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The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. This is a combination of legal (threat of wrongful t

The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. This is a combination of legal (threat of wrongful termination lawsuits, COBRA) and cultural (nobody likes to feel like a jerk boss, morale problems among the remaining employees). The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. That creates a major roadblock for entry-level employees. No matter how much formal training somebody's had, they've still never actually performed the role before. That makes it substantially riskier that they won't fit. Even just a couple years of experience is a credible signal that the person has basic competence in the actual job. What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. In the olden days we'd call this an "apprentice". Today it might be an "intern", but the general expectation is that only applies to very young workers- not those reskilling to make a lateral move.

noneeeed 6y ago
The concept of the apprentice has come back into vogue here in the UK. It doesn't work eveywhere, but I know a couple of firms who bring in cohorts of apprentices in the same way they do with graduates. They use a local company to do the first few months of training and then have a continuous development programme. A friend is a senior manager at one of them and he loves it, he's been really impressed with the calibre of the apprentices and how quickly they've picked things up.
save_ferris 6y ago
> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. In the olden days we'd call this an "apprentice". Today it might be an "intern", but the general expectation is that only applies to very young workers- not those respelling or making a lateral move. I agree that this is a good idea, but the market won't accommodate this kind of labor change without government help. Employers have been able to shift responsibility for training off onto other organizations (i.e. coding bootcamps) to get individuals trained and prepared for jobs. Nowadays, workers themselves largely have to bear the financial burden of training in hopes that they land a good-paying job. What you're suggesting essentially places the financial burden of training and skill development back on companies through apprenticeship programs. That's not going to happen voluntarily.
- gwright 6y ago
  > I agree that this is a good idea, but the market won't accommodate this kind of labor change without government help. Why do you think that? It seems to me it is the government that is creating the financial and legal risk of hiring the wrong person or the base cost of hiring an unskilled laborer. You also seem to be thinking about a subset of jobs that require some sort of advanced training/skills. But things like a universal minimum wage are examples of government regulation that increase the cost of labor for even the most basic of jobs.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  If that is the case, why are internship positions still so popular? It's a great way for a company to "try out" new employees, and get them up to speed before actually hiring them. I know lots of places offer internships.
searine 6y ago
Companies need to get over themselves. Employees, particularly new employees, shouldn't be expected to 'hit the ground running' in every circumstance. It is unfair to the employee to have no expectation of on-the-job training. Morale is an issue. The constant understaffing and overwork of current employment is often much more taxing than a bad hire. Yes, a bad hire can have a spoiler effect but in those circumstances it is worth the paperwork to remove them. I argue that an indecisive manager who refuses to do the work necessary to manage and staff for the need is far more detrimental than one lower level employee. Employment regulations protect employees, not the company, and for good reason. Removing them is not going to make it easier for job-seekers, it just makes it easier to exploit them.
lytefm 6y ago
> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. I'd usually call this a „trainee”. > The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. You haven't mentioned the „lost” time for other developers. Unless the hiring company has a very efficient onboarding process, any new and „bad” hire will cost _a lot_ in terms of productivity. Some people are certainly able to contribute meaningfully after a 3 month bootcamp and continue their self-study on the job. But many just won't cut it in an environment where everyone else had a 3 year acadamic/vocational training or other meaningful experience before even being considered as a hire.
sjg007 6y ago
This single bad hire myth needs to die. It's just simply not true. Organizations should have feedback loops in place to monitor and mitigate the issue. And if you don't, then the person doing the hiring should take on that responsibility. This is the cost of doing business and should be factored in. Transactional employment exists in FAANGs and other big tech. They are called contractors.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  Can’t up-vote this enough. The myth is just laziness in not wanting to have hard conversations and establish feedback that corrects behavior or fills gaps in skill sets. Invest in your people. That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home that they are unaware of how it’s affecting them. That “bad apple” could have a grievance no one is willing to listen to. That “bad apple” could have a better idea that was shutdown during an “open discussion” meeting. Before you go and point the finger at the new hire, it’s best to fully examine yourself.
  - mreome 6y ago
    I fully agree on-the-job training should be much more common, especially in larger companies, and in many fields you can end up with a better fit by just training someone in exactly what you need rather then trying to find someone who knows it all already. That being said, I have firsthand experience hiring/training/supervising in fields that are almost entirely on-the-job training, and it can be very difficult to determine if a potential new-hire will learn well, and you will always have more then a few new-hires who will still struggle with the most basic aspects of the job even after many weeks of hand-holding. > That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home Dealing with this is a potential minefield from a legal perspective though. The answer you get here could very well suggest an abusive domestic situation, suicidal feelings, or worse. You need someone with special training to even ask this question. Once asked, at best the answer is usually something you can’t do anything about, at worst it’s something you ethically have to do something about that involves police or lawyers. Within that, you have a whole class of answers that you cannot do anything about, but also put you in a position where should you need to terminate the employee afterwards for ANY reason, you leave yourself open to wrongful termination suites. To be clear -- I'm not saying this is how it should be; I would much prefer to live in a world where everyone looked out for everyone else, but a business (especially a public company) can't base it's policies on an ideal world, they have to base their policies on the litigious/capitalist framework they currently exist in. The whole equation is different between a new-hire vs long-term employee of course, but it’s never without risk. > have a grievance … was shutdown These are more nuanced, and the exact situation/details would matter, but unless they were shut-down in a unprofessional way, or the grievance is a serious issue from the business’s perspective, a new-hire not doing their job just because they are upset about something like this is a pretty big red-flag in my book. These things happen to everyone, in every company, at some point. It would be worth having a discussion with the employee about it, but from my experience, this is a personality trait, and not a behavioral issue that can easily be changed.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
> The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. This used to be the the way people thought, but the trend I've seen is it's becoming more and more common to just continuously fire people. In my last two jobs at very different companies it was pretty insane the rate that good employees got fired based on "culture mismatch" related issues. Amazon and Netflix have basically normalized PIP culture at larger places, where the strategy is basically hire like crazy and then find a reason to pip anyone you don't like. The most recent startup I was at was absurdly trigger happy, gleefully firing anyone that wasn't able to read the minds of "leadership" or in anyways challenged the status quo (even if they were supposed hired to do just that). It used to be my experience that anyone who was let go within a year was obviously a bad hire to anyone at the company. Now I see constant confusion among employees about why some of their favorite coworkers are being let go. Maybe I'm just unlucky in places I've been recently, or very lucky about places I've been before, but it certainly looks like a strange shift in the environment.
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  Believe it or not, there is no legal precedent or basis around Performance Improvement Plans. Their use as some kind of magic lawsuit shield hasn’t been tested in any court, ever, by anyone, and it has no basis, especially those words “performance improvement plan,” in any law or regulation, at least in California, Delaware or Georgia (some places I’ve checked before). “PIP culture” is more like “PIP cargo cult.”
  - mreome 6y ago
    > Their use as some kind of magic lawsuit shield hasn’t been tested in any court, ever, by anyone. If nobody is even willing to take it to court to try to test it, then it sounds like it is working as an amazingly effective lawsuit shield to me. No company wants to defend anything in court, they want to never go to court. I don’t think there really is anything to test in court here though. In the US generally all an employer needs to show is that an employee was fired for a valid job-related-reason of some kind, and not for the quite narrow set of reasons that would make it illegal. All a PIP does is make sure managers/supervisors are documenting reasons properly, while at the same time showing the employee that they have documented reasons that they would show should it ever go to court. Plus, the added benefit of being able to tell the court “See, we even tried to help them improve before we fired them.” Unless the employee has unambiguous hard evidence of an “actual” reason for firing that was not legal, then there really is nothing to take to court. That all applies to non-contract employment in US only of course, and I am not familiar with all states just those I have worked in, so there could be some states where it’s more complicated.
jjav 6y ago
> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover In the USA (based on COBRA mention I assume you're in the USA) employees can be let go for no reason whatsoever effective immediately and without any notice. There can't possibly exist a "lighter regulatory barrier" than that!
- mreome 6y ago
  I think the biggest cost isn't termination itself, but rather the paperwork/overhead involving with a new full-time employee combined with the risk of wrongful termination lawsuits. Even if such a lawsuit is entirely baseless, it takes time and money to deal with. It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. You avoid all the new-hire overhead, and you can always renew someone's contract for another six months, but if/when you want to let them go you just let the contract end and that's it.
  - jjav 6y ago
    > It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. I don't know that they do, at least not here in Silicon Valley. Finding short-term and/or part-time contract/consulting roles is difficult. I did consulting here for a few years (2017-18) and it was a challenge since companies only want regular full time employees. Eventually I quit swimming against the current and went back to a full time role.
    - mreome 6y ago
      I've always been under the impression that the norms in Silicon Valley are often different from the rest of the country, so that's not surprising. My experience is limited to the North-East/East-Coast though, so it's possible that this is a more regional thing, or possibly even specific to the industries I work in. It's possible that state-level laws come into play here too. For example the fact that non-competes are not enforceable in California, where they are generally enforceable on the East-Coast could be a factor in the kind of relationships companies favor.

noneeeed 6y ago

The concept of the apprentice has come back into vogue here in the UK. It doesn't work eveywhere, but I know a couple of firms who bring in cohorts of apprentices in the same way they do with graduates. They use a local company to do the first few months of training and then have a continuous development programme. A friend is a senior manager at one of them and he loves it, he's been really impressed with the calibre of the apprentices and how quickly they've picked things up.

save_ferris 6y ago

> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. In the olden days we'd call this an "apprentice". Today it might be an "intern", but the general expectation is that only applies to very young workers- not those respelling or making a lateral move. I agree that this is a good idea, but the market won't accommodate this kind of labor change without government help. Employers have been able to shift responsibility for training off onto other organizations (i.e. coding bootcamps) to get individuals trained and prepared for jobs. Nowadays, workers themselves largely have to bear the financial burden of training in hopes that they land a good-paying job. What you're suggesting essentially places the financial burden of training and skill development back on companies through apprenticeship programs. That's not going to happen voluntarily.

gwright 6y ago
> I agree that this is a good idea, but the market won't accommodate this kind of labor change without government help. Why do you think that? It seems to me it is the government that is creating the financial and legal risk of hiring the wrong person or the base cost of hiring an unskilled laborer. You also seem to be thinking about a subset of jobs that require some sort of advanced training/skills. But things like a universal minimum wage are examples of government regulation that increase the cost of labor for even the most basic of jobs.
dahfizz 6y ago
If that is the case, why are internship positions still so popular? It's a great way for a company to "try out" new employees, and get them up to speed before actually hiring them. I know lots of places offer internships.

searine 6y ago

Companies need to get over themselves. Employees, particularly new employees, shouldn't be expected to 'hit the ground running' in every circumstance. It is unfair to the employee to have no expectation of on-the-job training. Morale is an issue. The constant understaffing and overwork of current employment is often much more taxing than a bad hire. Yes, a bad hire can have a spoiler effect but in those circumstances it is worth the paperwork to remove them. I argue that an indecisive manager who refuses to do the work necessary to manage and staff for the need is far more detrimental than one lower level employee. Employment regulations protect employees, not the company, and for good reason. Removing them is not going to make it easier for job-seekers, it just makes it easier to exploit them.

lytefm 6y ago

> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover as well as more relaxed cultural expectations about job security. I'd usually call this a „trainee”. > The biggest thing from the employer side is that the cost of a single bad hire can be potentially enormous. You haven't mentioned the „lost” time for other developers. Unless the hiring company has a very efficient onboarding process, any new and „bad” hire will cost _a lot_ in terms of productivity. Some people are certainly able to contribute meaningfully after a 3 month bootcamp and continue their self-study on the job. But many just won't cut it in an environment where everyone else had a 3 year acadamic/vocational training or other meaningful experience before even being considered as a hire.

sjg007 6y ago

This single bad hire myth needs to die. It's just simply not true. Organizations should have feedback loops in place to monitor and mitigate the issue. And if you don't, then the person doing the hiring should take on that responsibility. This is the cost of doing business and should be factored in. Transactional employment exists in FAANGs and other big tech. They are called contractors.

gabereiser 6y ago
Can’t up-vote this enough. The myth is just laziness in not wanting to have hard conversations and establish feedback that corrects behavior or fills gaps in skill sets. Invest in your people. That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home that they are unaware of how it’s affecting them. That “bad apple” could have a grievance no one is willing to listen to. That “bad apple” could have a better idea that was shutdown during an “open discussion” meeting. Before you go and point the finger at the new hire, it’s best to fully examine yourself.
- mreome 6y ago
  I fully agree on-the-job training should be much more common, especially in larger companies, and in many fields you can end up with a better fit by just training someone in exactly what you need rather then trying to find someone who knows it all already. That being said, I have firsthand experience hiring/training/supervising in fields that are almost entirely on-the-job training, and it can be very difficult to determine if a potential new-hire will learn well, and you will always have more then a few new-hires who will still struggle with the most basic aspects of the job even after many weeks of hand-holding. > That “bad apple” may have some things going on at home Dealing with this is a potential minefield from a legal perspective though. The answer you get here could very well suggest an abusive domestic situation, suicidal feelings, or worse. You need someone with special training to even ask this question. Once asked, at best the answer is usually something you can’t do anything about, at worst it’s something you ethically have to do something about that involves police or lawyers. Within that, you have a whole class of answers that you cannot do anything about, but also put you in a position where should you need to terminate the employee afterwards for ANY reason, you leave yourself open to wrongful termination suites. To be clear -- I'm not saying this is how it should be; I would much prefer to live in a world where everyone looked out for everyone else, but a business (especially a public company) can't base it's policies on an ideal world, they have to base their policies on the litigious/capitalist framework they currently exist in. The whole equation is different between a new-hire vs long-term employee of course, but it’s never without risk. > have a grievance … was shutdown These are more nuanced, and the exact situation/details would matter, but unless they were shut-down in a unprofessional way, or the grievance is a serious issue from the business’s perspective, a new-hire not doing their job just because they are upset about something like this is a pretty big red-flag in my book. These things happen to everyone, in every company, at some point. It would be worth having a discussion with the employee about it, but from my experience, this is a personality trait, and not a behavioral issue that can easily be changed.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago

> The rule of thumb among managers is don't hire anybody unless you're 90% sure they'll work out for at least a year. This used to be the the way people thought, but the trend I've seen is it's becoming more and more common to just continuously fire people. In my last two jobs at very different companies it was pretty insane the rate that good employees got fired based on "culture mismatch" related issues. Amazon and Netflix have basically normalized PIP culture at larger places, where the strategy is basically hire like crazy and then find a reason to pip anyone you don't like. The most recent startup I was at was absurdly trigger happy, gleefully firing anyone that wasn't able to read the minds of "leadership" or in anyways challenged the status quo (even if they were supposed hired to do just that). It used to be my experience that anyone who was let go within a year was obviously a bad hire to anyone at the company. Now I see constant confusion among employees about why some of their favorite coworkers are being let go. Maybe I'm just unlucky in places I've been recently, or very lucky about places I've been before, but it certainly looks like a strange shift in the environment.

an_opabinia 6y ago
Believe it or not, there is no legal precedent or basis around Performance Improvement Plans. Their use as some kind of magic lawsuit shield hasn’t been tested in any court, ever, by anyone, and it has no basis, especially those words “performance improvement plan,” in any law or regulation, at least in California, Delaware or Georgia (some places I’ve checked before). “PIP culture” is more like “PIP cargo cult.”
- mreome 6y ago
  > Their use as some kind of magic lawsuit shield hasn’t been tested in any court, ever, by anyone. If nobody is even willing to take it to court to try to test it, then it sounds like it is working as an amazingly effective lawsuit shield to me. No company wants to defend anything in court, they want to never go to court. I don’t think there really is anything to test in court here though. In the US generally all an employer needs to show is that an employee was fired for a valid job-related-reason of some kind, and not for the quite narrow set of reasons that would make it illegal. All a PIP does is make sure managers/supervisors are documenting reasons properly, while at the same time showing the employee that they have documented reasons that they would show should it ever go to court. Plus, the added benefit of being able to tell the court “See, we even tried to help them improve before we fired them.” Unless the employee has unambiguous hard evidence of an “actual” reason for firing that was not legal, then there really is nothing to take to court. That all applies to non-contract employment in US only of course, and I am not familiar with all states just those I have worked in, so there could be some states where it’s more complicated.

jjav 6y ago

> What we need is another category of transitional employment, with both much lighter regulatory barriers to turnover In the USA (based on COBRA mention I assume you're in the USA) employees can be let go for no reason whatsoever effective immediately and without any notice. There can't possibly exist a "lighter regulatory barrier" than that!

mreome 6y ago
I think the biggest cost isn't termination itself, but rather the paperwork/overhead involving with a new full-time employee combined with the risk of wrongful termination lawsuits. Even if such a lawsuit is entirely baseless, it takes time and money to deal with. It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. You avoid all the new-hire overhead, and you can always renew someone's contract for another six months, but if/when you want to let them go you just let the contract end and that's it.
- jjav 6y ago
  > It's the reason so many companies prefer contractors to short-term full-time employees. I don't know that they do, at least not here in Silicon Valley. Finding short-term and/or part-time contract/consulting roles is difficult. I did consulting here for a few years (2017-18) and it was a challenge since companies only want regular full time employees. Eventually I quit swimming against the current and went back to a full time role.
  - mreome 6y ago
    I've always been under the impression that the norms in Silicon Valley are often different from the rest of the country, so that's not surprising. My experience is limited to the North-East/East-Coast though, so it's possible that this is a more regional thing, or possibly even specific to the industries I work in. It's possible that state-level laws come into play here too. For example the fact that non-competes are not enforceable in California, where they are generally enforceable on the East-Coast could be a factor in the kind of relationships companies favor.