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Sometimes you do this to force attrition so you dont have to do more layoffs.

by ProAm 4y ago

shmatt 4y ago
This pretty much sums up a lot of the layoffs going on. I can't vouch for all the random Google results but for US tech voluntary attrition seemed to be somewhere around 15% per year pre pandemic. It went even higher during the 'great resignation'. Companies hiring strategies were based off 15% or 20% of people leaving by surprise. They had to hire accordingly Now big employers are freezing or significantly slowing hiring down, some are afraid as new employees they'd be targeted in layoffs (or maybe their offers would be cancelled an hour before starting), so everyone ends up with more employees than they planned for
- oblio 4y ago
  > US tech voluntary attrition seemed to be somewhere around 15% per year pre pandemic. Source?
asdff 4y ago
By doing this you are most likely to atrophy from your most senior and experienced staff who can readily find another remote job, this leads to brain drain in the organization and sets you up worse long term for perceived short term benefits which are dubious at best. I think management has doubted the degree to which people would make remote work their hill to die on in terms of job benefits.
- 88913527 4y ago
  Losing some key staff might be better than a 2nd, 3rd, Nth round of layoffs which could cause an increasing crisis in confidence, which would lead to proportionally more senior staff leaving.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Honestly layoffs seem like a really fraught way to save money. They always trim at a nice even number like 10%, so you know they didn't run any analysis to suggest what an appropriate amount would be , and just did what number seemed right in the guts of boardmembers, probably just being a lemming doing a similar cut as a competitor to not spook shareholders too much. How much could payroll be, 30% of revenue? You cut 10% of payroll you are only saving 3% of revenue and stoking a lot of fear among your troops in the process. How much is an office lease obligation on the other hand versus the savings from these layoffs weighed against the potential revenue that labor could have generated had you kept them employed?
    - itsdrewmiller 4y ago
      Why would you assume payroll is 30% of revenue? For companies dealing with limited runway there is a good chance payroll is >100% revenue, and in general for software companies payroll is the single highest expense.

Sometimes you do this to force attrition so you dont have to do more layoffs.

by ProAm 4y ago

Sometimes you do this to force attrition so you dont have to do more layoffs.

This pretty much sums up a lot of the layoffs going on. I can't vouch for all the random Google results but for US tech voluntary attrition seemed to be somewhere around 15% per year pre pandemic. It went even higher during the 'great resignation'. Companies hiring strategies were based off 15% or 20% of people leaving by surprise. They had to hire accordingly Now big employers are freezing or significantly slowing hiring down, some are afraid as new employees they'd be targeted in layoffs (or maybe their offers would be cancelled an hour before starting), so everyone ends up with more employees than they planned for

oblio 4y ago
> US tech voluntary attrition seemed to be somewhere around 15% per year pre pandemic. Source?

asdff 4y ago

By doing this you are most likely to atrophy from your most senior and experienced staff who can readily find another remote job, this leads to brain drain in the organization and sets you up worse long term for perceived short term benefits which are dubious at best. I think management has doubted the degree to which people would make remote work their hill to die on in terms of job benefits.

88913527 4y ago
Losing some key staff might be better than a 2nd, 3rd, Nth round of layoffs which could cause an increasing crisis in confidence, which would lead to proportionally more senior staff leaving.
- asdff 4y ago
  Honestly layoffs seem like a really fraught way to save money. They always trim at a nice even number like 10%, so you know they didn't run any analysis to suggest what an appropriate amount would be , and just did what number seemed right in the guts of boardmembers, probably just being a lemming doing a similar cut as a competitor to not spook shareholders too much. How much could payroll be, 30% of revenue? You cut 10% of payroll you are only saving 3% of revenue and stoking a lot of fear among your troops in the process. How much is an office lease obligation on the other hand versus the savings from these layoffs weighed against the potential revenue that labor could have generated had you kept them employed?
  - itsdrewmiller 4y ago
    Why would you assume payroll is 30% of revenue? For companies dealing with limited runway there is a good chance payroll is >100% revenue, and in general for software companies payroll is the single highest expense.