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"Trimming fat" is a funny euphemism for sending people into unemployment.

• lotsofpulp 9y ago
  Not all people add value to an organization, and they might stop adding value too. Unfortunately, it's not possible to know this for sure prior to hiring, so the only realistic way to maintain the organization is with constant pruning.
  • mulmen 9y ago
    I think this is a bit of a fallacy. You don't have to always be firing some percentage of your workforce. While hiring the best is not easy and you may need to let people go you also shouldn't just constantly be on the hunt for the next head to chop. I have seen the effects of stack ranking and it's not pretty.
    • lotsofpulp 9y ago
      I don't mean to suggest that there needs to be a set percentage that must be fired at some set time interval, but I do think that new hires don't always work out, and people can change from being a value adder to a value detractor, especially once you get to the huge numbers of employees that some companies have. The process of evaluating the people that make up the organization should be under constant improvement though, and again, simply because of dealing with large numbers, there might be a few false positives, but on the whole as an organization, management should be on the lookout for who isn't performing.
      • mulmen 9y ago
        I disagree with the adversarial approach to management you seem to advocate at the end of your comment. I think it can create a toxic environment where management focuses on failures and ignores success. If someone has to be let go that is a failure at the management level or at the recruiting level and the goal should be to minimize it.
    • jandrese 9y ago
      Not always, but the opposite side of this is bloated organization that can't compete. Government positions often fall victim to this because they don't have to compete and it leads to a lot of waste. Like most things in life you need to strike a balance. Most managers hate firing people, even when they probably should. The person might be just the kindest sweetest person they know and maybe a friend but they're just not very good at their job. A big overall workforce cut gives them the excuse to fire the person without having to hurt feelings or look bad.
  • asveikau 9y ago
    It can be hard to correctly and objectively measure and determine who adds value and who does not. My experience in the workplace is that lots of people add value seemingly indirectly or through unexpected social connections that management is unaware of.
    • lotsofpulp 9y ago
      You're right, there is a balance to be struck. Just because we can't be 100% correct of the time objectively measuring who adds value and who does not, doesn't mean we should give up the endeavor. It also doesn't mean we should implement a policy of always cutting x% or people just because.
      • asveikau 9y ago
        Yep, just wanted remind of this. In today's corporate culture, people can get religious about performance reviews and ranking top people, and confuse it with the truth. In reality they just tend to favor one set of social biases at the expense of another, often to their own detriment.