10 ms·

"might be lay-offs in the next month or so, not sure... and don't know how many people will be impacted; stay tuned! In the meantime please keep doing your job

by skeeter2020 4y ago

"might be lay-offs in the next month or so, not sure... and don't know how many people will be impacted; stay tuned! In the meantime please keep doing your job as if nothing has changed." How would this be better? I saw first hand the damage caused by 4 hours between pre-announcing lay-offs and completing them. Weeks would mean the entire company comes to a stand-still. There is no "right" answer in this situation; it's a mistake to look for one. The distraction comes regardless and the goal of a decent leader is to minimize it while trying to be thoughtful to those leaving, but you're still taking away someone's job; you can't make that a positive experience.

rightbyte 4y ago
In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I don't think a sudden layoff at any time is an assurance for workers in the sense that it is better to pretend everything is Ok until it isn't.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  In many European countries, employees have to give notice periods before quitting. They can't just not show up and say I quit. I have seen one month per year of employment topping out at 6 months
  - meheleventyone 4y ago
    This is usually negotiable if you're leaving as well, it's not in the companies interest for the most part to keep you hanging around past wrapping current things up.
  - Frost1x 4y ago
    Outside of explicit contract law you may be tangled up in, the US doesn't have explicit law and most employees are classified as "at-will" (basically, dependent upon where the business views this freedom as beneficial or non-beneficial to itself). Since businesses haven't managed to lobby such legislation requirements in for workers to give notice (largely because at-will is typically beneficial to them) and just use contract law where it matters (public personalities, etc.) you can just show up and quit legally, without legal repercussions. With that said, cultural protections have been put into place under job history in the application process. If I were to show up and without a very good reason tell me employer I quit effective immediately, I can do so unlike the European cases described. But is this really freedom or an illusion of freedom? Many in the US are living paycheck-to-paycheck to survive. They're financially leveraged and can't really just quit, they need to line up an opportunity and have minimal savings to protect them. For them they can make the choice but it's a bad choice for them and most of the time they won't. Businesses know this and leverage it. The pandemic labor market offered a shift in this giving some bargaining power back to labor but it seems to be clawing right back to businesses again, probably for quite some time. In what are classified as more professional positions, you're expected to give 2-weeks notice. Many employers request references and if you're honest during your interview, leaving without notice in most cases will require a good explanation and a competent interviewer, otherwise you're a red flag no hire almost immediately and there's a pool of others behind you without said red flag. So, I could quit tomorrow, but I'd have to be very careful with my next employer as to how I go about referencing my previous work, why I left, etc. In most cases I can't really just show up and quit, I need to give notice and wait. Perhaps that's not as long as some European countries closer to the order of 4 weeks IIRC but it's not as free as it might appear to be for the majority of laborers.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Well that would have certainly given me motivation to leave my current job sooner. If I wait N months to quit, I have to stay here another month? Fuck it I’m out.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    And this is the other side of the coin. I personally wouldn’t want the tradeoff of lacking flexibility to leave.
- Closi 4y ago
  > In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I don't think a sudden layoff at any time is an assurance for workers in the sense that it is better to pretend everything is Ok until it isn't. It's important to note that this is typically a legal requirement (e.g. the requirement to consult prior to redundancy in the UK) rather than something typically done out of any good-will by the companies/employers.
- dvt 4y ago
  > In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I'm kind of tired of seeing this "well actually, in Europe..." -- there's a reason there's zero major tech innovation happening in Europe. There's a reason Google/FB/Netflix/etc. and 99% of other major software unicorns (save Spotify and handful of others) are from the US. To be successful as a company, you need to be nimble, not burn your runway with bureaucracy. Working for a startup is a risk and money, for the time being, is very tight.
  - LambdaComplex 4y ago
    So being successful as a company requires having the right/ability to screw over your employees at the drop of a hat?
  - etchalon 4y ago
    "Zero major tech innovation happening in Europe so long as you exclude every tech innovator in Europe." https://www.failory.com/startups/european-unicorns https://www.failory.com/startups/european-unicorns
    - humanwhosits 4y ago
      I looked at the list, it might be my US-centric bias but I'd only heard of 2 in that list before and they weren't big
      - etchalon 4y ago
        "might be"
      - OskarS 4y ago
        Ever heard of fucking Spotify?
        scarface74 4y ago
        You mean the low margin unprofitable company that is at the mercy of the record labels and their “product” is the equivalent of a minor division for Google, Amazon and Apple?
tupac_speedrap 4y ago
Plus you have the people resigning around the lay-offs. Nobody wants to be on a sinking ship and having your workmates sacked and morale at the company dropping can make people think about other opportunities.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
CEO: "Don't worry we are not planning any layoffs!" me: "Phew, OK realtor let's close on this new house purchase! It's a big investment but my future looks great!" <two weeks later> CEO: "I'm sorry but I was wrong and you are terminated effective immediately." Bank: "Congrats on your house purchase closing, your new monthly payment of $XXXX is due in two weeks!" How is THAT a better situation than warning people there could be instability ahead? People are being thrown completely under the bus with no warning.
- Frost1x 4y ago
  It's a matter of perspective. We have a culture that largely puts business interests above independent peoples interests. If you agree with this then it makes complete sense that it's better for the company because that employee might have been kept and we want to keep them stable. If we warn them, they might become a flight risk and we might not need to cut them. Information asymmetry is our friend so let's give them only the information that's beneficial to us. If on the other hand you take the perspective of supporting a bottom up independent worker interests above a business's (I fall in this category), then your point is quite valid. Information asymmetry here put me in a terrible situation, if you would have told me earlier, I might have made different decisions. That might not include leaving, but it might have included tidying up my resume and prepping for interviews, just-in-case. Maybe I follow through or maybe I just keep some backups lined up in case things go south. Some may just pass the risk back to the business and jump ship since they assume they have better odds doing this and may even get a promotion. Personally I don't believe any business leadership's words, I skim financials, I watch movements in the laborforce especially around management, I look at markets and make my own interpretation. I assume they're providing intentional incomplete information to their advantage and try to infer reality from that combined with the other data sources. Businesses are not your friends and will lie to you to their advantage above all else. I'm not a subscriber to Hanlon's razor when it comes to self-interest. What can typically be attributed to self-interest should be considered above incompetence, especially when looking at something as strategic and methodical as a modern business structure that have countless meetings to sit around and discuss and analyze these sorts of things or contract specialized skilled services in these domains.
joekrill 4y ago
It's not one extreme or the other. I don't know what was said exactly, but certainly there's some middle-ground - something along the lines of "right now we don't have any layoffs planned and we'll do everything we can to prevent any, but we can't predict the future, especially with the current state of the economy, so certainly can't make any promises".
bryan0 4y ago
> How would this be better? Don't lie to your employees. > There is no "right" answer in this situation There are better and worse answers though. Lying and/or being incompetent are terrible answers.
com2kid 4y ago
> How would this be better? I saw first hand the damage caused by 4 hours between pre-announcing lay-offs and completing them. Weeks would mean the entire company comes to a stand-still. I've worked at multiple companies where we had layoffs announced months in advance. That is the normal sane way of doing things. If it is does really competently, the company starts by offering a voluntary severance package (though that does tend to get rid of the best employees first...). Yes it sucks, but a transparently and competently run company will let everyone know that the finances aren't looking great and that layoffs will be coming, but they'll try to have everything worked out soon so worry isn't hanging over people's head for long.
im3w1l 4y ago
The fact that you think it's a difficult question means that we need more robust incentives like jail time. Edit: Actually, here's a thought. Unity has RSU's. That means it misled... its investors. Which (like everything) is securities fraud.

rightbyte 4y ago

In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I don't think a sudden layoff at any time is an assurance for workers in the sense that it is better to pretend everything is Ok until it isn't.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
In many European countries, employees have to give notice periods before quitting. They can't just not show up and say I quit. I have seen one month per year of employment topping out at 6 months
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  This is usually negotiable if you're leaving as well, it's not in the companies interest for the most part to keep you hanging around past wrapping current things up.
- Frost1x 4y ago
  Outside of explicit contract law you may be tangled up in, the US doesn't have explicit law and most employees are classified as "at-will" (basically, dependent upon where the business views this freedom as beneficial or non-beneficial to itself). Since businesses haven't managed to lobby such legislation requirements in for workers to give notice (largely because at-will is typically beneficial to them) and just use contract law where it matters (public personalities, etc.) you can just show up and quit legally, without legal repercussions. With that said, cultural protections have been put into place under job history in the application process. If I were to show up and without a very good reason tell me employer I quit effective immediately, I can do so unlike the European cases described. But is this really freedom or an illusion of freedom? Many in the US are living paycheck-to-paycheck to survive. They're financially leveraged and can't really just quit, they need to line up an opportunity and have minimal savings to protect them. For them they can make the choice but it's a bad choice for them and most of the time they won't. Businesses know this and leverage it. The pandemic labor market offered a shift in this giving some bargaining power back to labor but it seems to be clawing right back to businesses again, probably for quite some time. In what are classified as more professional positions, you're expected to give 2-weeks notice. Many employers request references and if you're honest during your interview, leaving without notice in most cases will require a good explanation and a competent interviewer, otherwise you're a red flag no hire almost immediately and there's a pool of others behind you without said red flag. So, I could quit tomorrow, but I'd have to be very careful with my next employer as to how I go about referencing my previous work, why I left, etc. In most cases I can't really just show up and quit, I need to give notice and wait. Perhaps that's not as long as some European countries closer to the order of 4 weeks IIRC but it's not as free as it might appear to be for the majority of laborers.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Well that would have certainly given me motivation to leave my current job sooner. If I wait N months to quit, I have to stay here another month? Fuck it I’m out.
- scarface74 4y ago
  And this is the other side of the coin. I personally wouldn’t want the tradeoff of lacking flexibility to leave.
Closi 4y ago
> In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I don't think a sudden layoff at any time is an assurance for workers in the sense that it is better to pretend everything is Ok until it isn't. It's important to note that this is typically a legal requirement (e.g. the requirement to consult prior to redundancy in the UK) rather than something typically done out of any good-will by the companies/employers.
dvt 4y ago
> In Europe it is common for multiple months of high pitch negotiations between "wanting to lay off" and layoffs. Usually without any riots or panic. I'm kind of tired of seeing this "well actually, in Europe..." -- there's a reason there's zero major tech innovation happening in Europe. There's a reason Google/FB/Netflix/etc. and 99% of other major software unicorns (save Spotify and handful of others) are from the US. To be successful as a company, you need to be nimble, not burn your runway with bureaucracy. Working for a startup is a risk and money, for the time being, is very tight.
- LambdaComplex 4y ago
  So being successful as a company requires having the right/ability to screw over your employees at the drop of a hat?
- etchalon 4y ago
  "Zero major tech innovation happening in Europe so long as you exclude every tech innovator in Europe." https://www.failory.com/startups/european-unicorns https://www.failory.com/startups/european-unicorns
  - humanwhosits 4y ago
    I looked at the list, it might be my US-centric bias but I'd only heard of 2 in that list before and they weren't big
    - etchalon 4y ago
      "might be"
    - OskarS 4y ago
      Ever heard of fucking Spotify?
      - scarface74 4y ago
        You mean the low margin unprofitable company that is at the mercy of the record labels and their “product” is the equivalent of a minor division for Google, Amazon and Apple?

tupac_speedrap 4y ago

Plus you have the people resigning around the lay-offs. Nobody wants to be on a sinking ship and having your workmates sacked and morale at the company dropping can make people think about other opportunities.

qbasic_forever 4y ago

CEO: "Don't worry we are not planning any layoffs!" me: "Phew, OK realtor let's close on this new house purchase! It's a big investment but my future looks great!" <two weeks later> CEO: "I'm sorry but I was wrong and you are terminated effective immediately." Bank: "Congrats on your house purchase closing, your new monthly payment of $XXXX is due in two weeks!" How is THAT a better situation than warning people there could be instability ahead? People are being thrown completely under the bus with no warning.

Frost1x 4y ago
It's a matter of perspective. We have a culture that largely puts business interests above independent peoples interests. If you agree with this then it makes complete sense that it's better for the company because that employee might have been kept and we want to keep them stable. If we warn them, they might become a flight risk and we might not need to cut them. Information asymmetry is our friend so let's give them only the information that's beneficial to us. If on the other hand you take the perspective of supporting a bottom up independent worker interests above a business's (I fall in this category), then your point is quite valid. Information asymmetry here put me in a terrible situation, if you would have told me earlier, I might have made different decisions. That might not include leaving, but it might have included tidying up my resume and prepping for interviews, just-in-case. Maybe I follow through or maybe I just keep some backups lined up in case things go south. Some may just pass the risk back to the business and jump ship since they assume they have better odds doing this and may even get a promotion. Personally I don't believe any business leadership's words, I skim financials, I watch movements in the laborforce especially around management, I look at markets and make my own interpretation. I assume they're providing intentional incomplete information to their advantage and try to infer reality from that combined with the other data sources. Businesses are not your friends and will lie to you to their advantage above all else. I'm not a subscriber to Hanlon's razor when it comes to self-interest. What can typically be attributed to self-interest should be considered above incompetence, especially when looking at something as strategic and methodical as a modern business structure that have countless meetings to sit around and discuss and analyze these sorts of things or contract specialized skilled services in these domains.

joekrill 4y ago

It's not one extreme or the other. I don't know what was said exactly, but certainly there's some middle-ground - something along the lines of "right now we don't have any layoffs planned and we'll do everything we can to prevent any, but we can't predict the future, especially with the current state of the economy, so certainly can't make any promises".

bryan0 4y ago

> How would this be better? Don't lie to your employees. > There is no "right" answer in this situation There are better and worse answers though. Lying and/or being incompetent are terrible answers.

com2kid 4y ago

> How would this be better? I saw first hand the damage caused by 4 hours between pre-announcing lay-offs and completing them. Weeks would mean the entire company comes to a stand-still. I've worked at multiple companies where we had layoffs announced months in advance. That is the normal sane way of doing things. If it is does really competently, the company starts by offering a voluntary severance package (though that does tend to get rid of the best employees first...). Yes it sucks, but a transparently and competently run company will let everyone know that the finances aren't looking great and that layoffs will be coming, but they'll try to have everything worked out soon so worry isn't hanging over people's head for long.

im3w1l 4y ago

The fact that you think it's a difficult question means that we need more robust incentives like jail time. Edit: Actually, here's a thought. Unity has RSU's. That means it misled... its investors. Which (like everything) is securities fraud.