4 ms·

> But the real question they were asking was: "How can I add value? How can I show that I still belong here? How can I make myself a critical part of the team a

> But the real question they were asking was: "How can I add value? How can I show that I still belong here? How can I make myself a critical part of the team at Zapier during this time when I can't do the things I was initially hired to do?" What? Maybe what they were asking was just "do I need to start looking for an another source of income". Why dress it up in weird corpo-speak?

idopmstuff 4y ago
Seems more like asking, "How can I make sure that if there are layoffs, I'm not included in them?"
- edmundsauto 4y ago
  The best way (far from guaranteed, but the best across a wide range of employment contexts) to avoid layoffs is to create clear value that pushes the org towards its goals. It’s also the best way to earn the trust of leadership and ensure you’re contributing to the company’s goals. The language may be off-putting to some, but the core idea is almost a tautology.
lloydatkinson 4y ago
Your quote and this one are both real gems. > We also looked at roles that were being cut from our headcount and saw opportunities for our team to contribute in areas where leaders wanted full-time team members but couldn't make those hires due to budget constraints. Corporate bullshit speak for, we fired people without realising what they were actually contributing and then things started to fall apart, but we can't hire replacements, so we came up with this idea.
- canucklady 4y ago
  They didn't "cut headcount" by firing people, they just didn't hire new people into those roles. Instead they let people move internally to work on projects where teams wanted more headcount. As someone in a stupidly rigid organization where managers all fight each other to get the limited headcount by inflating their own roadmap, it actually sounds refreshing.
- IanCal 4y ago
  You're mixing up roles and people. The role is going away because it's not profitable enough, and unless you find something else for the person to do then that person gets fired (or insert whatever the legally correct term for your area is). You also have unfulfilled roles elsewhere which would add value if they were filled but you don't have spare cash to add new people to fill them. Instead of firing one person and hiring a different person, try and keep the person and swap their role. They may need training to do this, but while they may need to learn some new tech/etc parts they don't need to learn all the zapier specific stuff. The institutional knowledge can remain. This can have a benefit of making people feel more comfortable to stay, an attitude of "if your project gets canned we'll try and help you into a different role" Sure there's a lot of corpo speak here, IMO because the idea seems pretty obvious and they want a nice release here but this looks planned and well executed.

idopmstuff 4y ago

Seems more like asking, "How can I make sure that if there are layoffs, I'm not included in them?"

edmundsauto 4y ago
The best way (far from guaranteed, but the best across a wide range of employment contexts) to avoid layoffs is to create clear value that pushes the org towards its goals. It’s also the best way to earn the trust of leadership and ensure you’re contributing to the company’s goals. The language may be off-putting to some, but the core idea is almost a tautology.

lloydatkinson 4y ago

Your quote and this one are both real gems. > We also looked at roles that were being cut from our headcount and saw opportunities for our team to contribute in areas where leaders wanted full-time team members but couldn't make those hires due to budget constraints. Corporate bullshit speak for, we fired people without realising what they were actually contributing and then things started to fall apart, but we can't hire replacements, so we came up with this idea.

canucklady 4y ago
They didn't "cut headcount" by firing people, they just didn't hire new people into those roles. Instead they let people move internally to work on projects where teams wanted more headcount. As someone in a stupidly rigid organization where managers all fight each other to get the limited headcount by inflating their own roadmap, it actually sounds refreshing.
IanCal 4y ago
You're mixing up roles and people. The role is going away because it's not profitable enough, and unless you find something else for the person to do then that person gets fired (or insert whatever the legally correct term for your area is). You also have unfulfilled roles elsewhere which would add value if they were filled but you don't have spare cash to add new people to fill them. Instead of firing one person and hiring a different person, try and keep the person and swap their role. They may need training to do this, but while they may need to learn some new tech/etc parts they don't need to learn all the zapier specific stuff. The institutional knowledge can remain. This can have a benefit of making people feel more comfortable to stay, an attitude of "if your project gets canned we'll try and help you into a different role" Sure there's a lot of corpo speak here, IMO because the idea seems pretty obvious and they want a nice release here but this looks planned and well executed.