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Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• indigochill 9y ago
  My company's CEO says he looks at the survey answers to "Would you recommend Company X as a good place to work" as a health indicator of how the company's doing. Which makes sense to me, since if the employees overall would recommend it as a place to work, it's probably reasonably stable and rewarding, has reasonably trusted managers, etc. I've never delved deep into actual statistics on this, though, so consider this just an anecdote.
  • entrep91 9y ago
    Yup - that's an ENPS survey (more info-> https://www.fridayfeedback.com/enps-employee-net-promoter-score https://www.fridayfeedback.com/enps-employee-net-promoter-sc...) and is modeled after the NPS survey organizations send to customers.
  • sadadar 9y ago
    This is basically called Net Promoter Score or NPS. Often people use it for products and it's not a bad method for understanding how a company is doing from employees perspective.
• draz 9y ago
  - Employee turnover: a large layoff - Retention: some many know something you don't, especially at the high levels. - Restructuring/reorging: there are companies that view this method as a panacea for all ailments (rather than treating the underlying issue(s)). - Projects funded: a concentrated focus on projects that "reduce cost" or "introduce efficiencies" rather than on growth and R&D may be indicative of either a contraction to make a company more palatable for a buy-out, or a simple general state of the money in the bank.
  • jermaustin1 9y ago
    I saw all of these in a single year in the IT department of a former client. - A new CIO, - Then within his first week, a layoff of all the network engineers (except the manager) right before an all heads meeting - An all heads meeting where we were to provided an "accounting of our yearly hours" and it had to equal to 2080 and a reorganization of IT to be instead of a solutions provider to the company, a help desk. - Then over the course of the next three months, a lot of new projects that combined the various services we consumed (hr, payroll, etc) under one single product, beefed up helpdesk staff count (all temp/contract workers) and layoffs from various orgs in IT: security, development, and helpdesk (employees). - Then over the next two months, employee staff count dropped further bringing the total at the beginning from 60 heads to 12. And all the employees were replaced with contractors. That said, the company gave out larger bonuses because the bonus pool had already been agreed to, and the employee count was almost non existent, so bigger bonuses spread around to the managers (since they were all that was left). Also the company is still growing elsewhere, just shrinking the places that are "cost centers".
• robhunter 9y ago
  "Company" is a broad word, and can include a wide variety of different types of organizations - but if you're talking specifically about startups, look at the following: Cash in the Bank / Burn Rate - How much cash does the company have? How much of that cash is it spending each month? How long until the company reaches profitability? Could the company be profitable now if it wanted to be? Headcount - LinkedIn actually tracks this now. How has the total headcount of the company changed over time, particularly recently? Headcount is certainly not a measure of success, but a significant decrease in headcount may be a red flag. Growth Rate - How fast is the company growing? Ideally you're looking at this in terms of revenue. Unit Economics - Even if the company is growing, is it making money from every sale? Or is it "spending $1 to earn $0.95" ? Getting a handle on the bottoms-up unit economics of whatever the company is selling is important to really getting a picture of its overall health. Grit of the Founders - This may be more important than everything else on the list! Every startup is going to feel - frequently - like it's in "bad health." Founders with determination, grit, and the ability to fight through the tough times will overcome a lot of the problems presented by other items on this list.
  • hammock 9y ago
    Benefit of being an employee in this scenario is that you have access to info outsiders don't. So take some of your metrics like headcount and unit economics and make them forward-looking: open job reqs and contract expirations perhaps. Other things like grit of the founders can't really be controlled. That will never change for the life of a company.
• champagnepapi 9y ago
  I guess it would depend on the size and status of the company. What I mean by that, you would judge a startup 1-10 people that is privately held substantially differently than 1000+ employee publicly traded company. These indicators that you are looking for are going to be vastly different along the size spectrum of companies.
• bsvalley 9y ago
  It's all about the money. Cost cutting such as layoffs, no annual bonus, no more free snacks, shutting down promising projects. When a company is doing well, it's usually the opposite.
• le-mark 9y ago
  One company I was at shipped a hardware product. The hardware would come in from the manufacturer, the techs on site would flash the firmware, apply stickers, and ship to customers. When I started they were shipping 10-15 boxes a day (this was easy to judge, they sat by the entrance and the UPS guy would come in and get them). Then a few month later, the senior sales guy left, and a new vp of sales was brought in. Over the course of a year, outgoing devices went to near zero. That's when I started looking. A year later the company was still alive, but limping with a skeleton crew of devs and techs. Most who stayed were fired.
  • hammock 9y ago
    The sales team are at the leading edge of product-market fit. I've found that their level of engagement, or success, or retention, is a great metric.
• hammock 9y ago
  Executive engagement, number of open job reqs, revenue goals (not necessarily growth or metrics of past)
• jasode 9y ago
  Availability of information to analyze will depend on whether it's a public vs private company. If it's a public company, an employee can look at the health in many of the same ways that Warren Buffet would look at it. Look at it's profit & loss statements for the last few years. If it took on debt, try to find out what the debt was used for. Look at the credit agencies' bond rating for the company. If it's not AAA, research why. Look at the company's major customers. Is it a growing marketplace? If it's a private company, intelligence gathering is going to be harder and you often won't have good info until you actually work there. You can try to synthesize information from glassdoor, Google News (e.g. lawsuits, settlements, etc), and other sources. >I mainly meant "startup" (i.e. not Fortune 500) In this case, I would ask the hiring manager (often the founder) if the company is cash-flow positive. If not, ask how much "runway" is left before the company runs out of money. Some founders may push back with "I can't disclose financials, yada yada" ... maybe because of his paranoia about competitor espionage. You then have to ask yourself if you're willing to join a company with limited information. You can join a not-yet-profitable company because sometimes, it all works out. That said, the idea of concrete financial dialogue is to make the risks transparent to the employee.
• UseofWeapons1 9y ago
  The easist method is by trend in employee count. If headcount is rising, that's a good indicator, if it's falling, that's generally bad. Stable can be perfectly fine, or bad, depending on the company. You may have concerns about the magnitude of growth, or claim lay-offs were justified or turnover is natural, but the trend generally holds. You should also pay attention to other employees; ask yourself why folks who leave are leaving. This seems easy, but I know one start-up well where a small trickle of occasional high-level departures turned into an eventual flood and bankruptcy. Beyond that, it's the usual. Anything you can tell about sales growth, competitive intensity, leadership, etc. are all helpful and good data points.
  • blowski 9y ago
    Rising headcount is not necessarily a good sign. To the contrary, it's often a sign that the company is haemorrhaging cash, hoping that if they hire enough staff something magic will happen before time runs out.
    • le-mark 9y ago
      There's also the idea that head count can signal revenue, or expected revenue. Companies looking to be bought can go on hiring sprees to appear more healthier to potential buyers. I experienced this at one company, when the new owner installed their CEO, the first thing he did was slash head count.
  • honestoHeminway 9y ago
    Head Count growing exponential is usually a warning sign for tech-debt.
• wolfi1 9y ago
  it does not directly state the health but it indicates if it is a good employer: number of interns : if the ratio is roughly 1:1 I would quickly look for another company
• tiredwired 9y ago
  They suddenly decide to inventory equipment (determine company value or collateral). Cutting back on benefits like 401k matching. Delays buying new equipment. People quitting and not being replaced. Senior management having all-day private meetings. They request your background information as if to determine if you are qualified for current or new positions (if company is discussing being acquired). Hackathons with a theme completely off target from current products. Multiple sets of men in suits touring the office. Managers stop downloading latest version of the beta-test app. Managers stop showing up for meetings. Managers stop caring about product quality. You look up from your desk and realize the office is empty when it should be busy - either those people are being terminated or you are being terminated.
  • arethuza 9y ago
    "Multiple sets of men in suits touring the office" New tenants being shown round the office you are in can be a bit worrying...
    • futhey 9y ago
      Not to discount what you're saying, but there are several sets of “men in suits” that appear long before you lose your office space. Some are your investors (or work for them). Some are consultants or advisors, promising to solve all your problems. The service provider you're re-negotiating payment terms with. Potential acquirers, etc.
      • arethuza 9y ago
        Absolutely, I used to work for a large company that did a lot of acquisitions and I was on the pre-acquisition due-diligence team for a few of them and I recognised the enquiring but slightly worried looks of employees. I've been on both sides! NB I didn't wear a suit though, I do have some standards ;-)
        • logicallee 9y ago
          >I used to work for a large company that did a lot of acquisitions and I was on the pre-acquisition due-diligence team for a few of them I'd be very curious about the whole process beginning to end, and what you tended to look for, what made things go through or not go through, and just general advice you have for companies that may want to be acquired in the future.
• if_by_whisky 9y ago
  Quality of snacks
  • dovdovdov 9y ago
    or presence of snacks.
    • peterkelly 9y ago
      and absence of burnt palapas
• blowski 9y ago
  It's a bit subjective, and the more general the statement, the less meaning it would have. Say a company is becoming corporate and dull, but at the same time becoming more profitable. Are they in good or bad health? As a short-term shareholder you might see them in good health, but as an employee you might see them in bad health. That said, my experience is to look at team meetings. If they are full of conflict that is resolved respectfully by the end of the meeting, that's usually a good sign. If the same person is dominating and everyone else is quiet, that's a bad sign. If the same arguments keep repeating themselves, that's a bad sign. If there is no conflict at all, and people just stare out of the window while others are talking, that's a bad sign. At bad companies, everyone knows the real story, but nobody says it out loud. Good people leave, bad people stay, and the problem gets worse.
• pgt 9y ago
  Cutting of catered lunches is a strong signal that the company is in a cash crunch. You can try to propose a weekly catered lunch at your company to "encourage communication" and watch it is a signal. In the past I instituted weekly catered lunches at a company, which were halved from weekly to bi-weekly the moment finance knew there was trouble. Other indicators: delayed salary reviews, senior staff leaving (and not being replaced, because money) or minority shareholders trying to sell their stakes.
  • kzisme 9y ago
    How often do salary reviews generally occur for someone working as a developer (or IT I suppose?)
    • just4themoney 9y ago
      Usually once or twice a year for a seasoned developer, more frequent for jrs. That's been my experience.
      • kzisme 9y ago
        I've been at my current position for about ~1.5 years almost without one (I think they are starting to do them soon?). Last time I asked they had said they are implementing a formal process for them. I've just been looking forward to it.
        • just4themoney 9y ago
          So you haven't gotten a raise in a year and a half? (In my experience, if someone really deserves it then either a bonus or an out of cycle raise or promotion will be given, I've gotten both.)
          • kzisme 9y ago
            I've never heard of a bonus being awarded (or a signing bonus of sorts when first starting being given) Being my first FT position after finishing school I wasn't sure what to expect for reviews/raises/etc.
• beaker52 9y ago
  I look at a few things. Company structure is quite telling. The relationship between teams, how teams work together. I usually get a good feel for any potential dysfunction in an organisation by this. The more splitting up and dividing there is going on, the more unhealthy it usually is. If the company is small enough, it should be self organising to some degree of success. Other questions to consider: - Are staff able to be honest? - Is the company able to be honest with itself? - Does the company have a vision that actually sells itself? - Is the company actually pursuing that vision with it's actions? - Does the company leverage the intelligence of it's employees, or does it just hand them work to perform?
• swalsh 9y ago
  The usually open CEO suddenly starts having closed door meetings.
  • lojack 9y ago
    This could also be sign of the opposite depending on the circumstances. For startups, founders want an exit when the company is at its healthiest.
• erikb 9y ago
  Also relevant should be the question how to act in different phases. An unhealthy company is not necessarily dying. And even a dying company is not necessarily bad for you. It's like with real people. When someone dies some others start to check out the valuables to get the best for themselves. If you are working in a brilliant team inside a dying company, you may all get picked up, get a raise, and be welcomed into new arms. That's one way to get into Google for instance. For figuring out the current health status, I'd check: the product line - is it understandable? is it modern? is it efficient? the customer base - do they have customers that wouldn't easily change to alternative options? the management team - do they have visions? are they cooperating? are they lying psychopaths, ambitious inventors, calm survivors (thinking Merkel here), idiotic burocrats? HR - HR is managements comm channel to the employees. Does the promo material look good? How close is the promo material to the actual day-to-day work? People - are there smart people you like to work with? How many of them are currently joining? How many of them are currently leaving? Hiring - you are either new and just got hired or there for a long time and probably at least hear things about the hiring process at the water cooler. how reasonable does it sound? does it filter out idiots? does it assess quality attributes like culture? Does the feedback from the interviewers have influence on the hiring decision (more often than you think they actually just hire anybody, if they are hiring at all).
  • avisser 9y ago
    re: the product line - also, is it sticky/easy to migrate away? I've worked for places with products that were not great but had institutional customers who required acts of god to change vendors. We were okay.
    • erikb 9y ago
      The list is meant more as a list of variables to compare, not as a list of possible red flags. If one or two factors are totally bad it still doesn't necessarily mean that you would call the patient "sick", especially when corresponding factors are fine. Strong market position with bad products is usually okay. But if you know that and then hear about a deal that may risk decreasing the market position, then you know that there's a good chance it will get a lot worse and you can already start screening the job market for alternatives. Also there are some factors, like good colleagues, which can compensate a lot for you personally, like bad HR department and bureaucratic leadership. And sometimes things that are bad for you personally are actually good for the company. For instance if your customer is the government then bureaucratic leadership may actually be a market advantage over the competition.
• corobo 9y ago
  I generally work for smaller companies, < 50 total staff. Most of my variables and data pieces others have said. My main "rats, sinking ship" is in regards to others working there; Health note: Employee churn when churn is not the norm. Health warning: Certain people leaving with enough business knowledge it's noticeable they're gone Health crisis: Multiple health warnings in quick succession (within 2 years). At warning level I make sure my CV is updated and start setting up job alerts. At crisis I'm actively applying for jobs to keep my options wide open. Edit: Ooh reading another comment - I watch the public docs of the company I'm working for. It's a year or so out financials-wise but you can get some info from it.
  • logfromblammo 9y ago
    I'd actually counsel updating the resume every 6 months and applying to at least one job posting with it, just to get a sense of the local job scene. And even if your current company is fine, you might get the chance to switch to one that is better. At the very least, you get some interview practice, which never hurts. One does get slightly paranoid after getting laid off with only 3 days notice and no severance, one time. If your management feels that it has to offer some form of reassurance to its employees, in the form of "Don't worry: X will probably not happen," then you should create a contingency plan, as though X is happening next month.
    • corobo 9y ago
      I do try to keep it up to date every so often - though saying that I've been in my current job over a year and haven't touched it.. - those yellow and red flags definitely trigger a more urgent need to update it HN being the global sort of place I (and others) should really mention where I'm at - in the UK at least short of anything that gets me fired on the spot I know I'll have a month's notice if I do need to start looking so that does give a bit of complacency as it's in writing in my contract. Having said that it couldn't hurt to keep the eyes open, the job I've got now was a lucky gem of a find
    • cbanek 9y ago
      Don't you worry about X, let me worry about blank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAeTf8px0mE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAeTf8px0mE
• INTPenis 9y ago
  In my case: * Stock price * Attitude of employees * Attitude of management * Statements and sometimes rumors heard around the office
• ryankennedyio 9y ago
  This is a handy pocket guide. Quite seriously, start looking around if your gut is telling you to. http://wiki.c2.com/?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom http://wiki.c2.com/?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom
• angelofthe0dd 9y ago
  A key indicator I've seen in past companies was when "top skill" or "top manager" level people suddenly submit their resignation and then spend two weeks calmly walking around the office with an ear-to-ear grin. Not too long after that, whisperings of "Why?" start circulating. And shortly after that, I got an upbeat email from HR about "Exciting new company direction" and "Rethinking our core strategies for better customer alignment." In all seriousness, shake-ups and re-alignments are frightening and kill everyone's morale with fears of uncertainty.
• booleandilemma 9y ago
  I've read that a good way to get an early indicator of future health is to pay attention to the spending on the small things. Does your company have paid lunches? Does it have a snack vending machine or something similar? A coffee machine with k-cups? Other little perks that seem insignificant but are nice to have. If these things start to go away, the company is experiencing financial stress.
  • striking 9y ago
    Steve Blank does a good job summarizing this and other related phenomena: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... (and its corresponding HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5751329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5751329)
  • god_bless_texas 9y ago
    I am laughing so hard right now.
  • majewsky 9y ago
    However, if these things never were there in the first place, it just means that you're not in the SV bubble.
    • coldpie 9y ago
      Yeah, here in St Paul, we get only coffee paid for and we're quite healthy, I think. Not everywhere gets a smorgasbord of free food and snacks and I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile expense.
      • sidlls 9y ago
        Have you ever experienced it? I used to think it was silly, too, but I've come to appreciate the convenience of not having to buy and pack my own snack items. It's also much cheaper than salary and benefits to extract extra work out of younger and naive developers. Sorta like giving the newly hired former intern the title "senior engineer."
• inthewoods 9y ago
  Status of accounts payable - is the company stretching out payments to vendors? Are vendors getting angry or lawyering up?
• 31415 9y ago
  Treat it as a learning opportunity. Three buckets to triage employees into: (o) the oblivious employees, (i) employees who step up and show initiative, and (ii) employees who decide to goof off and do nothing since some of the management chain is likely missing and not being replaced. Companies that are successful are often unwilling to risk any element of their success and can be rigid/inflexible.
• wiz21c 9y ago
  marketing team slices its customers pool into : customer-we'll-soon-contact, potential customers, potential leads, short-list-customers, customers with who we have very good relationships, customers who'll introduces to even bigger customers. You get it, many types of customers except the paying-type...
• golergka 9y ago
  If you're moving to a new open space office that looks for a visitor to be fantastic but is a pain to actually work in; if your company hires like crazy without a good idea of what new people will actually be working on; if a CTO that has been on-hands becomes distant and hires a level of middle technical managers — all that means that the company is trying to inflate it's value and be bought. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you can count on the culture shift pretty soon.
• VLM 9y ago
  Many answers are negative assuming decline, or provide an extremely complicated answer to a simple problem. I'd propose based on decades of observation that you model the behavior and personality of all of management as if it was one person. Now is that imaginary merged individual person a lunatic deep in cocaine addiction psychosis? That might be a bad sign. Is that imaginary merged person a reasonable good leader? Sounds like a good sign. Is that one merged person in a civil war with its large number of multiple personalities? Run like hell. This is what "real" culture fit actually is, whereas what culture fit means in 2017 as currently deployed is "we only hire young white ivy-league(-ish) males" which is a totally different concept or problem.
  • burkaman 9y ago
    Plenty of companies with great leaders fail, and some companies with terrible leaders succeed. The question is how you assess the health of the company regardless of leadership ability.
  • jasode 9y ago
    >I'd propose based on decades of observation that you model the behavior and personality of all of management as if it was one person. The problem I see with this advice is that many technical people (e.g. presumably many HN readers) are not good at "reading people". It's very similar to socially-inept engineers asking "how can I tell if a girl would be ok with me asking her out on a date?" We then respond with more well-meaning advice, "if she smiles at you, that's a good sign." And then the engineer might ask, "well, how can I tell if her smile is genuine affection or just politeness?" ... and so on and so on ... into a sort of infinite recursion into the mysteries of "people behavior". If the engineer is the kind of person that can read Ribbonfarm's Gervais Principle[1] and say to him/herself, "that was a waste of time because that's all obvious information", then yes, he can follow your advice. He/she can evaluate the managers as if they were chess pieces and figure out the health of the company. If you're the type that's not "tuned in" into how people exhibit implicit behaviors, you'll need a Plan B. E.g. look at the financials or other strategy. [1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/
• afdfabdcfaadfcc 9y ago
  Glassdoor reviews
• afdfabdcfaadfcc 9y ago
  Glassdoor reviews.
• pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  My dad used to say: "Son, when assessing the company's health, look for two things: coffee, and toilet paper. If the coffee is not refilled, it means nobody cares, and the company soon will start having serious trouble. If the toilet paper is not refilled, it means there's no money whatsoever, and you should nope out". Worked for me ever since.
• bennyp101 9y ago
  The last company I worked at before it was acquired went through a phase of making everything 'legit' - which looking back on it now makes sense. - Making sure that everybody had their work laptops/phones properly secured, requiring RSA tags for VPN access etc. - Lots of new policies, mainly things that we did anyway, but just fully documented and meetings to make sure that everybody understood their roles in them. - Lots more focus on 'customer satisfaction' and making sure that deadlines were met - Rewards for helping to clear the backlog of things that needed doing Basically, a lot of dotting the I's and crossing the T's. Oh, and a lot more visits from the head guys over in the US. Edit: Not a startup, just a company doing well.
  • Benjammer 9y ago
    Pretty sure things like this can happen for other reasons as well though, like when a company is going for it's next financing round.
    • bennyp101 9y ago
      Very true, I should have prefaced my comment above with "Not a startup"
  • unoti 9y ago
    Being focused on customer satisfaction is probably always a good thing. Many of the other things you mentioned will also need to happen for other reasons, such as for EDP auditing and various kinds of certifications. Such certifications can be important for selling the company, but they can also be important for marketing and attracting customers.
• auserperson 9y ago
  When employees of a company starts HN threads about how to asses the health of a company.
• just4themoney 9y ago
  Usually the biggest indication is cutting salary and benefits, I'm including not giving raises as a salary cut. Cutting vacation days is definitely a salary cut.
• tyingq 9y ago
  Make friends with whoever does accounts payable. In many companies, paying vendors later than agreed terms would be the first sign of trouble. Companies will often do that before anything directly visible to employees.
  • mandude 9y ago
    I heard Trump did this to many of his contractors.
    • tyingq 9y ago
      I would guess it happens at every company when financial struggles arise. It's the easiest lever to pull.
• acesubido 9y ago
  I do a simple version of a balanced scorecard: 1) Financial/Stakeholders - Are we raking in revenue? What type of revenue (high-touch, low-touch. high-volume/low-margin or low-volume/high-margin)? Are we consistently making this or is it totally dependent on the connections of 1-2 people? Can it be recreated? A bad sign is if people are being shifted to different projects all the time without one being totally completed/closed. 2) Customer/External Relationships - #1 is dependent on this. You can't make money with people giving you money. Do we have sufficient customers/market to provide the type of revenue needed? Do customers like us? What's the market feedback? A bad sign is if sales is overcommitting through the teeth about the products/services just to get them onboard. 3) Activities/Internal processes - #2 is dependent on this. You cant continually create things to sell and build customer relationships without a proper cycle of operations. Do we have processes? Does the process last long enough to get feedback? Or are the activities fickle and do not have solid implementations? A fishy sign is if there seems to be a totally new sales/engineering process every month, or isn't implemented rigidly and the org chart changes every 2 quarters. 4) Learning and growth (People-aspect) - Most important. #1, #2, #3 is dependent on this. You can't have processes/services/products without people. Based on the product/value that the company is providing to customers, are they valuing the people that creates this value? (training, leadership roles, ownership of product/services, etc.). Is there career growth for people that create this value? A fishy example would be: leadership positions in a product-based tech startup where there isn't at least one person with a history of software-engineering/operations and is instead filled with a group of salesmen. That startup would probably best be a consulting business, since the way things would be led hampers any kind of effort in building an effective product development pipeline/operation. Another bad sign for that type of startup is when key staff engineers are leaving, their positions are left empty and more managers are hired instead.
• shimon 9y ago
  One simple thing missing in most of these replies: ask questions. Ask your boss, ask your peers, ask the CEO now and then. - How is the company doing against its goals for the year? - What does our runway look like? - What signs of product success are we expecting? What are we seeing? Note that in any company, and especially in a startup, all of these questions are rife with uncertainty and stress. You should expect these to touch a nerve, and request brutally honest answers. Leaders experience existential fear on these topics frequently, even in great companies. In the responses, be wary of blithe positivity more than bad news. Bad news is normal; a healthy organization learns from it and improves. Optimism disconnected from reality is either an attempt to mislead you or a sign of blindness to results.
  • kogepathic 9y ago
    > Optimism disconnected from reality is either an attempt to mislead you or a sign of blindness to results. This is so important. If management is continually pitching a story which you don't see reflected in the work you're doing, or the progress you're making, then it's time to think deeply whether management is out of touch with reality. That's one of my biggest signs that it's time to leave a company. If management is ignorant to the progress of the company, or continuously gets it wrong, it's time to find yourself new management.
  • nikanj 9y ago
    Building an image as a person who's interested in the company , not just banging on their bit of code, is a really good idea career-wise. When management is thinking who to promote, the person who always seems to care about the business is a natural choice.
  • JimboOmega 9y ago
    I definitely have had employers that basically refused to discuss such things (in one particularly egregious example, a company with 10 people). It's frustrating, but some small company CEOs also get very wrapped up in emulating what "Corporate" looked like at bigger companies. That includes keeping information from employees, because if they knew how bad it was they might leave, word might travel to investors, etc.
• peterkelly 9y ago
  If you find yourself asking questions like this, that's a sign something might be awry.
  • OpenDrapery 9y ago
    If you are not asking questions like this, you may just be one of the willfully oblivious ditch diggers who is just there to work. And that's fine. Even in the days of galley slaves, there was probably only a small percentage of rowers who actually wondered where they were going. Most people just shut up and row.
• awinter-py 9y ago
  If you can't get a straight answer from your manager, or your manager doesn't know, then the company isn't healthy. Managers (a) love to brag about success and (b) it's their job to retain you, and part of retention is informing you about the company's financials. It's totally okay to ask questions like 'how long can we survive if we don't grow' and 'how long does this continue before we close our doors or fire people'. The good news is if you don't know about the health of the company you're probably too junior to be first on the chopping block. If you're asking the harder question of 'are we going to be #3 in our sector in 5 years', you can't trust your managers on that one. They're too optimistic. Do serious competitive market research like you'd do when starting a company -- find a way to measure comparative sales, marketing activity, team strength. Read the linkedin pages of the leadership and key players and look for missing skillsets.
• scarface74 9y ago
  Simple answer: Any startup that isn't profitable isn't healthy. More importantly, any company that has negative marginal profit, is definitely not healthy (i.e. Uber)
• jdavis703 9y ago
  * Late payments to employees (checks, expense reports etc) * Banker-looking people coming by * Drawn out fund raising periods with promises every month that next month something will be announced. * Churn in the C-suite or at VP level. * Plants being carted away
• danpalmer 9y ago
  We have a weekly all-hands where major issues (good or bad) would be mentioned, and where we get an overview of all core metrics. We have a monthly all-hands where we go into detail on all the metrics and how each team's metrics build up to the overall company performance. We know how much we're targeting/getting in funding rounds. We can ask questions about any of this in one-to-ones with managers that happen fortnightly. Basically we're pretty good at transparency, so most people just know all of this. It's a nice environment to work in!
• fnbr 9y ago
  There's a great article on this topic from Steve Blank: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... He argues that a leading indicator is when free food/drinks are removed, as it's a sign that the company is moving from a growth, "we're all in it together" mentality to a cost-cutting one. I, personally, focus on who's getting promoted and who's leaving. If a company is promoting internally and retaining people, then it's typically in a good place; if a lot of people are getting hired above others, and new employees aren't staying long, then it's in poor health.
  • arien 9y ago
    When I read things like this, I like to take a moment to realise how fortunate we are to work in a sector where something like freebies is almost considered to be a sacred right. Is there any other profession or sector where they get the same treatment? I don't think removing or reducing these benefits is a sign of poor health. I think it's more a sign of turning into a proper business (which needs to answer to the people who put the money to buy all these drinks in the first place), which isn't for everyone, but it doesn't _have_ to be a bad sign. I do agree with the second part. The attrition rate is definitely something to keep tabs on, but it's important to know why people are leaving.
    • fao_ 9y ago
      > I like to take a moment to realise how fortunate we are to work in a sector where something like freebies is almost considered to be a sacred right. Bear in mind that, most programmers do not get paid overtime, and are expected to work like horses. The reason freebies are sacred rights are because those are, in part, the unofficial payment for working in such conditions.
      • fnbr 9y ago
        Yup. I would take getting paid overtime over freebies hands down. 1.5x for every hour worked over 40? Sign me up.
• kevinmannix 9y ago
  When growth numbers are consistently not hit. Always push for transparency at a smaller company - if there isn't one already, attempt to implement an all-hands meeting at least bi-weekly that reviews goals for the quarter / year and the company's progress. If direction is constantly changing at a 1 or 2 month cadence, it's likely that there may be a shakeup coming sooner rather than later. It's wise to have a bit of cynicism when discussing company goals, progress, outcomes - things may not always be as bright as they seem. It's a good exercise to take these numbers and reduce them by a certain percentage, and see if those numbers are still good for company growth & stability.
  • ams6110 9y ago
    It's really hard to tell as an employee. Management can blow sunshine at these kind of meetings and you'd need second sight to see the truth. Last time I was at a company that suddenly imploded everything was great one week, and then a week later half the staff got laid off.
    • kevinmannix 9y ago
      That's true. Stats can be cherry-picked or distorted. That's why it's preferable to choose the goals / metrics at the start of the period so that other metrics can't be cherry-picked based on what might show "good" growth to employees.
  • nickpsecurity 9y ago
    That's the prime indicator from what I've read here. Growth to take over new markets is whole point of most startups. I'll add that Jessica Livingston's answer in an interview on main thing differentiating founders' successes vs failures was amount of focus. The failed ones got distracted chasing all sorts of activities or sub-goals that weren't measurably helping them achieve the real ones (esp growth). They were just burning cash. The successful ones constantly tried to do anything they could to make something that would achieve growth they wanted. Users massively adopting the product with or without a lot of revenue depending on the game plan seems to be the prime metric after a certain amount of time has passed.
• michaelgburton 9y ago
  One tip I have from years in a company that was undergoing major changes in its business model is to pay attention to other workers. In my case, the shop floor guys at an automation company smelled the shift in the wind long before anyone else, and weren't afraid to call it out. When the vast majority (maybe 500-1k machinists) were let go in rapid succession, it was shocking...except if you'd paid attention.
• 0x4f3759df 9y ago
  How fragmented is the industry? A fragmented industry is waiting for a well capitalized player to consolidate small companies into a industry leader. How close the founder is to retirement... As the founder approaches age 65, he might be looking to cash out.
• jaymzcampbell 9y ago
  My main thing is are they at all organised as a whole - if everything is in disarray and departments have no idea (or interest in) what the others are doing then it's likely going to be very painful. A company that is pulling in one direction is an exciting place.
• scarface74 9y ago
  I've given another answer, but on the meta level, it shouldn't matter to you if a company is doing well. The only thing that should matter is are you learning skills for which there is a market? Getting in the mindset that your "job" does not determine your well being but your skills do. That mindset presupposes a few things: A) that you always have your finger on the market and the skills that are in demand B) your network is strong - including recruiters. C) You live below your means and have enough in liquid savings to survive a job loss and getting a new job.
  • vinceguidry 9y ago
    Certainly, your skills provide a layer of security, ensuring that you don't starve. But once you have this, and it's really not that hard to do once you have a few years in your industry, then you need to start on the next safety net of ensuring you don't get ripped away from your daily routine at a moment's notice. This is where keeping a finger on what your organization is doing really helps out with. If you can do this well, then you're not just inured to sudden shocks in income, but you can also thrive in uncertainty. For example, if I caught wind that the company was being reorganized, I'd have a closed-door meeting with my manager to figure out what my exposure was and what opportunities are presented. Perhaps there's a way to help the organization and myself at the same time. Not every such situation has to result in chaos.
    • scarface74 9y ago
      For example, if I caught wind that the company was being reorganized I have a great relationship with my manager, he lets me run the development side as I see fit for the most part, I'm privy to a lot of information because of my role,but he couldn't tell me anything about a reorg until it was announced to everyone. I understand that perfectly.
      • vinceguidry 9y ago
        If I found the company really wanted to keep me out of the loop then I'll assume that I'm not a part of the new direction and plan accordingly. They can let me know what they want from me when I put my new job offer down on his desk. If I'm a new employee then sure, it's new enough to where my life hasn't settled yet. But after I've been there a year or so, a reorg is basically already like getting another job. If I'm not a part of that process then I'm going to regain control of my destiny myself.
• alex440440 9y ago
  Me and people close to me been a witness to a startup demise several times. In a startup it's really easy to tell - the product falls short of revenues/active users expectations, the funding starts to run out, the management starts to act frantic and invents all kinds of "creative" ways to "revive" the product, core team members start departing :)
• ethbro 9y ago
  I think employees are a lagging indicator. If the product is being offered at all, look at customers. If you're not customer-facing, talk to a customer-facing engineer or even account manager. "How's the X account?" "Tell me about a customer we've made successful." Don't accept "The account is fine." Drill down and ask for details; they're the only things that matter. You're internal, so unless your company is really $&#+ed up and silo'd, you shouldn't have a problem getting a feel with a modicum of social skills. If you're not making customers happy, and management is proceeding with business as usual, start looking for a new job.
• Spearchucker 9y ago
  Look at churn (staff turnover). It's actually a question I ask in interviews. If churn is either extraordinarily high or low I want to know why.
• gwbas1c 9y ago
  TLDR: You assess health by if you're getting paid what you think it's worth to stay in the job. If you're okay with the pay, and you like the job, be a pro and stay as long as the pay comes in. A big warning sign was that my employer interview great candidates, make offers, and then the candidate didn't accept. The problem was that we weren't paying competitively. I tried to express this to upper management, and then instead of fixing the problem, they just gave me a raise. (From below market rate to below market rate but able to start putting money in the newly-offered 401k.) Shortly afterwards, I interviewed at one of our major competitors. The next day I looked at one of the founders and said, "if there's a chance to exit via acquisition, we need to take it." Turns out there was an acquisition deal in the works, but we couldn't know due to how US law works. One of the higher-ups asked me to investigate "a bug," and when I looked at her logs, all I saw were references to an upcoming acquisition. I then knew to stick around and give the new owners a chance. There's a lot to be said for sticking through a few months of uncertainty when it works out to be a great job in the long run.
  • matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    And how did you personally make out, after taxes in said acquisition? Was it worth being underpaid for some amount of years? I left a job where I was underpaid for $BIGCO, even after their acquisition I still came out ahead of my peers because the reality is most people just don't get much, especially after taxes.
  • wand3r 9y ago
    > There's a lot to be said for sticking through a few months of uncertainty when it works out to be a great job in the long run. Great point considering the OP is talking about startups-- where the likelihood of failure is high. If you have another great opportunity, of course weigh it, but uncertainty is a constant in startups & tech. The idiom "the devil you know vs the devil you don't". I started at a company that looked great from the outside but once I started it was clear that 70% of the people who wrote the bloody codebase had quit or been fired very recently. You realize quickly that most people don't know what their doing; the good people admit they are learning on the fly. So totally agree with your point, and to add to it, you are weighing your insider knowledge of your firm against your perception of others-- inside those other firms people are likely doing the same thing and probably even looking at you with envy.
• throwawayJPHK 9y ago
  I work for a fairly large manufacturing company in Japan (about 15k employees). I don't think it will go bankrupt, but I think it is unhealthy and will eventually be automated with most people being made to leave, or it will lose a fairly large chunk of its market share and be dismembered and rebuilt by the American office. Some things I observed that led me to doing a job search. > Insurmountable Recruiting difficulties I was promised a team of 5 junior devs under myself, but that never happened. There was always a new process, or a new form that had to be filled out; they got filled in and nothing happened. Eventually the company started projects to hire people with disadvantaged career histories (Chinese / Korean residents, women who had left their previous job after pregnancy, et cetra). I felt this was a great policy but I was eventually clued into the real origin of the policy and why I never got the team I was promised. Apparently, we had (and still have) an excessively poor reputation. Not criminal; just in terms of leadership (at all levels), salary and work load. Successful mid-career job seekers could not be expected to join. As such, disadvantaged workers and the lowest level of university graduate comes (the kind who has "Tennis Club" as a prominent part of their university "experience"). My lack of experience at large Japanese corporations is also why I didn't have the foresight to check 2chan or Vorkers (glassdoor-like company in Japan) > New Emmanuel Goldsteins on a regular basis. "We would be great but... is terrible" is a constant refrain at these sorts of companies. You can fill in the blank with a C-Level executive, a new employee, or a clique in the office. If you are assigning real people in a capitalist enterprise the role of "villain", then the environment is not going to improve. It is like saving a marriage after you tell friends to take sides. > Inappropriate focus on loyalty I have literally experienced a C-level officer making these statements in a work environment, about people who are so low in rank so as to be below his level of concern. If a junior accountant leaves for a better position at another company, one with less stress and better pay, it is the obvious and correct decision, not an act of "disloyalty". > No objective source of truth or success While I ran a business previously, I could be convinced by objective measures of truth (profit being #1). At my current office, there is no single source of truth, nor a single measure of success. This creates a difficult spiral of wasted time and effort when starting projects; in the end, calling in "outsiders" to resolve the issue (by giving them superuser access over the project structure) simply delays the hard questions (who is in charge / gets credit & blame / by what measure are we doing something), and further infantilizes the office. > Senior people left and were never replaced Literally the second most senior person in my part of the org left and wasn't replaced for more than 2 years. Junior managers reported straight to the C-suite. His eventual replacement lacked his depth of knowledge and greatly damaged the collegial atmosphere that existed within the Japanese team before her hire. > Easy things are difficult There are X (where X is a number greater than 5) different approval processes for me to pay a vendor who has already finished the work.
• perlgeek 9y ago
  Cynicism. If there's none at all, then people likely are afraid to talk openly. When there's cynicism about everything (revenue goals, vision, hiring, retention, ...), that's a sign that most everybody has lost hope.
• Taylor_OD 9y ago
  When the CFO or high performing sales guys leave. They know what they money situation looks like and are going to be the first to leave when it get's rough.
• dgcoffman 9y ago
  Users and revenue. User and revenue growth rate. One bad sign is if the CEO is replaced. Another bad sign is if the company can't figure out how to make money.
• tmaly 9y ago
  Communication, how well are groups within the company communicating? Do groups tend to re-invent the wheel because they do not know about what other groups are doing? Learning, what types of opportunities are employees given to develop skills and learn new skills?
• goatcurious 9y ago
  The free-food patterns don't apply on a company which is frugal by nature, e.g. Amazon
• awshepard 9y ago
  Some other warning signs: - When you get rid of your QA team in the name of "quality" with everyone being responsible for testing, but then never provide adequate testing resources or environments. And when quality and velocity inevitably drop, and everyone claims they want to improve quality, but it's never actually prioritized. - More generally, when your company is saying one thing and doing another. - When your executive team flat out lies, and doesn't even blink when questioned about it.
• blahyawnblah 9y ago
  At my last couple of jobs my raises and bonuses were getting smaller over the last year or two I was there even though the company was supposedly taking in more revenue. We weren't expanding or hiring anyone so I started looking for new jobs. Both went under within a year of me leaving.
• logingone 9y ago
  Employee experience. The biggest problem at the company I recently left was inexperience. The company thought they could hire cheap and simply cross train and up-skill everyone. A FTSE 100 company. Eg a dev manager was a js dev now managing half the 200 odd dev dept. Hired mostly PHP devs who were all going to be cross trained as Go devs. My last manager had no management experience and was also the dept's Go tech lead, with no Go experience - a PHP dev, now starting at amazon, should be entertaining. Another Go dev on the team an ex-lawyer with two years dev experience as a ruby dev. The place was disorganised, frustrating, and not delivering. Toward the end of last year people started leaving, then more, then more - exodus. The dept has effectively collapsed as it's now a fraction of the size and a significant proportion of the remaining devs are new. It won't absolutely collapse because like all big corps they'll just keep hiring replacements and eventually paper over the cracks. They're now "restructuring", but the same rookies are still running the show so they're probably just going to botch it all over again, just in a different way.
• coldcode 9y ago
  One company I worked for (international) had the new CIO visit our office. He said "don't worry there will be no layoffs". Two week later they started and shortly the whole office was gone.
• a3n 9y ago
  When senior people that you have a personal relationship with, who are no higher than first level managers and not necessarily managers at all, tell you that the company is dying. Been there twice.
• bpyne 9y ago
  A good bellwether for a startup is the sales force. They leave when there is no more money-making opportunity. (Of course, a startup can still pivot to uncover opportunity.)
• vimarshk 9y ago
  Sales = Company health When the company is not able to make $$ due to bad product, employee turnaround, Sales or culture it is in bad health.
• dev360 9y ago
  I would look at Culture and Financial. A lot of other things are fixable.
• Maro 9y ago
  A simple one is growth. If you're at a startup, it needs to grow. If growth isn't what it should be, it's decelerating, or it's zero, that's trouble. Wait for 6-12 months (depending on size and stability of company), if it's not improving, start looking for other options.
• HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
  Generally, when a paycheck bounces, it's a bad sign. Now, in my experience, the company didn't die for another year after the bounced paychecks, but it was definitely writing on the wall!
• Apocryphon 9y ago
  Cutting vacation days was mentioned. I'm wondering if switching from fixed vacation days to unlimited is also a sign of penny-pinching.
• gagabity 9y ago
  They ask you for a list of all the passwords you control.
• SFJulie 9y ago
  turn over. A "normal turn over" in IT is 10% In normal companies it is less. If more, flee.
• TuringNYC 9y ago
  For public companies, it can be an easier task: - If executive insiders are buying stock: a good sign! - If executive insiders are selling stock: could be a good or bad sign (e.g., they might sell because they are purchasing a house.) - If executive insiders are selling everything: very bad sign
• BurningFrog 9y ago
  No news is bad news. If you stop hearing about new developments, the reality is almost certainly bad. Looking back to a few layoffs, that was a common sign. I think I can spot it next time.
• JensRantil 9y ago
  I work at a startup and every second week we run an anonymous https://www.menti.com https://www.menti.com where all emplyees get to vote between 1-9 how happy they are at work. It's a simple metric that gives management some insight about how the company is going.
• dreamcompiler 9y ago
  One indicator I use is the bullshit level and its derivatives. You can define bullshit any way you like; my definition is "activity that adds no value to the company, or (worse) actively impedes people who are adding value to the company." If the bullshit level is high, I think about leaving. If the first derivative of the bullshit level is also positive (bullshit is increasing) I lean heavily toward leaving. (If the first derivative is negative, the company might be healthy and pivoting after a setback.) If both the first and the second derivatives of bullshit are positive (bullshit is not only increasing but accelerating) it's time to leave immediately.
• NirDremer 9y ago
  When evaluating startups there are few key matrices - financial stability - most notably runway. Taking funding and # of employees can give you a rough sense of things - key people churn - business traction graph - depending on the market you are in you can get some sense through similarweb and the likes We took it to the next level at Yodas and provide detailed analysis. We help individuals make better, more informed career decisions.
• chrismealy 9y ago
  I'm reading a lot of these answers and they could be describing companies that are hugely profitable and growing. Profitable companies cut back on coffee, have high turnover, cynical employees etc. It really doesn't matter. Any company can blow up at any time due to fraud or mergers or whatever. You might get fired because your boss might want to replace you with their old college roommate. Or the CEO decides to kill your whole division because they're chasing some dumb fad.
  • vitaminbandit 9y ago
    And extremely fit people sometimes go on diets. But generally, someone on a diet isn't likely to be extremely fit.
• mruniverse 9y ago
  CFO left a year after IPO. Then we had things that seemed like busy work.
• aey 9y ago
  Free food :). The last Fortune 500 I worked at the number of meetings with food provided was highly correlated with how well the stock performed durring earning.