3 ms·

The implication being that targeted layoffs are less damaging to morale than getting rid of free soda?

gwbas1c 4y ago
When someone impacts morale, forcing a team to work with that person is highly damaging. The managers all knew who these people were, so they could have given them severance without calling it a layoff. I'm mostly referring to a situation where everyone else would have been relieved instead of spooked.
- t-3 4y ago
  Severance may come with it's own difficulties: state unemployment payments, contractual obligations, bureaucratic overhead, manager pushback. I think leadership-oriented types tend to esteem headcount the way nerds esteem CPU core count and frequency - up is fine, down is not acceptable unless you're absolutely forced. Neither is a really rational position, but they overall tend not to be too detrimental so there's no widespread change.
  - candiodari 4y ago
    I've been railroaded into manager hiring, at a huge company everyone knows, and so I've gone over the manager hiring documentation. Assuming you don't fuck up the interview, the level you get hired at as a manager ... is directly related to the number of reports you claimed to have had at your previous position (there is some verification, but nothing "real"). It's not the only factor, but it's by far the most important. Managers fight over headcount because it directly affects their personal ... everything. Career, money, power, ... all are dependent on headcount ("number of reports").
  - titanomachy 4y ago
    If you have 100 useless employees and you offer them each $50k to leave of their own volition, you will reduce the number of bad employees and save money. You won't have any legal obligations because they're leaving on their own. This is how it works at various big, powerful tech companies (although the severance offer often comes with a "performance improvement plan" as the alternative, a bit of a carrot/stick situation which usually gets people out the door pretty quick).
  - llampx 4y ago
    Where your comparison falls apart is that every nerd knows that you can't run all cores at 100% all the time, that's just wasteful.. thus underclocking and shutting off cores when not in use is part of every modern processor.
the_af 4y ago
Targeted layoffs of people everyone complains about because they are bad at their jobs and also terrible as team mates sends a way better signal than keeping them and removing perks from employees who do work.
- camdenreslink 4y ago
  Management frequently can't tell the difference.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
In my experience, unless you lay off a key person, layoffs tend to generate a lot of drama for a day or two and then things quiet down. It's a short, temporary pain that hopefully can be justified with real numbers. Cutting perks signals a permanent change in how they approach things like that, and is really hard to justify since in every single case I've seen it, perk cutoff is highly targeted at the rank and file and execs still get catered lunches during meetings, etc.
notatoad 4y ago
i think that's pretty unambiguously true. unproductive co-workers getting paid the same as productive ones is terrible for morale.

When someone impacts morale, forcing a team to work with that person is highly damaging. The managers all knew who these people were, so they could have given them severance without calling it a layoff. I'm mostly referring to a situation where everyone else would have been relieved instead of spooked.

t-3 4y ago
Severance may come with it's own difficulties: state unemployment payments, contractual obligations, bureaucratic overhead, manager pushback. I think leadership-oriented types tend to esteem headcount the way nerds esteem CPU core count and frequency - up is fine, down is not acceptable unless you're absolutely forced. Neither is a really rational position, but they overall tend not to be too detrimental so there's no widespread change.
- candiodari 4y ago
  I've been railroaded into manager hiring, at a huge company everyone knows, and so I've gone over the manager hiring documentation. Assuming you don't fuck up the interview, the level you get hired at as a manager ... is directly related to the number of reports you claimed to have had at your previous position (there is some verification, but nothing "real"). It's not the only factor, but it's by far the most important. Managers fight over headcount because it directly affects their personal ... everything. Career, money, power, ... all are dependent on headcount ("number of reports").
- titanomachy 4y ago
  If you have 100 useless employees and you offer them each $50k to leave of their own volition, you will reduce the number of bad employees and save money. You won't have any legal obligations because they're leaving on their own. This is how it works at various big, powerful tech companies (although the severance offer often comes with a "performance improvement plan" as the alternative, a bit of a carrot/stick situation which usually gets people out the door pretty quick).
- llampx 4y ago
  Where your comparison falls apart is that every nerd knows that you can't run all cores at 100% all the time, that's just wasteful.. thus underclocking and shutting off cores when not in use is part of every modern processor.

the_af 4y ago

Targeted layoffs of people everyone complains about because they are bad at their jobs and also terrible as team mates sends a way better signal than keeping them and removing perks from employees who do work.

camdenreslink 4y ago
Management frequently can't tell the difference.

ryanbrunner 4y ago

In my experience, unless you lay off a key person, layoffs tend to generate a lot of drama for a day or two and then things quiet down. It's a short, temporary pain that hopefully can be justified with real numbers. Cutting perks signals a permanent change in how they approach things like that, and is really hard to justify since in every single case I've seen it, perk cutoff is highly targeted at the rank and file and execs still get catered lunches during meetings, etc.

notatoad 4y ago

i think that's pretty unambiguously true. unproductive co-workers getting paid the same as productive ones is terrible for morale.