8 ms·

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job.

by reuven 7y ago

I had a summer internship at HP while I was in college. (I graduated in 1992.) When I graduated, the assumption/expectation was that they would offer me a job. They hesitated, and a manager who was unusually nice to me explained that HP hires people who will stick around for many years -- and thus, they weighed every hire carefully. He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recession, everyone at HP -- all the way up and down the ladder -- worked 9 days out of 10, and took a 10% salary cut, in order to ensure that there wouldn't be any layoffs. People spoke about the company, and how it treated employees, with great pride, and the way that they treated workers during hard times was one major reason for that. If nothing else, I learned from these stories that the boss/owner should be paid last, after all of the employees receive their salaries. I've done that whenever I've had employees, and I credit that lesson not just to general business ethics, but to a sense that business is about much more than just profit. It's hard to imagine a modern company taking such steps to avoid layoffs, but the story continues to inspire me nearly 30 years later.

kristo 7y ago
I’m from Boise, where HP headquarters are. Many of my friends parents were laid off unceremoniously in 2008/9. There was a lot of resentment
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  HP was a different company by 2008. The HP Way had been replaced by the usual corporate abuse - good for the share price, bad for everyone else.
  - ricc 7y ago
    The hiring of Fiorina is a good marker when HP started to go downhill, and the 2008 recession was like the climax of this somewhat tragic story.
    - Junk_Collector 7y ago
      When Bill and Dave were finally out of the company there was a stark 180 in philosophy. You can always tell when management is about to do something sleezy in any of the HP spin offs (including HP) because they invoke the founder's to justify their obviously poor decisions. "I really think this is what Bill and Dave would have done"
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Was it really better for share price? Not short term, but long term. HP was very respected before, not so much latter.
    - SkyBelow 7y ago
      If your current investors want to pump the stocks up before using the pump to offload them into pension plans and the like, it makes sense.
    - IggleSniggle 7y ago
      Exactly! Short-term tactics are good for loot-and-plunder leadership, seldom for the business. And the market tends to be disproportionately interested in short term gains, so things can be antagonistically stacked against the business as an organization. After all, short-term is where the best combination of margins and flexibility lie.
senderista 7y ago
Thanks Carly.
- m0xte 7y ago
  Yeah Agilent took the HP way with them...
jve 7y ago
Hey, lately i'v read "The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company" and your story really resonates to what the founders said. Snippet: > We have always considered that we have a responsibility to our employees to plan our work so we can assure job continuity. We do not intend to have a "Hire 'em and fi re 'em" operation. This poses some serious considerations. One is always compelled to fi nd the most effi cient way to get a job done. At times it seems the most efficient way is to hire a group of people, work them as hard as possible, and when the job is fi nished, send them home. Well, even if this is the most efficient way, we have never operated in this manner. Bill and I do not feel this is the best way for a company like ours to operate. We have very rigid requirements of technical competence to maintain and rigid requirements in the quality of our equipment. This requires that we have and keep good people at all times. So we feel it is our responsibility to provide opportunity and job security to the best of our ability. This means specifically, sometimes we ask people to work overtime in order to meet customers' demands rather than hire additional people. While this is an imposition in a sense to our employees, it seems to be generally acceptable and we feel it is preferable to "hiring and firing." This is something you all need to understand as supervisors. https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-our-company-5634378 https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-...
- jcadam 7y ago
  It's sad. Most companies these days (to include HP) are hire and fire shops. All of them deny it. Want to know why my resume is full of 1-2 year stints? Because when a project is winding down I've learned to start looking for a new job - because it's the safe thing to do. Managers will tell you up until the day you get your layoff notice that your job is safe.
  - jermaustin1 7y ago
    At my last real job, the entire IT staff was getting laid off when the new CIO came in. One team after another and replaced with contractors. We knew in November of 2016 things weren't going to last. I was on the last IT team still employed. My manager was fighting tooth and nail to try and save at least some of us. But come February (3 months longer than other IT teams) the fight was over and he lost. We were all laid off. I was given 6 months severance + insurance if I would stay around for 1 month and do a knowledge transfer to the new team, one of the easiest decision of my life. The majority of the team were escorted off premises that day. Manager's boss helped everyone secure a new job (except 1 who just disappeared never to be heard from again), I got a contract gig for double the pay of that job. I still talk to everyone, and we are all in better positions today than we were there.
fastbeef 7y ago
Scania, the truck manufacturer, did this during 08-09. 10% paycut, 20% time reduction and they encouraged people to use the time to study and improve. None were laid off.
- _pmf_ 7y ago
  Much of this is not due to goodwill of owners, but unions.
  - vianneychevalie 7y ago
    Why not both?
  - simonh 7y ago
    These are specific examples, not general trends, so you should be able to cite evidence that these examples were due to union pressure.
    - ufmace 7y ago
      Note that union boosters tend to want to push the narrative that all business owners and managers are evil caricatures of greedy capitalists who wouldn't give workers anything but scraps if not for the valiant unions protecting them. Not saying it's never true, but know when to be wary of union people claiming this and avoiding the point that unions sometimes obstruct efforts to keep the company alive and not lay anyone off during hard times by demanding strict adherence to negotiated agreements on hours and wages.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    A pay cut would be an "over my dead body" issue for many unions. Edit: Since this apparently does not go without saying, the feedback loops in a union are all wrong for taking that kind of risk (remember, the pay cut does not guarantee company survival). People willing to rock the boat with calculated gambles like that do not rise to positions of authority in a union.
Havoc 7y ago
>the boss/owner should be paid last Yup. My dad is big on that too. Always thought he overplayed it, but one day he explained that the people he employs are quite poor. So if they don't get paid they can't put food on the table - literally. While he has a bit more of a buffer.
- bambataa 7y ago
  I guess that’s the downside of paying people as little as you can get away with.
  - Havoc 7y ago
    >I guess that’s the downside of paying people as little as you can get away with. Fair point I guess...to an extent. People somehow manage to live paycheque to paycheque regardless of the absolute number they get paid in my experience. In this particular case - it's in the context of 40% unemployment. So the market equilibrium is quite low.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      There's a definite threshold between "their responsibility" and "the economy's responsibility." I'd say generally the number at which you can no long afford to (a) put a roof over your head in a reasonably safe environment, (b) buy enough at the grocery to feed yourself and any dependents, (c) afford necessary medical care. When you're trying to figure out how to make your paycheck cover only those things, we're not talking about disposable income anymore.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  I have done this when companies I worked at where having difficulties, I volunteered to wait for my pay and prioritise other colleagues who had less of a buffer (single parents for example) Did mean in one case I had to take the hit when the company collapsed and claim via RB2 (this is in the UK) - of course it turned out that my employer had not been making my NI payments so no unemployment benefit for me.
eru 7y ago
> If nothing else, I learned from these stories that the boss/owner should be paid last, after all of the employees receive their salaries. That's exactly how equity works.
campfireveteran 7y ago
Yep. High CEO salary, especially in startups, is a big red flag. Typically, C-suite/founders in startups should be paid enough to live on or $0 if they're already rich.
ricc 7y ago
This is similar to how many German companies adapt with recessions. They even subsidise in-house trainings to keep their employee's skills up to date during the non-working days. I wish HP did the same reduce-work-hours scheme during the 2008 recession instead of the pay cuts w/o reducing the working hours. At least the pay cuts were voluntary but still...
bmj 7y ago
He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recession, everyone at HP -- all the way up and down the ladder -- worked 9 days out of 10, and took a 10% salary cut, in order to ensure that there wouldn't be any layoffs. I have a good friend who has helmed several very successful software companies. His philosophy is quite different: it is unfair to ask employees to work take a pay cut (and work more hours) when they could find another job that would potentially pay them more money. I'm not posting this to argue with the HP philosophy, but rather to point out that there are other ways for management to care about their employees. For the record, I stuck with my current employer through some hard times (forced furlough was the worst of it) because I appreciated what the leadership was doing, and believed in the goals of the organization.
- ahelwer 7y ago
  Doesn't pass the sniff test. Employees can find another job while working at the place they got a pay cut. Sorry to say but your friend might have terminal executive-brain.
- xondono 7y ago
  Well, they can always leave if they can find such another job. I'd love to been suggested that arrangement instead of the "We're sorry we are out of money" excuse I got (while the company was heavily spending in other stuff). 3 months later they "got a new client" and posted new job ads to hire back the positions (while swapping all senior positions with junior staff). What angers me about the situation is not that I was laid off, but that it was a decision only justifiable by focusing exclusively in the short term.
  - fleetingmoments 7y ago
    I'd much rather have a juicy severance package. If I leave out of my own volition I don't get the ~3 months' salary.
BrandoElFollito 7y ago
Dassault Systèmes is like that : the CEO publicly said during the 2008 crisis that layoffs would be the absolutely last thing happening. The company froze the salaries and he kept his promise.

by reuven 7y ago

kristo 7y ago

I’m from Boise, where HP headquarters are. Many of my friends parents were laid off unceremoniously in 2008/9. There was a lot of resentment

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
HP was a different company by 2008. The HP Way had been replaced by the usual corporate abuse - good for the share price, bad for everyone else.
- ricc 7y ago
  The hiring of Fiorina is a good marker when HP started to go downhill, and the 2008 recession was like the climax of this somewhat tragic story.
  - Junk_Collector 7y ago
    When Bill and Dave were finally out of the company there was a stark 180 in philosophy. You can always tell when management is about to do something sleezy in any of the HP spin offs (including HP) because they invoke the founder's to justify their obviously poor decisions. "I really think this is what Bill and Dave would have done"
- bluGill 7y ago
  Was it really better for share price? Not short term, but long term. HP was very respected before, not so much latter.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    If your current investors want to pump the stocks up before using the pump to offload them into pension plans and the like, it makes sense.
  - IggleSniggle 7y ago
    Exactly! Short-term tactics are good for loot-and-plunder leadership, seldom for the business. And the market tends to be disproportionately interested in short term gains, so things can be antagonistically stacked against the business as an organization. After all, short-term is where the best combination of margins and flexibility lie.

senderista 7y ago

Thanks Carly.

m0xte 7y ago
Yeah Agilent took the HP way with them...

jve 7y ago

Hey, lately i'v read "The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company" and your story really resonates to what the founders said. Snippet: > We have always considered that we have a responsibility to our employees to plan our work so we can assure job continuity. We do not intend to have a "Hire 'em and fi re 'em" operation. This poses some serious considerations. One is always compelled to fi nd the most effi cient way to get a job done. At times it seems the most efficient way is to hire a group of people, work them as hard as possible, and when the job is fi nished, send them home. Well, even if this is the most efficient way, we have never operated in this manner. Bill and I do not feel this is the best way for a company like ours to operate. We have very rigid requirements of technical competence to maintain and rigid requirements in the quality of our equipment. This requires that we have and keep good people at all times. So we feel it is our responsibility to provide opportunity and job security to the best of our ability. This means specifically, sometimes we ask people to work overtime in order to meet customers' demands rather than hire additional people. While this is an imposition in a sense to our employees, it seems to be generally acceptable and we feel it is preferable to "hiring and firing." This is something you all need to understand as supervisors. https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-our-company-5634378 https://gizmodo.com/the-hp-way-how-bill-hewlett-and-i-built-...

jcadam 7y ago
It's sad. Most companies these days (to include HP) are hire and fire shops. All of them deny it. Want to know why my resume is full of 1-2 year stints? Because when a project is winding down I've learned to start looking for a new job - because it's the safe thing to do. Managers will tell you up until the day you get your layoff notice that your job is safe.
- jermaustin1 7y ago
  At my last real job, the entire IT staff was getting laid off when the new CIO came in. One team after another and replaced with contractors. We knew in November of 2016 things weren't going to last. I was on the last IT team still employed. My manager was fighting tooth and nail to try and save at least some of us. But come February (3 months longer than other IT teams) the fight was over and he lost. We were all laid off. I was given 6 months severance + insurance if I would stay around for 1 month and do a knowledge transfer to the new team, one of the easiest decision of my life. The majority of the team were escorted off premises that day. Manager's boss helped everyone secure a new job (except 1 who just disappeared never to be heard from again), I got a contract gig for double the pay of that job. I still talk to everyone, and we are all in better positions today than we were there.

fastbeef 7y ago

Scania, the truck manufacturer, did this during 08-09. 10% paycut, 20% time reduction and they encouraged people to use the time to study and improve. None were laid off.

_pmf_ 7y ago
Much of this is not due to goodwill of owners, but unions.
- vianneychevalie 7y ago
  Why not both?
- simonh 7y ago
  These are specific examples, not general trends, so you should be able to cite evidence that these examples were due to union pressure.
  - ufmace 7y ago
    Note that union boosters tend to want to push the narrative that all business owners and managers are evil caricatures of greedy capitalists who wouldn't give workers anything but scraps if not for the valiant unions protecting them. Not saying it's never true, but know when to be wary of union people claiming this and avoiding the point that unions sometimes obstruct efforts to keep the company alive and not lay anyone off during hard times by demanding strict adherence to negotiated agreements on hours and wages.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  A pay cut would be an "over my dead body" issue for many unions. Edit: Since this apparently does not go without saying, the feedback loops in a union are all wrong for taking that kind of risk (remember, the pay cut does not guarantee company survival). People willing to rock the boat with calculated gambles like that do not rise to positions of authority in a union.

Havoc 7y ago

>the boss/owner should be paid last Yup. My dad is big on that too. Always thought he overplayed it, but one day he explained that the people he employs are quite poor. So if they don't get paid they can't put food on the table - literally. While he has a bit more of a buffer.

bambataa 7y ago
I guess that’s the downside of paying people as little as you can get away with.
- Havoc 7y ago
  >I guess that’s the downside of paying people as little as you can get away with. Fair point I guess...to an extent. People somehow manage to live paycheque to paycheque regardless of the absolute number they get paid in my experience. In this particular case - it's in the context of 40% unemployment. So the market equilibrium is quite low.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    There's a definite threshold between "their responsibility" and "the economy's responsibility." I'd say generally the number at which you can no long afford to (a) put a roof over your head in a reasonably safe environment, (b) buy enough at the grocery to feed yourself and any dependents, (c) afford necessary medical care. When you're trying to figure out how to make your paycheck cover only those things, we're not talking about disposable income anymore.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
I have done this when companies I worked at where having difficulties, I volunteered to wait for my pay and prioritise other colleagues who had less of a buffer (single parents for example) Did mean in one case I had to take the hit when the company collapsed and claim via RB2 (this is in the UK) - of course it turned out that my employer had not been making my NI payments so no unemployment benefit for me.

eru 7y ago

> If nothing else, I learned from these stories that the boss/owner should be paid last, after all of the employees receive their salaries. That's exactly how equity works.

campfireveteran 7y ago

Yep. High CEO salary, especially in startups, is a big red flag. Typically, C-suite/founders in startups should be paid enough to live on or $0 if they're already rich.

ricc 7y ago

This is similar to how many German companies adapt with recessions. They even subsidise in-house trainings to keep their employee's skills up to date during the non-working days. I wish HP did the same reduce-work-hours scheme during the 2008 recession instead of the pay cuts w/o reducing the working hours. At least the pay cuts were voluntary but still...

bmj 7y ago

He went further and said that several years before that, when there had been a recession, everyone at HP -- all the way up and down the ladder -- worked 9 days out of 10, and took a 10% salary cut, in order to ensure that there wouldn't be any layoffs. I have a good friend who has helmed several very successful software companies. His philosophy is quite different: it is unfair to ask employees to work take a pay cut (and work more hours) when they could find another job that would potentially pay them more money. I'm not posting this to argue with the HP philosophy, but rather to point out that there are other ways for management to care about their employees. For the record, I stuck with my current employer through some hard times (forced furlough was the worst of it) because I appreciated what the leadership was doing, and believed in the goals of the organization.

ahelwer 7y ago
Doesn't pass the sniff test. Employees can find another job while working at the place they got a pay cut. Sorry to say but your friend might have terminal executive-brain.
xondono 7y ago
Well, they can always leave if they can find such another job. I'd love to been suggested that arrangement instead of the "We're sorry we are out of money" excuse I got (while the company was heavily spending in other stuff). 3 months later they "got a new client" and posted new job ads to hire back the positions (while swapping all senior positions with junior staff). What angers me about the situation is not that I was laid off, but that it was a decision only justifiable by focusing exclusively in the short term.
- fleetingmoments 7y ago
  I'd much rather have a juicy severance package. If I leave out of my own volition I don't get the ~3 months' salary.

BrandoElFollito 7y ago

Dassault Systèmes is like that : the CEO publicly said during the 2008 crisis that layoffs would be the absolutely last thing happening. The company froze the salaries and he kept his promise.