5 ms·

Zenefits payroll was secretly built in 60 days at a nearby Marriott

24 points by mtviewdave 11y ago

scintill76 11y ago
> He secretly rented a room at the Marriott across the street from the corporate offices, took his best engineers to the room and told them, "Don't come out until you have a payroll system. Our goal is to get it live in 60 days," he said. It's good clickbait, but why's that a good management strategy? What does it even mean? Who was it a secret from, the other employees? If the productivity gain of dropping some team members is not canceled by the losses of setting up a temporary office in a hotel room, maybe you were doing something wrong at your real office. Or you're exaggering about the cloistered nature of this "secret hotel room" for the press.
- buserror 11y ago
  My best coding sprees were done by retiring to my place and stop communicating with the rest of the company. I mean, if you have a crystal clear set goal, and a very very tight deadline, you don't need to be in anyway, all you'll get is distraction, unwanted interest and questions, 'status reports' that only waste time and so on. Much better to isolate yourself and crack on with it...
- seren 11y ago
  My company has a process where it puts every stakeholder on a particular topic off-site for a day. (often in an hotel room actually). This is to accelerate the decision process, with a clear deliverable. Even if it works, I find that awkward : it acknowledges that you can not get the job done at work, because of the endless stream of meetings and interruptions. It really begs the question if the way we traditionally work with everyone in the same office is really that efficient. But I am sure remote workers and distributed work environment have their own share of issues.
  - riskneural 11y ago
    Who doesn't try to find places to hide from the endless stream of calls, meetings, and emails? In fact, once I check off the next four hours of meetings and client calls, I think I will go hide in the awesome Stadtbibliothek (the library).
    - shoo 11y ago
      this reminds me of a couple of war stories by rachelbythebay: Opening umbrellas indoors on purpose [1], and Project Darkness [2] [1] - https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/ [2] - https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/
  - vidarh 11y ago
    > Even if it works, I find that awkward : it acknowledges that you can not get the job done at work, because of the endless stream of meetings and interruptions. It may just acknowledge that in your normal day to day job people have competing priorities that makes spending all your time on a single, specific project hard to achieve, especially when you're the easiest person to go to for others to solve their problems. > It really begs the question if the way we traditionally work with everyone in the same office is really that efficient. Or they're not efficient for the same things. It's not a given it makes sense to work the same way all the time.
- stevoski 11y ago
  Yesterday on Hacker News we were discussing a photo from Zenefits. A photo of the Zenefits workplace, which seemed to generate disgust and horror in many commenters. It seemed like a "you couldn't possibly be productive here" environment of too many people in too small a space. That could explain the hotel rental.
  - sergiotapia 11y ago
    Do you have a link?
    - Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10575305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10575305
    - ekanes 11y ago
      http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56495c0e112314ef038b5496-1228-921/zenefits%20offices.jpg http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56495c0e112314ef038...
- codeulike 11y ago
  Its probably just a load of bollocks. Maybe he rented a room for a launch meeting or something.
- zhte415 11y ago
  Perhaps they didn't have a spare meeting room without disrupting other teams? When need be, my company book a shared meeting room in our office building for days or weeks at a time. It's not the Marriott, but it is pleasant, and at around 25 Yuan (that's $4) per hour including internet and chairs / desks / projector / internet / stage / windows, it is pretty nice, and plenty big enough with each room at around 120 square meters in size.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  When I was at a fortune 1000 company and a big project needed done ASAP, a bunch of people from multiple teams were shoved in a meeting room until the project was done. Worked great, but also shows how awful the standard day to day culture was. You spend so much of your time putting out day to day fires and meetings and status reports - that no time is left to do actual work.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bsg75 11y ago
Is 60 days to build an automated payroll system really a selling feature or success story? Mistakes in payroll can cause a tremendous amount of effort for both the employer and employee, and I would want my payroll system to be well tested, battle hardened, and near bullet-proof as possible. In other words, not one built in a hotel room in two months.

24 points by mtviewdave 11y ago

> He secretly rented a room at the Marriott across the street from the corporate offices, took his best engineers to the room and told them, "Don't come out until you have a payroll system. Our goal is to get it live in 60 days," he said. It's good clickbait, but why's that a good management strategy? What does it even mean? Who was it a secret from, the other employees? If the productivity gain of dropping some team members is not canceled by the losses of setting up a temporary office in a hotel room, maybe you were doing something wrong at your real office. Or you're exaggering about the cloistered nature of this "secret hotel room" for the press.

buserror 11y ago
My best coding sprees were done by retiring to my place and stop communicating with the rest of the company. I mean, if you have a crystal clear set goal, and a very very tight deadline, you don't need to be in anyway, all you'll get is distraction, unwanted interest and questions, 'status reports' that only waste time and so on. Much better to isolate yourself and crack on with it...
seren 11y ago
My company has a process where it puts every stakeholder on a particular topic off-site for a day. (often in an hotel room actually). This is to accelerate the decision process, with a clear deliverable. Even if it works, I find that awkward : it acknowledges that you can not get the job done at work, because of the endless stream of meetings and interruptions. It really begs the question if the way we traditionally work with everyone in the same office is really that efficient. But I am sure remote workers and distributed work environment have their own share of issues.
- riskneural 11y ago
  Who doesn't try to find places to hide from the endless stream of calls, meetings, and emails? In fact, once I check off the next four hours of meetings and client calls, I think I will go hide in the awesome Stadtbibliothek (the library).
  - shoo 11y ago
    this reminds me of a couple of war stories by rachelbythebay: Opening umbrellas indoors on purpose [1], and Project Darkness [2] [1] - https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/ [2] - https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/
- vidarh 11y ago
  > Even if it works, I find that awkward : it acknowledges that you can not get the job done at work, because of the endless stream of meetings and interruptions. It may just acknowledge that in your normal day to day job people have competing priorities that makes spending all your time on a single, specific project hard to achieve, especially when you're the easiest person to go to for others to solve their problems. > It really begs the question if the way we traditionally work with everyone in the same office is really that efficient. Or they're not efficient for the same things. It's not a given it makes sense to work the same way all the time.
stevoski 11y ago
Yesterday on Hacker News we were discussing a photo from Zenefits. A photo of the Zenefits workplace, which seemed to generate disgust and horror in many commenters. It seemed like a "you couldn't possibly be productive here" environment of too many people in too small a space. That could explain the hotel rental.
- sergiotapia 11y ago
  Do you have a link?
  - Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10575305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10575305
  - ekanes 11y ago
    http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56495c0e112314ef038b5496-1228-921/zenefits%20offices.jpg http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56495c0e112314ef038...
codeulike 11y ago
Its probably just a load of bollocks. Maybe he rented a room for a launch meeting or something.
zhte415 11y ago
Perhaps they didn't have a spare meeting room without disrupting other teams? When need be, my company book a shared meeting room in our office building for days or weeks at a time. It's not the Marriott, but it is pleasant, and at around 25 Yuan (that's $4) per hour including internet and chairs / desks / projector / internet / stage / windows, it is pretty nice, and plenty big enough with each room at around 120 square meters in size.
brianwawok 11y ago
When I was at a fortune 1000 company and a big project needed done ASAP, a bunch of people from multiple teams were shoved in a meeting room until the project was done. Worked great, but also shows how awful the standard day to day culture was. You spend so much of your time putting out day to day fires and meetings and status reports - that no time is left to do actual work.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

bsg75 11y ago

Is 60 days to build an automated payroll system really a selling feature or success story? Mistakes in payroll can cause a tremendous amount of effort for both the employer and employee, and I would want my payroll system to be well tested, battle hardened, and near bullet-proof as possible. In other words, not one built in a hotel room in two months.