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

Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

theblock.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 95 posts

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#81

Post by chii »

jbay808 wrote: post #46
skeeter2020 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking for honesty from a company is kind of silly when you think about it... it's a pathological, amoral entity with a single, well-defined legal purpose, afforded some notion of human rights. Executives are legally obligated to serve it. They can provide honest analysis after the fact but early notice is a mistake, even if it means lying to you.

Trust, which is instrumentally valuable, is the wage earned by honesty. Even a pathological, amoral entity will find value in being honest, unless they assign no value to being trusted.

The company entity will not trust their employees generally. They verify, or use multiple parties to prevent any possible trust needed to perform a task - that's why there's "supervisors" and manager roles.

The employees, on the other hand, is required to trust the company. It's a condition of employment. For example, you are only paid after the work is completed - this requires that the employee trusts the company to make good on the wage. Of course, this is legally mandated - but sometimes, despite legal mandates, unpaid wages exists, esp. when company is in financial trouble.

It's an asymmetrical relationship.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#82

Post by ls15 »

Lerc wrote: post #60
gnicholas wrote: post #10

What are the appropriate or possible responses to being publicly asked if you're going to do a layoff, in the case that: (1) you are definitely going to do a layoff (2) you have not yet decided but are considering it (3) you are definitely not doing a layoff In the past, HNers have mentioned that if you admit you're going to lay people off, then your best performers will leave. Is that true? If so, what should compan…

> if you admit you're going to lay people off, then your best performers will leave You are not simply entitled to your best performers. You are in a relationship where they provide their services for money. Staff are not property. Restricting information to influence their decision making is poisoning that relationship.

> Restricting information to influence their decision making is poisoning that relationship.

They also poison the employee's relationship with the next employer. Once burned, it is a little harder to trust the next employer.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#83

Post by bb88 »

erichocean wrote: post #61
bb88 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to say, you're struggling, but you think you can make it without layoffs. Or another thing to say your financial models say for the next 90 days you're okay at the moment. Or you're trying to shift money around, or trying to increase revenue, or to say you're looking for funding... If people invest their lives in your company (relocating, working overtime, etc), they deserve the honest truth about what…

> If people invest their lives in your company I think I may see the problem.

There's a reality you're living that must be quite different than the rest of the world.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#84

Post by shapefrog »

jcadam wrote: post #44
gnicholas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is this part of the reason why Zuck would have framed FB's impending actions as being focused on low-performers? That way, people who believe themselves to be high-performers wouldn't bail.

Problem: Imposter syndrome. The overlap between people who think very highly of themselves and your top performers may not be 100%. It's probably quite a bit less.

It also depends on middle managers identifying the actual low-performers and not marking for removal high performers who they don't like or might take their job in a slimmed down org.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#85

Post by madeofpalk »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

What are the appropriate or possible responses to being publicly asked if you're going to do a layoff, in the case that: (1) you are definitely going to do a layoff (2) you have not yet decided but are considering it (3) you are definitely not doing a layoff In the past, HNers have mentioned that if you admit you're going to lay people off, then your best performers will leave. Is that true? If so, what should compan…

If you're going to do a lay off, your "best performers" will know eventually.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#87

Post by 999900000999 »

capableweb wrote: post #54
999900000999 wrote: post #53

Every single company is guaranteed to try and assure employees the company's doing okay. Think about it for a second, regardless of if your employer intends to do layoffs or not, the moment people fear for their jobs, they'll spend more time looking for work. I prefer the quick rip the Band-Aid off lay off, give me a bit of severance, let me shake the hands of upper management and we can all move on for our lives

It's cool that you can just survive on getting fired, with zero repercussions in other parts of your life and all that. But that's not the situation for many others, who have to plan a good chunk of their (at least immediate) future based around other people in their life outside of work. So if a company says "Just so everyone know, the entire market is experience a tough time, and so are we, so right now we're evalu…

You can't trust what the company says regardless.

A sudden layoff can happen to anyone.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#88

Post by SkyPuncher »

dougSF70 wrote: post #68
capableweb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way of going through it, is to share that you might have to do layoffs, watch as people leave and enough people might leave so you don't have to do layoffs in the end. If enough people don't leave, go ahead with layoff. It's both transparent and honest, no lies required.

Except, weaker performers will stick around for severance and top performers will leave. If sufficient above average performers leave to avoid a layoff you are left with a weaker team. In this instance company doesnt get to chose, which it might want to. Best idea is not to provide reassurance if you cant back it up. In which case, say nothing.

The better performers who want to leave will leave regardless of when the layoff is communicated.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#89

Post by daniel-cussen »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #26
r053bud wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will always want honesty from the company I work for. If they pull something like this, trust is completely lost and I’ll be looking elsewhere. If I were in charge, I’d admit our mistakes (we over hired, didn’t foresee economic conditions, invested in the wrong areas) which caused the need for layoffs. I’d never tell my employees that there would be no layoffs unless I was 100% certain of it.

Looking for honesty from a company is kind of silly when you think about it... it's a pathological, amoral entity with a single, well-defined legal purpose, afforded some notion of human rights. Executives are legally obligated to serve it. They can provide honest analysis after the fact but early notice is a mistake, even if it means lying to you.

Yeah and they could avoid layoffs if they cut the executive pay down.

Re: Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff

#90

Post by daniel-cussen »

jcadam wrote: post #44
gnicholas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is this part of the reason why Zuck would have framed FB's impending actions as being focused on low-performers? That way, people who believe themselves to be high-performers wouldn't bail.

Problem: Imposter syndrome. The overlap between people who think very highly of themselves and your top performers may not be 100%. It's probably quite a bit less.

Imposter syndrome when you're told an imposter second-to-second.
Post reply on HN