7 ms·

I work at a company that did layoffs recently as well, about double this size. Our managers also had no idea until day of. The entire day was spent watching co

I work at a company that did layoffs recently as well, about double this size. Our managers also had no idea until day of. The entire day was spent watching co workers google calendars and slack accounts. Once they got a meeting booked with HR, their meeting titles all turned into "busy", so we would know who is getting cut and who wasn't. It was a brutal day. In our case I don't think they were picking people based on performance whatsoever. It seemed to just be about who was paid the best and who in the org structure could have their job removed and someone else take over. Really weird.

pc86 4y ago
Is it "really weird," though? Layoffs, especially when you start talking about entire teams, divisions, products, etc. is about revenue, profitability, and righting the ship (or safeguarding the ship so you don't have to right it 6 months from now). Whether Jim got "exceeds expectations" or "greatly exceeds expectations" is irrelevant when an EVP needs to trim $12M off their budget and Jim's department lost $9M last year.
- imchillyb 4y ago
  - JBlue42 4y ago
    I feel like pc86 was just being straightforward about how those decisions are made. They can speak for themselves though. When I was part of a mass lay-off, it was big enough to trigger CA state law where they had to detail everything. You could clearly see that it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level). >The 'righting' came because of shitty financial decisions made from top-down. The top should be fired first and foremost. The company wouldn't be in the position its in if management were doing their fucking jobs. Should but rarely, if ever, happens. Some even get a larger bonus when meeting next quarter targets or some other short-term indicator.
    - pc86 4y ago
      You are correct I was just saying what typically does happen, not what should happen. And when someone responds with so much misguided anger it's not even worth the effort to respond.
    - furbyhater 4y ago
      > it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level) The "(below the managerial level)" part is the problem and the reason it is outrageous to people invested in a company but not in a position of power (such as the actual developers/engineers, even in a tech-centric company, at least once it has grown to a given size).
      - pc86 4y ago
        A lot of times what you'll see done is structured more as a reorg than just a straight layoff, where if they need to trim $xM from the budget, they'll start shrinking and eliminating teams at the IC level until they reach .7-.8 of that figure, then see how many "extra" managers they have and start trimming there, typically just based on seniority rather than pay. Rinse and repeat until you're at .9-1.1x depending on how many people you think will resign after the layoffs.
- cragfar 4y ago
  A common sentiment you see on the internet (especially from younger people who haven't experience a tough labor market) is that only the low performers get laid off. So I can see how they think it's really weird if managers aren't involved.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    If layoffs are occurring, companies or managers are going to want to cut poor performers or trouble employees at that time. So if younger employees are saying it's cutting low performers, and the rest are left as the younger and lower paid workers to pick up the slack, where senior levels are cut indiscriminately or based on salary, because they are higher paid and the goal is to cut expensive workers.
  - throwaway16273 4y ago
    I was part of lay offs some years ago. Managers didn’t know until the day of, and it wasn’t based on performance. All the performance reviews were already done months before. Some people were even due for promotions.
  - ghshephard 4y ago
    Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. It's the one window that companies can mostly let go of employees without being sued. (Though, if they lay off too many people in a protected class, still can get sued). What's interesting about a lot of the division or sector-downturn layoffs, that you end up seeing solid performers, and, when you are dropping a good portion of your division - very good performers let go. Most companies try to make a play for keeping their 10x developers - but, I've been in layoffs (Browser Division, Netscape, 1997sh) - where just absolutely everyone was dropped, regardless of performance.
    - scarby2 4y ago
      > Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. This is totally not true. Usually they make jobs redundant not people. If there's a pool of people doing the same job and that headcount is reduced then it will often be the lowest performers that go however some places have done LIFO or cut the most expensive. However if you're doing layoffs and you reduce your frontend team the it's likely low performers from the backend team get to stick around.
- couchand 4y ago
  Yeah, and don't let anybody ask what compensation the EVP is getting, there's definitely no fat to trim there...
  - jcadam 4y ago
    Hey if you don’t pay top dollar for quality executive talent, you might end up with people who run the company into the ground slightly faster.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Assuming perfect information, Jim's skill being transferable, and Jim's performance eval being objective, you'd expect that the company would profit from transferring Jim and other top performers to their profitable products, and cutting the worst employees from those projects (after all, even a department making profit is likely to have some employees on the low end of the performance bell curve). Of course that isn't as easy because of morale, team cohesion, performance evals rarely being comparable across teams, and people being not as fungible as the above suggests. Not to mention all the work this takes, in a time when you probably have other worries. So maybe it's not "really weird", just "not immediately obvious"
- throwaway292939 4y ago
  Exactly. Layoffs are done in a way order to preserve the company given less resources.
dboreham 4y ago
Hmm. I think we were at the same place.

pc86 4y ago

Is it "really weird," though? Layoffs, especially when you start talking about entire teams, divisions, products, etc. is about revenue, profitability, and righting the ship (or safeguarding the ship so you don't have to right it 6 months from now). Whether Jim got "exceeds expectations" or "greatly exceeds expectations" is irrelevant when an EVP needs to trim $12M off their budget and Jim's department lost $9M last year.

imchillyb 4y ago
- JBlue42 4y ago
  I feel like pc86 was just being straightforward about how those decisions are made. They can speak for themselves though. When I was part of a mass lay-off, it was big enough to trigger CA state law where they had to detail everything. You could clearly see that it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level). >The 'righting' came because of shitty financial decisions made from top-down. The top should be fired first and foremost. The company wouldn't be in the position its in if management were doing their fucking jobs. Should but rarely, if ever, happens. Some even get a larger bonus when meeting next quarter targets or some other short-term indicator.
  - pc86 4y ago
    You are correct I was just saying what typically does happen, not what should happen. And when someone responds with so much misguided anger it's not even worth the effort to respond.
  - furbyhater 4y ago
    > it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level) The "(below the managerial level)" part is the problem and the reason it is outrageous to people invested in a company but not in a position of power (such as the actual developers/engineers, even in a tech-centric company, at least once it has grown to a given size).
    - pc86 4y ago
      A lot of times what you'll see done is structured more as a reorg than just a straight layoff, where if they need to trim $xM from the budget, they'll start shrinking and eliminating teams at the IC level until they reach .7-.8 of that figure, then see how many "extra" managers they have and start trimming there, typically just based on seniority rather than pay. Rinse and repeat until you're at .9-1.1x depending on how many people you think will resign after the layoffs.
cragfar 4y ago
A common sentiment you see on the internet (especially from younger people who haven't experience a tough labor market) is that only the low performers get laid off. So I can see how they think it's really weird if managers aren't involved.
- newsclues 4y ago
  If layoffs are occurring, companies or managers are going to want to cut poor performers or trouble employees at that time. So if younger employees are saying it's cutting low performers, and the rest are left as the younger and lower paid workers to pick up the slack, where senior levels are cut indiscriminately or based on salary, because they are higher paid and the goal is to cut expensive workers.
- throwaway16273 4y ago
  I was part of lay offs some years ago. Managers didn’t know until the day of, and it wasn’t based on performance. All the performance reviews were already done months before. Some people were even due for promotions.
- ghshephard 4y ago
  Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. It's the one window that companies can mostly let go of employees without being sued. (Though, if they lay off too many people in a protected class, still can get sued). What's interesting about a lot of the division or sector-downturn layoffs, that you end up seeing solid performers, and, when you are dropping a good portion of your division - very good performers let go. Most companies try to make a play for keeping their 10x developers - but, I've been in layoffs (Browser Division, Netscape, 1997sh) - where just absolutely everyone was dropped, regardless of performance.
  - scarby2 4y ago
    > Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. This is totally not true. Usually they make jobs redundant not people. If there's a pool of people doing the same job and that headcount is reduced then it will often be the lowest performers that go however some places have done LIFO or cut the most expensive. However if you're doing layoffs and you reduce your frontend team the it's likely low performers from the backend team get to stick around.
couchand 4y ago
Yeah, and don't let anybody ask what compensation the EVP is getting, there's definitely no fat to trim there...
- jcadam 4y ago
  Hey if you don’t pay top dollar for quality executive talent, you might end up with people who run the company into the ground slightly faster.
wongarsu 4y ago
Assuming perfect information, Jim's skill being transferable, and Jim's performance eval being objective, you'd expect that the company would profit from transferring Jim and other top performers to their profitable products, and cutting the worst employees from those projects (after all, even a department making profit is likely to have some employees on the low end of the performance bell curve). Of course that isn't as easy because of morale, team cohesion, performance evals rarely being comparable across teams, and people being not as fungible as the above suggests. Not to mention all the work this takes, in a time when you probably have other worries. So maybe it's not "really weird", just "not immediately obvious"
throwaway292939 4y ago
Exactly. Layoffs are done in a way order to preserve the company given less resources.

dboreham 4y ago

Hmm. I think we were at the same place.