4 ms·

When there were layoffs at Etsy back in 2017, one of the unintended consequences were that a lot more people quit voluntarily afterwards. Attrition was a lot hi

When there were layoffs at Etsy back in 2017, one of the unintended consequences were that a lot more people quit voluntarily afterwards. Attrition was a lot higher than expected. I have to believe that the people who remain are not all going to want to stay at the company that Twitter is becoming, whether it be for lack of institutional knowledge, peer support, or just because they liked their coworkers and are sad to see them go. This is a sample size of one, of course, but the layoffs at Etsy were a whole lot smaller than these ones were rumored to be.

teeray 4y ago
I bet there’s two things that cause this: 1) those who quit in solidarity, because they don’t like where things are going 2) those who are saddled with the work of those who were laid off / quit and burn out, causing them to quit (which can snowball to others remaining).
- geomark 4y ago
  Regarding your point number 2, I've been having this debate over on Twitter (ha) about how much those who remain are saddled with extra work. I've been through a few layoffs in my career, though none as large as this one, and what usually happened was those of us who remained ended up with less work. That is because the ones who were let go were almost always low performers whose work usually needed a lot of review and redesign by the more competent ones, which was more work than just doing the whole thing over from the beginning. In some cases when it did cause a large burden to the remaining employees the project left behind by the laid off ones was left to die. And that often was the right answer since the low performers had so often been shuttled to projects that weren't very valuable to begin with. With no visibility into the Twitter case I don't know if there is much of the same effect that I experienced, although I am reading a lot of opinions on HN and elsewhere that some of the groups that have been decimated should have been killed off long ago.
el_benhameen 4y ago
I kind of figured this was part of the goal at Twitter. 75% of staff was the number that was originally floated, so maybe the thinking here is that after a brutal layoff round, another quarter will say “fuck it” and leave.
- generalizations 4y ago
  And after that, the ones who stay are probably the ones most in line with the kind of culture Elon is aiming for.
  - suzzer99 4y ago
    Or the "lifers" with no other job prospects.
    - pie420 4y ago
      no, those will be layed off first
      - suzzer99 4y ago
        Not at places I've worked. The first to get laid off are low-performers that everyone knows is a low performer and no one likes. The unproductive lifers usually have built a system or two, and they're just coasting on that while doing as little as possible.
  - tdeck 4y ago
    Meaning the ones willing to put up with an abusive work environment.
dmurdoch 4y ago
Unintended? My company did two rounds of layoffs already and this was a thing that was known from day 1. Literally the day after the the first rounds one of the questions in the town hall was about "how do we plan to retain the people who are left now that they're getting spammed by linkedin recruiters". I think these days this is a known and intentional effect from upper management and they absolutely are accounting for another 5-10% of voluntary leavers post layoffs. Its free money from their POV, no severance.
- bichiliad 4y ago
  To clarify a bit here, "unintended" meaning the amount of people, not that people left at all. They had to start incentivizing people to stay, they talked about attrition frequently, etc.
curiousllama 4y ago
The rule of thumb is ~1/3 of the layoff size will be incremental attrition over the next 6-12 months. If they hired a firm that knows what it's doing, they build it into the model.
- htrp 4y ago
  i don't think they hired a firm to plan this out.... and if they did, no sane firm would float you a 7 day timeline
nemo44x 4y ago
It's easy to quit a job when we are in a bull market. The last few years have seen massive turnover, for example. But we aren't in that scenario any longer. People who remain will find it much more difficult to find a good job somewhere else as more and more companies are freezing hiring. This could go on for awhile.
lizknope 4y ago
That happens at every company. I've been working in the tech industry for 25 years at 8 different companies. You lay off people and then the best engineers start looking for a new job and leaving 2-3 months afterward.

teeray 4y ago

I bet there’s two things that cause this: 1) those who quit in solidarity, because they don’t like where things are going 2) those who are saddled with the work of those who were laid off / quit and burn out, causing them to quit (which can snowball to others remaining).

geomark 4y ago
Regarding your point number 2, I've been having this debate over on Twitter (ha) about how much those who remain are saddled with extra work. I've been through a few layoffs in my career, though none as large as this one, and what usually happened was those of us who remained ended up with less work. That is because the ones who were let go were almost always low performers whose work usually needed a lot of review and redesign by the more competent ones, which was more work than just doing the whole thing over from the beginning. In some cases when it did cause a large burden to the remaining employees the project left behind by the laid off ones was left to die. And that often was the right answer since the low performers had so often been shuttled to projects that weren't very valuable to begin with. With no visibility into the Twitter case I don't know if there is much of the same effect that I experienced, although I am reading a lot of opinions on HN and elsewhere that some of the groups that have been decimated should have been killed off long ago.

el_benhameen 4y ago

I kind of figured this was part of the goal at Twitter. 75% of staff was the number that was originally floated, so maybe the thinking here is that after a brutal layoff round, another quarter will say “fuck it” and leave.

generalizations 4y ago
And after that, the ones who stay are probably the ones most in line with the kind of culture Elon is aiming for.
- suzzer99 4y ago
  Or the "lifers" with no other job prospects.
  - pie420 4y ago
    no, those will be layed off first
    - suzzer99 4y ago
      Not at places I've worked. The first to get laid off are low-performers that everyone knows is a low performer and no one likes. The unproductive lifers usually have built a system or two, and they're just coasting on that while doing as little as possible.
- tdeck 4y ago
  Meaning the ones willing to put up with an abusive work environment.

dmurdoch 4y ago

Unintended? My company did two rounds of layoffs already and this was a thing that was known from day 1. Literally the day after the the first rounds one of the questions in the town hall was about "how do we plan to retain the people who are left now that they're getting spammed by linkedin recruiters". I think these days this is a known and intentional effect from upper management and they absolutely are accounting for another 5-10% of voluntary leavers post layoffs. Its free money from their POV, no severance.

bichiliad 4y ago
To clarify a bit here, "unintended" meaning the amount of people, not that people left at all. They had to start incentivizing people to stay, they talked about attrition frequently, etc.

curiousllama 4y ago

The rule of thumb is ~1/3 of the layoff size will be incremental attrition over the next 6-12 months. If they hired a firm that knows what it's doing, they build it into the model.

htrp 4y ago
i don't think they hired a firm to plan this out.... and if they did, no sane firm would float you a 7 day timeline

nemo44x 4y ago

It's easy to quit a job when we are in a bull market. The last few years have seen massive turnover, for example. But we aren't in that scenario any longer. People who remain will find it much more difficult to find a good job somewhere else as more and more companies are freezing hiring. This could go on for awhile.

lizknope 4y ago

That happens at every company. I've been working in the tech industry for 25 years at 8 different companies. You lay off people and then the best engineers start looking for a new job and leaving 2-3 months afterward.