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While I know I could never make someone redundant personally, I do think the idea that you're owed a job at a company forever is wrong. As someone on the spectr

by kypro 8y ago

While I know I could never make someone redundant personally, I do think the idea that you're owed a job at a company forever is wrong. As someone on the spectrum, it's not always been easy for me to find work, and I have been made redundant in a similar manner to this in the past which wasn't an enjoyable experience. Still, at the time all I could do was express my appreciation that for a few years that company wanted my services enough to pay me a decent wage and that I thoroughly enjoyed my time working for said company. I understood my job was a risk to the company going forward and I held no hard feelings about the decision made to let me go. In a perfect world things like this wouldn't happen. Top employees would never leave for a better paying job, and you'd never have to let employees go to remain competitive. But this isn't a perfect world. We must prepare for the worst and hope for best while remembering to treat each other with as much respect, kindness, and understanding as possible. Whether or not these specific cuts were needed or sensible, I don't know. What I do know is that Tesla is a young company in a highly competitive space. Were I personally to take a job at Tesla I wouldn't expect to be there longer than a year - especially if I was a temp worker or contractor. Anyone who's worked at small, early stage startup in the past would know how this story goes. You often work harder and longer than you would at a more established slower moving company, you don't get the perks, and you're constantly worrying about whether or not you'll have a job next month. But it can also be very rewarding when things go well. These are the decisions you must weigh up as an employee when looking for work.

rocqua 8y ago
> I do think the idea that you're owed a job at a company forever is wrong. Forever, sure that is wrong. However, there is some expectation of constancy. Simply because people tend to make choices based on the status quo. What makes things worse is that signaling that lay-offs are coming, either for specific people or in general, really harms productivity. This is because people start infighting and lose morale. Hence, companies have reasons to announce these things late. This means it becomes harder to trust statements by employers about job security. When firing happens, this distrust is amplified.
ThePhysicist 8y ago
I think for a company the size of Tesla it would actually be beneficial to have a well-organized worker council and union through which the employees could negotiate with the board of directors when things like this happen. Often this results in a better solution for everyone. When the recession hit Germany in 2008 most large automotive companies were also faced with a massive decline in orders and were forced to aggressively cut costs. As employees in these companies are heavily unionized they of course protested against this and the worker council started negotiating with the board of directors. They found a solution by reducing the work hours for a large percentage of their workers (with an accompanied pay cut) instead of firing a smaller percentage of them, which allowed them to retain almost everyone and at the same time reduce costs. When the economy sped up again they were able to just increase the working hours again. This was great for the employees (as they didn't lose their jobs) but also for the companies, because they didn't have to find and train new employees after the crisis was over. I'm wondering why Tesla isn't considering something like this as I imagine there's a lot of training involved in many jobs at their factory, and it's probably very costly to rehire and retrain new employees when the growth picks up again. Just my 2 cents.
- 300bps 8y ago
  I’m wondering why Tesla isn’t considering something like this I’m thinking it’s because they aren’t firing people at random. They’re letting go their weakest performers. This is very common and has been encouraged in business for decades: https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-...
  - raesene9 8y ago
    That would imply that they're able to correctly identify their "weakest performers" with sufficient accuracy to do that. From what I've seen of large corp. performance appraisal systems, that's very rarely the case. Those systems tend to reward people who are good at self-promotion, not necessarily people who are good at their jobs.
  - collyw 8y ago
arkh 8y ago
Keeping some people even if they're "redundant" for some time can also be considered an investment in your workforce. You keep those people's experience so when activity go back up they're already there. And if you demonstrate some loyalty to your people you may get some in return.
- jbverschoor 8y ago
  Knowledge tranfer, getting people up to speed and hiring people also cost money
justinonthelam 8y ago
Kinda off topic, but I'm interested in learning more about your struggle to find work due to being on the spectrum. My team recently had someone with autism join us and beforehand we had a mini workshop where we learned about autism in general, and the challenges faced in the workplace by people with autism. The one fact that really stood out to me was that the majority of autistic people are unable to find full time employment. I'm usually a lurker on HN and don't see a way to send a private message, but if you're up for it, I'd love to exchange emails and learn more about your personal journey and challenges.

by kypro 8y ago

rocqua 8y ago

> I do think the idea that you're owed a job at a company forever is wrong. Forever, sure that is wrong. However, there is some expectation of constancy. Simply because people tend to make choices based on the status quo. What makes things worse is that signaling that lay-offs are coming, either for specific people or in general, really harms productivity. This is because people start infighting and lose morale. Hence, companies have reasons to announce these things late. This means it becomes harder to trust statements by employers about job security. When firing happens, this distrust is amplified.

ThePhysicist 8y ago

I think for a company the size of Tesla it would actually be beneficial to have a well-organized worker council and union through which the employees could negotiate with the board of directors when things like this happen. Often this results in a better solution for everyone. When the recession hit Germany in 2008 most large automotive companies were also faced with a massive decline in orders and were forced to aggressively cut costs. As employees in these companies are heavily unionized they of course protested against this and the worker council started negotiating with the board of directors. They found a solution by reducing the work hours for a large percentage of their workers (with an accompanied pay cut) instead of firing a smaller percentage of them, which allowed them to retain almost everyone and at the same time reduce costs. When the economy sped up again they were able to just increase the working hours again. This was great for the employees (as they didn't lose their jobs) but also for the companies, because they didn't have to find and train new employees after the crisis was over. I'm wondering why Tesla isn't considering something like this as I imagine there's a lot of training involved in many jobs at their factory, and it's probably very costly to rehire and retrain new employees when the growth picks up again. Just my 2 cents.

300bps 8y ago
I’m wondering why Tesla isn’t considering something like this I’m thinking it’s because they aren’t firing people at random. They’re letting go their weakest performers. This is very common and has been encouraged in business for decades: https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-employees-every-year.html https://www.inc.com/paul-b-brown/should-you-fire-10-of-your-...
- raesene9 8y ago
  That would imply that they're able to correctly identify their "weakest performers" with sufficient accuracy to do that. From what I've seen of large corp. performance appraisal systems, that's very rarely the case. Those systems tend to reward people who are good at self-promotion, not necessarily people who are good at their jobs.
- collyw 8y ago

arkh 8y ago

Keeping some people even if they're "redundant" for some time can also be considered an investment in your workforce. You keep those people's experience so when activity go back up they're already there. And if you demonstrate some loyalty to your people you may get some in return.

jbverschoor 8y ago
Knowledge tranfer, getting people up to speed and hiring people also cost money

justinonthelam 8y ago

Kinda off topic, but I'm interested in learning more about your struggle to find work due to being on the spectrum. My team recently had someone with autism join us and beforehand we had a mini workshop where we learned about autism in general, and the challenges faced in the workplace by people with autism. The one fact that really stood out to me was that the majority of autistic people are unable to find full time employment. I'm usually a lurker on HN and don't see a way to send a private message, but if you're up for it, I'd love to exchange emails and learn more about your personal journey and challenges.