4 ms·
> False positives are a lot more damaging to a company compared to false negatives. This is accepted blindly as dogma in our industry but in my experience it's
by malvosenior 7y ago
> False positives are a lot more damaging to a company compared to false negatives.
This is accepted blindly as dogma in our industry but in my experience it's only the case if the company is dysfunctional and management is too weak to let poor performers go quickly. Being an effective leader means being able to hire and fire quickly. If you're open and honest about it, you don't have to do as much as much intense vetting up front which costs your team's time and filters out potentially great hires.
- HillaryBriss 7y agoBut, at least in California, don't employment laws make the firing process kind of slow and expensive?
- nanomonkey 7y agoCalifornia is an at-will work state, which means that either the employee or the company may terminate employment at any time, with or without cause or prior notice.
- oppositelock 7y agoHowever, CA has very strong worker protection laws, where the worker can incur a lot of legal costs for the employer by accusing them of violating those laws. For this reason, employers are reluctant to fire and more likely to offer a severance package to leave, in exchange for a general liability release. The company has to have all of its paperwork in order to terminate your employment or it'll be open to lawsuit. Anyone over 40, all women, all non-white people, all non-straight, and all people with medical issues or handicaps are a protected category in CA, and in firing them, the company has to show that those reasons were not involved. Put another way, it's really simple to fire a white, under 40, straight guy, but you have to be more careful with everyone else. The net effect it has is that firings are uncommon, and people hang around until the next round of layoffs, when a reason will be found to lay them off.
- rightbyte 7y agoThat has to be aweful for the employers? Key people can just disapear the next day. Is it comman to have a contracted x month notice?
- sgerenser 7y agoVery unusual in the United States outside of Director/Executive level roles. While there’s a “tradition” of giving two weeks notice before leaving it is almost never required. Leaving without notice might get you placed on a no-rehire list and have your former colleagues think you are a jerk, but beyond that no repercussions.
- yoz-y 7y agoDepending on the country that might not be that easy (in France you have basically 4 months to fire somebody and then you are screwed). Also, you have to include cost of on-boarding.
- fdjlasdfjl 7y ago4 months should be enough. If they aren't doing their best when on probation then they're an idiot, and if they're not doing well then how bad are they going to be after probation?
- sethammons 7y agoI disagree. We had a candidate talk the talk when we were experimenting with different interview methods. They came in and used a lot of team time to start learning the system and stack. And continued to use the team's time, costing real productivity. They lasted a quarter or so. Not only did the team lose out on productive time, they lost morale by having to support a team member who was not getting up to speed and had to have their work redone and an couple members lost more morale when the newer person was let go. It was a net loss to bring in the new poor performer. I've seen it play out similar more than enough to be convinced that the adage is accurate.