instead they decided to reduce everyone's pay by 10% and give them an extra day off every two weeks.

Conventional management advice -- at least that I've gotten -- is that you cam increase people's salaries, but you can't cut people's salaries. Without a very unique culture, they take it personally and will likely quit. Better to fire underperformers. Side note: if staff took better to getting their pay cut, they'd get more frequent (faster) raises. When a company is suddenly more profitable, compensation increases…

> but you can't cut people's salaries

What? You can. Many companies even do it every year with some arbitrary bonus system.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#184

Post by sokoloff »

anotherrandom wrote: post #56
TexanFeller wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

What makes you think this? I haven't observed any advantages to an office beyond overexposing the company to real estate (not really an advantage) - there is nothing I could do in person that I haven't been able to do faster in MS Teams (and better - now I have a written record and recording of everything). Another advantage of remote is that nobody ruins my train of thought by tapping me on the shoulder and asking s…

I think brainstorming, discovery, and discussion type of tasks work much better in-person, maybe 5-10x better (driven in part by a small percentage that are thousands of times better).

Delivery works great remotely, probably better for me and many.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#185

Post by randomsearch »

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!

I think on remote it’s worth reframing the argument a little. If you’re totally pro-remote, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this formulation. Consider an early stage startup of six employees.

Working full remote - everyone at home, communicating via slack and zoom, working hours roughly the same.

Vs 9-6 ish hours, some flexibility, where they all come into an office. That office is a small, modern, comfortable office in a workspace. The office has a closed door, and only the team are allowed in the office. The team chat amongst themselves as needed during the day. They take breaks alone or in small groups outside of the office in the kitchen space or on the sofas in the workspace. They chat with folks from other companies. But no one from outside the team ever enters the inner office. It’s their space.

Do you think remote will be more productive for the team as a whole? Do you think the startup will do better with the small office or the remote scenario?

You can add an hour extra at the computer for remote (saved from commuting), but you’ll need to surrender quite a bit of that to interruptions when remote - realistically, delivery men (in the office scenario, deliveries go to a reception), families or pets, a bit of domestic chores, making lunch alone where no work discussions take place.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#186

Post by rightbyte »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #120
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.

Layoffs by dice rolls is probably better than pick and choose.

Way too much friendship and "office politics" involved in who to pick anyways to be better than random.

Last in first out is probably good too.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#187

Post by csydas »

davidkuennen wrote: post #174

Is going back to the office such a huge thing in other countries? Here in Germany almost nothings changed from the main COVID time in terms of home office. It seems like our standard of working has transformed and will not revert back.

Yes and no.

When COVID more or less "left" corporate culture, a lot of US businesses wanted to go fully back to work or to make remote work a benefit, i.e., you'd take cuts elsewhere for the privilege to work remotely/from home.

While some of it is likely power-tripping on the part of managers, I suspect some of it is more complex involving expensive building leases and trying to justify costs, fear of "what happens if the culture shifts again and we need to find office space", which I do think is a reasonable concern, but not to the point that it should shut down remote work entirely.

Anecdotally, I do know quite a few higher management ones who were very upset by remote work; they liked the idea of having "their" employees in a single spot so they could check it at any time for various projects; some relented when after an honest talk they conceded they never really checked in person and did everything by chat/call/email anyways, but there were a few sticklers that just honestly believed "butts in chairs or we lose all productivity", even though 2 years of data from COVID times shattered this belief entirely.

Part of why I think the position was so predominant in the US was that the job market power was so vastly different there; in European countries, it was far more competitive for a company seeking candidates and this gave a lot more negotiating power for employees I think since there was certainly a job lined up for them, whereas in the US it was a bit more uncertain that you could get a position since there were so many more candidates than positions in many cases, so businesses had the ability to be far more exclusive and demanding.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#188

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#189

Post by oriolid »

jowdones wrote: post #182
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ymmv, but for me work from office is far more productive than from home. It also allows a very effective context switch so you don't feel like working when you are at home.

My commute to and from the office took 3 hours+ per day. Now I work from home 2 (two) jobs, one full time that used to be the office and one contract. I make 2x what the single office job pays me and only so I'm close to a decent pay while still below US average for developers (I live in EU). No ducking way I'm going back to half pay plus wasting half a day in traffic for free.

I have the suspicion that your situation is not really representative of software developers in general. It's great if it works for you but don't expect others to help you if they're not getting their share of that 2x.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#190

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

jowdones wrote: post #182
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ymmv, but for me work from office is far more productive than from home. It also allows a very effective context switch so you don't feel like working when you are at home.

My commute to and from the office took 3 hours+ per day. Now I work from home 2 (two) jobs, one full time that used to be the office and one contract. I make 2x what the single office job pays me and only so I'm close to a decent pay while still below US average for developers (I live in EU). No ducking way I'm going back to half pay plus wasting half a day in traffic for free.

Well 3hours commute per day is, of course, not too good. I get to office on foot in 90 seconds, so it certainly affects my POV (on the other hand, it used to be longer, but I just moved close to the office).

On you working 2 jobs: I knew people who were working remotely 2 full-time jobs at the same time. I think their employers wouldn't be thrilled if they somehow found out about it

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