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This makes no sense. If you have low achievers, your job as a manager is to deal with them. It is not as though you can’t PIP someone as needed. Forcing it at a

This makes no sense. If you have low achievers, your job as a manager is to deal with them. It is not as though you can’t PIP someone as needed. Forcing it at a certain rate is just unnecessary and creates terrible incentives.

sidlls 8y ago
And if his management doesn't support that sort of approach or developing his team or hiring well (support with resources not just verbal agreement)?
michaelt 8y ago
Presumably the aim of forced attrition is to take managers who are firing grade D performers and retaining grade C performers, and turn them into managers who fire grade C performers. Of course, it's pretty questionable whether it achieves that aim - one would think it encourages managers to keep incompetent employees around as buffer.
dumbfoundded 8y ago
Forcing a certain rate definitely makes sense if you're large enough and have the data to back it. If you're a small dev team with 10 people, it's possible everyone's doing great. If you have 20,000 devs, it's unlikely. You know the % of bad hires over a long enough time period. Forcing the rate often forces managers to disregard emotional connections to make the best business decisions. It sucks but you have to remember a company has no loyalty to you anymore. You should show it the same.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  Except in all cases it's a small team. The company with 20,000 devs still imposes this on each individual team. You just have every small team doing it. It's a disaster and it makes no sense. I very firmly believe this, but I have created zero successful companies, and Jeff Bezos has created the most successful company that the world has ever seen, so there's that. It does seem like Microsoft became far more successful after they did away with their famously bad similar policy, so maybe Amazon would be even more successful than they already are if they valued their employees a bit ;)

sidlls 8y ago

And if his management doesn't support that sort of approach or developing his team or hiring well (support with resources not just verbal agreement)?

michaelt 8y ago

Presumably the aim of forced attrition is to take managers who are firing grade D performers and retaining grade C performers, and turn them into managers who fire grade C performers. Of course, it's pretty questionable whether it achieves that aim - one would think it encourages managers to keep incompetent employees around as buffer.

dumbfoundded 8y ago

Forcing a certain rate definitely makes sense if you're large enough and have the data to back it. If you're a small dev team with 10 people, it's possible everyone's doing great. If you have 20,000 devs, it's unlikely. You know the % of bad hires over a long enough time period. Forcing the rate often forces managers to disregard emotional connections to make the best business decisions. It sucks but you have to remember a company has no loyalty to you anymore. You should show it the same.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago
Except in all cases it's a small team. The company with 20,000 devs still imposes this on each individual team. You just have every small team doing it. It's a disaster and it makes no sense. I very firmly believe this, but I have created zero successful companies, and Jeff Bezos has created the most successful company that the world has ever seen, so there's that. It does seem like Microsoft became far more successful after they did away with their famously bad similar policy, so maybe Amazon would be even more successful than they already are if they valued their employees a bit ;)