3 ms·

Have you heard of hire to fire? When there's an incentive to game a metric, the metric gets gamed.

by safog 5y ago

habibur 5y ago
Valid point. The system can be gamed.
- arkitaip 5y ago
  Not can, actively is. If you as as manager know that you have to fire x% of your employees no matter how good they are as a whole, you are always going to hire certain people just so you can fire them in order to protect your most valued people. Also, because each hire costs thousands of dollars, the company is literally wasting millions each year because Bezos had this dangerously ignorant and dehumanizing idea that people - except himself of course - are lazy so they need to be terrorized into being productive by firing a certain percentage of the employees. Ultimately, it damages not just Amazon's brand as a employer, it reflects poorly on Amazon employees and managers for going along with this charade.
  - danuker 5y ago
    > you are always going to hire certain people just so you can fire them in order to protect your most valued people. Wouldn't the most valued people get retained at the end, whether the new hires were "hired to fire"? If so, a manager has no incentive to do bad hires.
    - mxvzr 5y ago
      My understanding is that even once the manager has filled their team with top performers they'll keep hiring every year for the sole purpose of firing them later in order to meet the quota
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      Uhh.. no. I don't know if you ever hired or fired anyone, but, in US at least, if you don't want your unemployment insurance to go up, you want to be able to prove that it was a firing for cause. Perversely, in Amazon case what this means that manager has to hire an employee just bad enough that the 'for cause' firing will be ready for him and he/she just needs to document it. I fail to understand how people do not see how this simple metric can be gamed. Am I the only person thinking in those weird terms imposed by the system?

Have you heard of hire to fire? When there's an incentive to game a metric, the metric gets gamed.

by safog 5y ago

Have you heard of hire to fire? When there's an incentive to game a metric, the metric gets gamed.

habibur 5y ago

Valid point. The system can be gamed.

arkitaip 5y ago
Not can, actively is. If you as as manager know that you have to fire x% of your employees no matter how good they are as a whole, you are always going to hire certain people just so you can fire them in order to protect your most valued people. Also, because each hire costs thousands of dollars, the company is literally wasting millions each year because Bezos had this dangerously ignorant and dehumanizing idea that people - except himself of course - are lazy so they need to be terrorized into being productive by firing a certain percentage of the employees. Ultimately, it damages not just Amazon's brand as a employer, it reflects poorly on Amazon employees and managers for going along with this charade.
- danuker 5y ago
  > you are always going to hire certain people just so you can fire them in order to protect your most valued people. Wouldn't the most valued people get retained at the end, whether the new hires were "hired to fire"? If so, a manager has no incentive to do bad hires.
  - mxvzr 5y ago
    My understanding is that even once the manager has filled their team with top performers they'll keep hiring every year for the sole purpose of firing them later in order to meet the quota
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    Uhh.. no. I don't know if you ever hired or fired anyone, but, in US at least, if you don't want your unemployment insurance to go up, you want to be able to prove that it was a firing for cause. Perversely, in Amazon case what this means that manager has to hire an employee just bad enough that the 'for cause' firing will be ready for him and he/she just needs to document it. I fail to understand how people do not see how this simple metric can be gamed. Am I the only person thinking in those weird terms imposed by the system?