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DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

cnbc.com

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Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#41

Post by l33t233372 »

thiscatis wrote: post #31
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12

At first it seemed like the layoffs were legitimately needed by some companies. But now it feels like "this is a good time" is the reason du jour. An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup. DocuSign may have laid-off 700 people, but they have 162 open jobs and most of those list "multiple locations" which probably means they will hire more than…

"An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup" How is stopping bad projects, letting go non-performers and cleaning up an excuse and not just plain smart business? People in this hackernews bubble are seriously disconnected from the real world.

Grandparent post didn’t say letting go low performers was an excuse. The comment was saying that the current climate is giving them free reign to make the “plain smart business” move of firing those people without the typical negative reputation associated with mass performance based firings.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#42

Post by jimbob45 »

nivenkos wrote: post #23
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12

At first it seemed like the layoffs were legitimately needed by some companies. But now it feels like "this is a good time" is the reason du jour. An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup. DocuSign may have laid-off 700 people, but they have 162 open jobs and most of those list "multiple locations" which probably means they will hire more than…

Hope the employees form trade unions and workers' councils to help stop this bullshit. Look at DigitalOcean - literally doing "layoffs" whilst shifting hiring to Pakistan: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/15/digitalocean_layoffs/

I'm staunchly anti-union and even I don't see another way forward. It increasingly seems like every company is colluding to set policies, whether it be salary, layoffs, hiring policies, or remote policies. What else is going to bring back your company to the table to negotiate with you as an individual company other than unionizing? I don't think there's any governmental function for legislating away inter-corporation collusion, now or historically.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#43

Post by oxfordmale »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12

At first it seemed like the layoffs were legitimately needed by some companies. But now it feels like "this is a good time" is the reason du jour. An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup. DocuSign may have laid-off 700 people, but they have 162 open jobs and most of those list "multiple locations" which probably means they will hire more than…

DocuSign's values:

>> You can count on us be honest, open, and do our best to do what’s right, every day.

Doing what is right is clearly just about optimising shareholder dividends.

Further down:

>> And for that, you’ll be loved by us, our customers, and the world in which we live.

Love is very fleeting, apparently.

Of course, this is all fair game in business. However, companies shouldn't be surprised if many of their staff take a cynic view of their company values.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#44

Post by wombatpm »

thiscatis wrote: post #31
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12

At first it seemed like the layoffs were legitimately needed by some companies. But now it feels like "this is a good time" is the reason du jour. An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup. DocuSign may have laid-off 700 people, but they have 162 open jobs and most of those list "multiple locations" which probably means they will hire more than…

"An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup" How is stopping bad projects, letting go non-performers and cleaning up an excuse and not just plain smart business? People in this hackernews bubble are seriously disconnected from the real world.

How long were these bad projects allowed to fester? Why was nothing done sooner? Suddenly these CEOs wake up and decide now is the time panic?

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#45

Post by AlchemistCamp »

_vbnz wrote: post #39
myth_drannon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the price of real remote work culture which started in honest during the pandemic. I'm seeing US based employees replaced by LATAM based one. This is not the outsourcing scare of the 00's, this is real and it works very well.

As a Europoor it might actually increase our wages at least!

Would you be willing to move to Latin America to take advantage of the trend?

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#46

Post by spacephysics »

stuckinhell wrote: post #33
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #12

At first it seemed like the layoffs were legitimately needed by some companies. But now it feels like "this is a good time" is the reason du jour. An excuse to cut some projects that haven't panned out, dump a bunch of lower performers, and general other cleanup. DocuSign may have laid-off 700 people, but they have 162 open jobs and most of those list "multiple locations" which probably means they will hire more than…

A lot of executives are using this opportunity to get rid of people pushing social activism thru the corporation or firm. Social activists at major technology companies have been revealed to be undermining the company or attacking the executive class over unpopular decisions like working with the military (twitter leaks,google, facebook etc. Many boomer and gen x executives were astonished at the level of activism ar…

I think there’s a balance between activism, and doing the job you were hired for.

I’ve been at a handful of companies, and there’s always some who seem to be more involved in the diversity groups than the actual work their job title shows. And in many cases, me and colleagues (white males, not that it should matter but context is context) felt uneasy about some of the general rhetoric.

Some knew the groups were just lip service, while others saw the groups as enacting global change.

I personally haven’t sorted it out, I’m still thinking about it. But it seems odd how heavy some college curriculum, and high school for that matter (myself in college not long ago, my brother in HS), focus on being an activist.

Sure that’s great to want change in your community, but I feel the desire to be an activist for something was taught over the desire to foster a local, welcoming community.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#47

Post by mgsk »

trashtestcrash wrote: post #11

Why are the majority of these layoffs around the 10% mark?

I forget where I heard this, but someone put it this way: to the markets, 10% is a positive signal that a company is cutting some cruft, but 25% is a negative signal that a company is in trouble.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#48

Post by pydry »

cosmodisk wrote: post #34
dbrueck wrote: post #3

I feel bad for the people being laid off, but I'm floored by the size of these companies. I know there are always lots of people in sales & support, and some "overhead" positions, and you multiply by some factor for an international presence. But still... even with all that... for the services DocSign provides... how can they possibly need over 7000 people?

Same here. Of all the software companies, Docusign has the easiest, most straightforward product that is neither resource intensive nor it requires some bleeding edge innovation. So what do all those people do really?..

Probably corporate sales. It's the one part of their business which is labor intensive and won't scale.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#49

Post by stuckinhell »

spacephysics wrote: post #46
stuckinhell wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of executives are using this opportunity to get rid of people pushing social activism thru the corporation or firm. Social activists at major technology companies have been revealed to be undermining the company or attacking the executive class over unpopular decisions like working with the military (twitter leaks,google, facebook etc. Many boomer and gen x executives were astonished at the level of activism ar…

I think there’s a balance between activism, and doing the job you were hired for. I’ve been at a handful of companies, and there’s always some who seem to be more involved in the diversity groups than the actual work their job title shows. And in many cases, me and colleagues (white males, not that it should matter but context is context) felt uneasy about some of the general rhetoric. Some knew the groups were just…

It's a generational thing too. The younger generations mostly seem to believe activism is all encompassing part of your life. The older generations mostly believe business is business.

Re: DocuSign to lay off 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees

#50

Post by [deleted] »

jimbob45 wrote: post #42
nivenkos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope the employees form trade unions and workers' councils to help stop this bullshit. Look at DigitalOcean - literally doing "layoffs" whilst shifting hiring to Pakistan: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/15/digitalocean_layoffs/

I'm staunchly anti-union and even I don't see another way forward. It increasingly seems like every company is colluding to set policies, whether it be salary, layoffs, hiring policies, or remote policies. What else is going to bring back your company to the table to negotiate with you as an individual company other than unionizing? I don't think there's any governmental function for legislating away inter-corporatio…

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