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210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

businessinsider.com

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Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#291

Post by sobkas »

sokoloff wrote: post #227
sobkas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was unclear what his intentions were. "a tenure-based package to leave the company" People who have been longer with company are also more likely to be older than average employee. So I think he wanted to get rid of "old" people who would "slow down" company and be unfit for its "new and vigorous" culture?

In my (thankfully limited) experience, it's entirely standard for severance packages to be tenure-based and, IMO, most of those reasons have nothing to do with ageism. The longer you've been with us, the more you've likely contributed and we should recognize that as we part ways. The longer you've worked with us, the more life upheaval the separation represents. The longer you've worked with us, the more personal rel…

There is a subtle difference between company wide push to get rid of employees and severing employment on an individual basis. Giving presumable older people more in the first situation looks like a systematic effort to get rid of them.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#293

Post by tomjen3 »

dalke wrote: post #182
tomjen3 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ability or inability to describe an idea in simple terms has no relation to the validity of the idea. Maybe not in physics, but in politics and business it does - those fields like to seem more complex than they are so they fake it, which is much more difficult to do with simple language.

"Just say no to drugs" - simple terms. Is it a valid social policy given other ways to reduce drug use? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Simple terms. Does it lead to a workable political system? "Three-strikes law". Simple idea. Does it lead to good social policy? "Zero tolerance." Another simple idea. Does it lead to good social policy? "White man's burden." Does it justify the A…

A therefore B does not mean not A therefore not B

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#295

Post by cateye »

Exactly the same things happen in very traditional companies but they give it an other name. People are becoming "redundant" because of organizational changes. It can be operational changes like outsourcing a department or strategically like changing the span of control.

It is weird that Zappos create a hype by suggesting that they are "radically inventing" something. That's really bullshit.

I don't understand people that are really enthusiastic about Zappos.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#296

Post by honeybooboo123 »

some1else wrote: post #288
dingbat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well another way to look at it is that there is already a fundamentalist organizational religion that most people adhere to, they're just unaware of being part of one already

Please identify this "fundamentalist organizational religion" a bit clearer. Did you mean capitalism, b-school, emergent hierarchical organizations.. tribes?

My guess would be "statism". It could be defined as the belief that political power should be used to fix societal problems, even though they were caused by it in the first place.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#297

Post by krrrh »

a_c_s wrote: post #160
ValentineC wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are articles on how Valve has "hidden management" cliques though [1]. I'm not sure if this was ever addressed by Valve itself. [1] http://www.develop-online.net/news/valve-s-perfect-hiring-hi...

This reminds me of Jo Freeman's excellent essay, "THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS". Based on her experiences within unstructured feminist organizations, I think her insights are broadly generalizable. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Thank you for posting this, I hadn't read it until just now. It's clearly written, and the subject matter is historically accessible; I'm surprised I haven't seen it referenced in other discussions about Holacracy, Valve, etc.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#298

Post by netcan »

dalke wrote: post #182
tomjen3 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ability or inability to describe an idea in simple terms has no relation to the validity of the idea. Maybe not in physics, but in politics and business it does - those fields like to seem more complex than they are so they fake it, which is much more difficult to do with simple language.

"Just say no to drugs" - simple terms. Is it a valid social policy given other ways to reduce drug use? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Simple terms. Does it lead to a workable political system? "Three-strikes law". Simple idea. Does it lead to good social policy? "Zero tolerance." Another simple idea. Does it lead to good social policy? "White man's burden." Does it justify the A…

Gersham's law is actually fairly valid, as well as being simple. The difference is that it isn't a statement of intent, it's a description of an inevitability.

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#299

Post by Spockulus_Rift »

eclipxe wrote: post #236
exelius wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Amazon is content to let Zappos experiment. If Zappos loses customers, statistically most of them will end up at Amazon anyway. Tony Hsieh is pretty out there, and a lot of his ideas sound kind of crazy, but I think Bezos believes in him and is willing to let him try. Even though everyone says "Oh, that won't work" you don't know until you try. If Zappos can experiment with a new leadership style, maybe…

It's a great place to work. There, you can no longer say "you never heard it's a great place to work". Sample size of 1, but I love it.

fuck off aspie

Re: 210 Zappos employees – 14% of the staff – take buyouts after CEO ultimatum

#300

Post by netcan »

I don’t have the tiniest hair of a dog in this race. But, I like the idea of a company trying radical things. It’s very easy to declare radical change. A 14% voluntary acceptance of a severance package (I would be more impressed if it was 6 months) is a sign of actually going for radical, I think.

A company of that size is an interesting proving ground and if this succeeds, good.

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