4 ms·
The layoffs themselves may not be caused by individual performance, but from the employees perspective the two may not be unrelated. At some point the manager h
by d2viant 16y ago
The layoffs themselves may not be caused by individual performance, but from the employees perspective the two may not be unrelated. At some point the manager has to justify the question "Why Person A over Person B?"...and that's when individual performance is likely to enter the equation.
- gamble 16y agoBecause Person A is paid more than B, is older, lacks a critical skill or difficult-to-replace experience, has less seniority, has distracting family obligations where B is single, or maybe A just doesn't have as warm a personal relationship with the manager as Person B. There are plenty of bad reasons A might get the boot. And that's assuming the manager has any discretion. Often it's whole departments that get cut, for purely financial reasons. Considering how many posts there are on HN about how difficult it is to measure performance, I'd be skeptical just how well the average company can rank performance, especially amidst the stress and time constraints of a large layoff.
- gaius 16y agoIt doesn't work like that. The CEO decides, we need to lay some people off. The CFO decides how many. The senior management work out they need so many of this job title, so many of that job title afterwards. Then HR makes a list based on their #1 priority: not getting sued. Which means that if all your COBOL developers happen to be $minority, and your company is getting out of COBOL, then most of them are probably safe. Basically the people who make the decisions are several layers removed from anyone who would have day-to-day knowledge of you or your work. It really is nothing personal.