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Not really. The people who will flee because of this will also flee because of layoffs and look for somewhere more secure. And everyone is acting like the best

Not really. The people who will flee because of this will also flee because of layoffs and look for somewhere more secure. And everyone is acting like the best employees are going to be the ones quitting. Nah, the best employees are highly engaged employees not ones that are technically talented but will flee just because they have to go to an office. Your most technically talented employees are often not your best employees nor your most valuable. They're important and expensive, but the person in ops that gets paid a low salary but knows the ins and outs of everything and knows how to troubleshoot everything to the point that stuff is fixed is vital. A software developer who is really smart can and will be replaced. There will be HR people working on retention of top employees as we speak. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/m-and-a/our-insights/talent-retention-and-selection-in-m-and-a https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/m-and-a/our-insi... gives an insight into this when it comes to M&As

watwut 4y ago
"Highly engaged employees" do actually leave when management does things like "intentionally trying to alienate and push employees away". People who are highly engaged want to be highly engaged and don't like changes that lowers engagement. Changes designed to alienate employees are alienating highly engaged employees as much as they alienate everyone else. Except that, if you are already alienated, you are used to it. When you used to be engaged, you perceive the change as very negative. Also, have you ever worked in a company affected by consultants like you suggest? They don't have capability to recognize or motivate good people .
shmatt 4y ago
The best employees at passing the average SV engineering interview loop will indeed leave. You better bet there is some amount of dead weight/low rated employees who have been interviewing around for there own reasons and haven't been getting any decent offers, so they just rest and vest. They'll happily return to office while the high performers get some $700k offer elsewhere This is exactly why Netflix decides to pay very nicely for you to quit, if you reach out to your manager about that. They don't want you to stay an extra year trying to pass hard interview loops elsewhere
bryanlarsen 4y ago
We had a great discussion about "The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free" a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31573108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31573108 It talks about employees that were very productive and happy hitting a stumbling block and suddenly realizing that "hey, this isn't the same place it used to be", and then leaving. Saying "no work from home" and "10% layoffs" are much bigger triggers for this than getting rid of free sodas.
alkonaut 4y ago
> Your most technically talented employees are often not your best employees nor your most valuable. They're important and expensive, but the person in ops that gets paid a low salary but knows the ins and outs of everything and knows how to troubleshoot everything to the point that stuff is fixed is vital Sounds like that ops guy should be paid more...

watwut 4y ago

"Highly engaged employees" do actually leave when management does things like "intentionally trying to alienate and push employees away". People who are highly engaged want to be highly engaged and don't like changes that lowers engagement. Changes designed to alienate employees are alienating highly engaged employees as much as they alienate everyone else. Except that, if you are already alienated, you are used to it. When you used to be engaged, you perceive the change as very negative. Also, have you ever worked in a company affected by consultants like you suggest? They don't have capability to recognize or motivate good people .

shmatt 4y ago

The best employees at passing the average SV engineering interview loop will indeed leave. You better bet there is some amount of dead weight/low rated employees who have been interviewing around for there own reasons and haven't been getting any decent offers, so they just rest and vest. They'll happily return to office while the high performers get some $700k offer elsewhere This is exactly why Netflix decides to pay very nicely for you to quit, if you reach out to your manager about that. They don't want you to stay an extra year trying to pass hard interview loops elsewhere

bryanlarsen 4y ago

We had a great discussion about "The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free" a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31573108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31573108 It talks about employees that were very productive and happy hitting a stumbling block and suddenly realizing that "hey, this isn't the same place it used to be", and then leaving. Saying "no work from home" and "10% layoffs" are much bigger triggers for this than getting rid of free sodas.

alkonaut 4y ago

> Your most technically talented employees are often not your best employees nor your most valuable. They're important and expensive, but the person in ops that gets paid a low salary but knows the ins and outs of everything and knows how to troubleshoot everything to the point that stuff is fixed is vital Sounds like that ops guy should be paid more...