Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is every layoff 10-15%?

blog.eladgil.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 263 posts

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#251

Post by logical_ferry »

blowski wrote: post #199
nivenkos wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in London you have to pay those employees more if they're paying to commute (and wasting hours of their day on the packed trains every day), buy food in the city, etc. I really can't see it being worth it in massive, overpriced cities.

Absolutely, there are hidden costs, in both directions. If you only hire within the pool of people who are willing and able to commute to your office, you'll both need to pay more and have less choice. Workers are more tired as they spend hours commuting every day. On the other hand, it's harder to develop juniors if all your seniors are working from home. Written communication lacks context that helps difficult conv…

> with broadly-attended meetups

How often do you feel is enough?

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#252

Post by egberts1 »

It is 10-15% because that's how the HR do their incremental grading of their employees across performance scale.

And it is easier for corporations to discharge the bottom feeders if and when they need to improve their bottom line.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#253

Post by blowski »

logical_ferry wrote: post #251
blowski wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, there are hidden costs, in both directions. If you only hire within the pool of people who are willing and able to commute to your office, you'll both need to pay more and have less choice. Workers are more tired as they spend hours commuting every day. On the other hand, it's harder to develop juniors if all your seniors are working from home. Written communication lacks context that helps difficult conv…

> with broadly-attended meetups How often do you feel is enough?

It depends too much on the details to give a definitive answer.

Assuming the "typical" company made up mostly of people who've been there for more than a year, and where commuting is easy, maybe every 3 months is enough. New teams (even within such a company) should aim to meet weekly while they're in the forming stage. Small companies made up of very experienced ICs perhaps never need to meet at all.

I guess the best way of working it out is to ask people, and review what works.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#254

Post by mclightning »

jstx1 wrote: post #159
lettergram wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than 15% often means a change in the business model.

Look at Facebook's employee curve in the article - it looks pretty much exponential. If they lay off 50% of their employees, they'll be at 2018 levels when they had essentially the same business model.

they can't afford to make same mistakes they did in 2018 though. when you're as big as facebook, mistakes you make shape the regulations in the world.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#255

Post by rcxdude »

55555 wrote: post #191
rightbyte wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you can't cut people's salaries What? You can. Many companies even do it every year with some arbitrary bonus system.

I said salary, not total comp. Employees often don’t consider bonuses as “true” salary as they aren’t guaranteed, much to the dismay of the employers who pay them with real money. Just my limited experience.

That does seem appropriate as opposed to making salary not guaranteed.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#256

Post by ProZsolt »

llampx wrote: post #229
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real. Make some friends outside of work. Or enjoy time with your family. Or take time to make a family.

We are still talking about working during work, right? Or are you playing with your kids and having beers with your friends while you work? It is a strawman argument to claim that people who want to go to the office have no social life. It is in fact easier to claim that "only antisocial people want to hide at home like a hermit with their webcam shut off."

No, but I have lunch and coffee break with my girlfriend.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#257

Post by eru »

Spivak wrote: post #226
eru wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different employers offer different compensation packages. That package includes salary, but it also includes things like the extent of 'democracy in the workplace'. To a certain extent, as an employee I'm happy to trade off some 'democracy' for more money in that package. As an employer, I would be happy to give people more 'democracy' if that's cheaper to provide than more money.

You’re just stating the exact problem just one level up. The fact that employers can choose whether or not to offer democracy is the fucked up thing. Do you not hear yourself? For the average American, your employer has more control over your individual liberty than your government and we look at like that’s somehow a good thing. Like sure, if you land a cushy office job then you can forget the abuses the rest of the…

I _don't_ want democracy in my workplace. I want to be able to choose a workplace that doesn't offer democracy. Why would you want to remove that choice from me?

I don't want my working life to be governed by what a bunch of other people vote for. I get plenty of that from the real government.

I'd rather have strong and competent management that can make credible commitments. And the mechanism to get there is not ballot boxes, but my ability to walk away from any workplace I don't like. The ability to vote with my feet.

Just like I don't want to eat at a burger place where the other customers get to vote. I just want to be able to eat at Burger King, if I don't like what McDonald's has to offer.

Worker cooperatives are already legal in most countries. Including worker cooperatives that are run on whatever theory of democracy you prefer.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#258

Post by kcplate »

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 love WFH (and probably will not ever go back to the office), my team would all also say the same thing. Individually we will all tell you we are more productive. However, I know for a fact that my team as a whole is less productive now than pre-pandemic when we were 90%+ in office.

I also know other teams in our organization in the same boat. Sooner or later leadership is going to realize it and the gravy train will end.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#260

Post by llampx »

ProZsolt wrote: post #256
llampx wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are still talking about working during work, right? Or are you playing with your kids and having beers with your friends while you work? It is a strawman argument to claim that people who want to go to the office have no social life. It is in fact easier to claim that "only antisocial people want to hide at home like a hermit with their webcam shut off."

No, but I have lunch and coffee break with my girlfriend.

Hope your wife doesn't mind lmao gottem
Post reply on HN