Toxic culture is driving the great resignation • Hacker News Board

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#221

Post by abletonlive » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #195

pembrook wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for hilariously illustrating how bubble-y the current moment feels. If you think dramatically increasing compensation is going to continue in the next decade like it has in the last one, I think you might be disappointed. Now that companies are comfortable with remote, HR departments are eventually going to realize that services like Deel exist, and that its not actually that hard to hire employees overseas…

Nope. Cheap, outsourced labor has been available for decades. If what you’re saying was true, the shift would have already happened. The reality is that the vast majority of outsourced labor is significantly lower quality than the onshore talent. Mix that with poor communication and a ten hour time zone difference … it’s usually net negative.

This is an easy observation to make yet so many fail to see it. We already have contractors at my company and they aren't that productive. They are handed the easiest tasks with no business knowledge required because well, they are just contractors. Well, that and the fact that they live in a completely different timezone which means communication is async which means slower cycles of understanding and learning.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#222

Post by Wiseacre » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:49 PM UTC

somedude895 wrote: post #175

jokoon wrote: post #21

When you add covid, climate, the antiwork movement, lack of social progress, political drama, something has to break. There is high resentment towards capitalism and how it is being managed, and I'm not really surprised people are quitting like this, I don't even understand how can normal people hold all those jobs and deal with the stress etc. Personally I think advocating for a general strike would help "shuffle th…

> covid, climate, the antiwork movement, lack of social progress, political drama > advocating for a general strike With such a broad spectrum of issues, what would a general strike even call for?

Universal income, health care, and day care

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#223

Post by Wiseacre » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #35

What was the old saying? People don't flee jobs, they flee bad managers? You can run a fast-food franchise, a pub, a hotel or any other front-line enterprise with skill and enjoy extremely loyal employees (at the cost of your profit), or you can run it like a hell on earth by extracting all profit you reasonably can. For a long time, the latter was the standard model across the hospitality sector, especially as union…

People flee jobs that are bad fits all of the time, not just jobs with bad managers

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#224

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

Terry_Roll wrote: post #110

rkangel wrote: post #87

This article does accidentally capture one of the major corporate problems pretty well. The conclude from their data that Toxic Workplace Culture is the biggest cause of resignation, and then they immediately suggest 4 short term things to try that don't relate to culture at all . If you have a toxic workplace culture, the very first thing you should do is to start fixing your culture. This is very hard and not fast…

Most of the posts on here focus on wage/money and yours is one of the few that outright points out the toxic culture in companies. I think for too long the toxic workplace has been hidden behind laywer drafted agreements when employers leave and the rest of the workforce have been captive because they thought they might not get the same job with better conditions elsewhere. But a growing population means this is chan…

[deleted]

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#225

Post by zero41a » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #10

foolfoolz wrote: post #7

> Our analysis found that the leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior I don’t really believe these reasons or at least they don’t match what i’ve seen. I can only speak for FAANG: I think this is more compensation based than anything else. In an effort to level the playing field FAANGS establish l…

I'll never understand the American thirst for money for the sake of it. If HN comments are to be believed, top performer at your average FAANG easily earn $500k per year. At that point, aren't you well past the point where more money brings more happiness, even in high cost-of-living places? What's the point? Why not find a job that's fun and fulfilling?

Some of it is just an obsession with money, yes, but I think there are several drivers. I can really only speak for myself.

1. Healthcare costs: insane even with the good insurance I have. I'm chronically ill (though you wouldnt know it by looking at me) and I have to get a battery of simple tests done every year in order to not have my medicine withheld by my doctor (yes...they withhold it). These tests get expensive, with an MRI costing upwards of $2500 if necessary WITH my insurance. When I was on "public" insurance through an exchange I was paying $700/mo for even worse care. Now I pay $140/mo and that's "good". Because of my income if I lose my job my choices are COBRA (continuing insurance - really bad and expensive) or an exchange. Medicare (true "public" option) does not allow people with a certain level of assets to participate even if they have no income.

2. No guaranteed retirement: social security is simply a coffer congress raids periodically to fund the latest war/vote buying scheme. My generation will most like see significantly reduced and/or no social security according to the SSA. No company offers a pension anymore and most 401ks in tech don't match. This means every dollar you save is exactly what you get.

3. Absurd housing: I got fortunate and bought at the right time (thanks tech salary!) but I still have a mortgage 2x what my parents pay.

I make 4x the average family salary of my state. I still don't feel safe, and will not feel safe until I have paid off my house, saved at least enough for a 15 year retirement, and have guaranteed healthcare.

I don't think we should have a ton of "nanny state" benefits but the absence of any safety barrier at all to fall back on if things go wrong temporarily means that you necessarily have to become obsessed with money. Especially when you sit at the uncanny valley between middle and upper class, as we do in tech, and there really are no safety nets your tax dollars pay for available to you.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#226

Post by tellmemore9 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

MathYouF wrote: post #207

cjbgkagh wrote: post #153

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky but my experience at big tech has been marred by churn and burn culture - high pressure tactics to get the most work out of employees and discarding them when they inevitably burn out. Average tenure was 1-3 years. Amazon was particularly bad at this. The only modicum of power employees have is in quitting and now that they’re exercising it the employers are acting like their throats have be…

Slightly off topic, but could you go into a bit more detail on this artifact? I thought an artifact was something like a trained model, but you said it was "written" in Scala then Java, which makes me think I don't understand the meaning, and the word on Google has very broad definitions.

No post body was provided.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#227

Post by Retric » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #199

Retric wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people do actually end up at that kind of a multiple of their initial salary. It’s not that such growth is impossible it’s just really really uncommon and generally takes regularly changing roles.

"Some people" are also born in poverty and become billionaires. Not nearly enough to make it worth talking about like it's anything but a statistical aberration.

Quite a few people do cap out in the 7 or low 8 figures though. The old “climbing the corporate ladder” adage is based on actual people even if most people never climb vary high it’s a real possibility if you actually want to make serious money.

Personally, I and most developers don’t think it’s worth it which is one of the reasons why it’s not actually difficult to get started.

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#228

Post by 99_00 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #48

99_00 wrote: post #23

I think the 'Great Resignation' is fake news. When COVID hit people felt insecure so they stayed on jobs they would have otherwise quit. Look at any graph of resignations or quits, they dipped. We are seeing the pent up desire to quit hit the market. However, pent up desire to quit doesn't make as interesting a story. Writers and researchers can use the 'Great Resignation' narrative promote any agenda or attack any w…

> Look at any graph of resignations or quits https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acqu... That looks like an increase to me? There was a dip for the first couple of months but the ongoing event has caused a more-than-substitution level of quits.

Pent up demand from 2020 is manifesting in 2021.

Based on the chart you presented I didn't make my argument clearly or you're not understanding.

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/26186.jpeg

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#229

Post by 99_00 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #37

99_00 wrote: post #23

I think the 'Great Resignation' is fake news. When COVID hit people felt insecure so they stayed on jobs they would have otherwise quit. Look at any graph of resignations or quits, they dipped. We are seeing the pent up desire to quit hit the market. However, pent up desire to quit doesn't make as interesting a story. Writers and researchers can use the 'Great Resignation' narrative promote any agenda or attack any w…

> Look at any graph of resignations or quits, they dipped. The data there may be misrepresentative, as your local burger flipper or gas station is not likely to report people quitting jobs anywhere, and people moving off of businesses that were closed by lockdowns weren't reported consistently either. The ones hit hardest by the "great resignations" are these small-scale employers, who have barely survived two years…

If the data is misrepresentative, what evidence is there for the 'Great Resignation'?

Re: Toxic culture is driving the great resignation

#230

Post by Centigonal » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

MathYouF wrote: post #207

cjbgkagh wrote: post #153

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky but my experience at big tech has been marred by churn and burn culture - high pressure tactics to get the most work out of employees and discarding them when they inevitably burn out. Average tenure was 1-3 years. Amazon was particularly bad at this. The only modicum of power employees have is in quitting and now that they’re exercising it the employers are acting like their throats have be…

Slightly off topic, but could you go into a bit more detail on this artifact? I thought an artifact was something like a trained model, but you said it was "written" in Scala then Java, which makes me think I don't understand the meaning, and the word on Google has very broad definitions.

an engineering artifact is the tangible by-product of a software development process. It could be a piece of code, dataset, specification, etc. Basically a deliverable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifact_(software_development...