8 ms·

You are presupposing that boom and bust hiring is bad, and worse than a more steady state approach. If one assumes perfection is impossible, it seems you sugges

You are presupposing that boom and bust hiring is bad, and worse than a more steady state approach. If one assumes perfection is impossible, it seems you suggest erring on the side of perpetually under-hiring as opposed to ever over-hiring. Why is that better?

rcme 3y ago
A boom/bust cycle is over-hiring to the point that you need to lay people off. You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation.
- aeternum 3y ago
  >You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation. It's unclear whether that would be better. In control theory, underdamped systems are generally preferred as it allows you to reach the desired value rapidly even though you often overshoot. Overdamped systems (IE hire in moderation) can be very slow to respond and often spend the majority of their time in the un-desired regime. It's quite possible that tech over-hiring when people were forced to work from home yielded a net good for society even though many of those hires were let go a couple years later.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    He's advocating that the powers-that-be should consider targeting a slightly underdamped hiring system. Where they over-hire, and as they're overshooting the goal then reduce the rate of hiring, allowing the normal low rate of attrition to bring the PV back down to the SP. e.g. a one-half critically-damped system. something following a standard first-order ODE like: \frac{dh}{dt} = K_p (h^\* - h) - K_i \int (h^\* - h) dt - f(h) where h is the instantaneous number of employees, h* is the desired number of employees, f(h) is your attrition rate as a function of current number of employees, and Kp and Ki are "rate of hiring" coefficients which will be your proportional and integral terms of a PID controller to control your rate of hiring. The point is, the "rate of layoffs" here is zero and doesn't appear as a term. Is this a proper model for a human organization? Who the fuck knows but it's the model you're advocating for and I'm just re-explaining what the other guy you replied to was suggesting in the first place, but this time using your framing. Yes, he also mentioned they should consider a slightly over damped system but he 100% did advocate for considering an underdamped system.
    - aeternum 3y ago
      Right, I was advocating for underdamped. Yes you overshoot, but you generally spend more time near your setpoint (optimal value).
      - reaperman 3y ago
        Ehhhh, your argument was more that "severely underdamped" could be the best, even if it requires an additional forcing factor (firing/layoffs) to bring it back down to the setpoint. The person you replied to was arguing that perhaps something a bit more mildly underdamped could get rid of the requirement for that extra complication (firing / layoffs).
        aeternum 3y ago
        Yeah, and I disagree. Goal should be to get to the setpoint as quickly as possible even if you overshoot as human nature is to keep the status-quo which generally means talented people wasting their time at obsolete companies.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    Control theory in sociology proposes no such thing. Your using an engineering term used to describe machines which is largely the point; human capital being as disposable as a cog in a machine.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    Tech companies over-hire to excess and then under-hire to excess. It's like people trying to follow a 1000-calories/day diet who then give up and eat 4000 calories a day. They are never going to hit a healthy weight. Neither is my jackass company, who has laid off more people in 2023 than we hired in 2022, and is still on a hiring freeze.
- scott_w 3y ago
  Honestly, I think this is a wicked problem, in that it's impossible for us to know in advance what the right decision would have been. Was it foreseeable that the economy would be volatile post-pandemic? Yes. Was it guaranteed that it would mean layoffs? No. In addition, what about the boom itself? What if you're cautious but, during that boom period, you get outcompeted in key areas as a result? This might put you in a worse situation during the bust phase than if you'd over-hired. Hindsight is 20/20, so I prefer to avoid being judgemental over these types of decisions, while still holding people accountable to doing the right thing, even in tough times.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Or lots of individuals just don't get hired and you'd have had lots of people railing against headlines like "Despite surging demand, companies keep hiring choked off."
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  To use an even more reasonable framing, absent some small numbers effect or some really high-impact shock, it's incredibly stupid to almost double the size of a company in one year. That's how you lose your culture and throw the dice again on market fitness. (Well, that and randomly firing people.) Knowledge work just can't scale that fast, and nowadays every work is knowledge work. What those companies did is bad from every possible point of view.
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
> Why is that better? Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  > Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Unnecessary suffering is going to happen either way. Keep in mind, at the time of hiring, there is real demand, and while "forever" is more than a bit ridiculous (and no doubt a misrepresentation of the executives' thinking), the truth is nobody knows exactly how long it will last, so you're getting it wrong no matter what you do. > Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle. That some people don't always have a job is part of the capitalist system. What happens to them when they're not employed, that's not about capitalism.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    > Keep in mind, at the time of hiring, there is real demand, That seems like a big claim for which I haven't seen any evidence.
    - cbsmith 3y ago
      > That seems like a big claim for which I haven't seen any evidence. Umm... the entire basis for the article was that there was a belief that market conditions at the time would remain true "forever". That's a very different delusion from thinking there isn't something there. ...and there's plenty of evidence that there was real demand. Real revenue grew significantly during that time. Streaming services saw significant increases in subscriptions. Computer sales were up. In tech in general, sales were up across the board. If you haven't seen any evidence of increases in demand during that time period, I don't think you'll ever see evidence of increases in demand.
Tade0 3y ago
People often have to uproot their lives to get into a new role. It's only ultimately worth it if it's a long-term commitment on both sides. Also later in life having to suddenly switch jobs is neither easy nor desirable.
- bilvar 3y ago
  Cry me a river, the same people who demand a long-term commitment from their employer will jump ship in an instant for 10k more after 6 months of employment. Companies are full of them.
  - newswasboring 3y ago
    When a person moves to another company, the company doesn't have to move to another state and restart its social life from scratch. The person with more power, needs to take more responsibility. Holy batman, sometimes I feel like people don't even have a heart anymore.
    - scarface74 3y ago
      Isn’t it your responsibility to weigh the pros and cons and risk for uprooting your family for more compensation? It’s business. It’s purely transactional. Why would you expect a company to “have a heart”?
      - newswasboring 3y ago
        Because I thought in America businesses were people. And I have been fortunate enough to work with businesses which seem like they have a heart. Consequently, I've rejected several offers to come work in America for extra pay. I think a system which is purely transactional is inferior, boring and at times immoral due to power imbalance. Society is not a computer program, businesses exist in society and they should behave like that.
        scarface74 3y ago

rcme 3y ago

A boom/bust cycle is over-hiring to the point that you need to lay people off. You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation.

aeternum 3y ago
>You can over-hire or under-hire in moderation. It's unclear whether that would be better. In control theory, underdamped systems are generally preferred as it allows you to reach the desired value rapidly even though you often overshoot. Overdamped systems (IE hire in moderation) can be very slow to respond and often spend the majority of their time in the un-desired regime. It's quite possible that tech over-hiring when people were forced to work from home yielded a net good for society even though many of those hires were let go a couple years later.
- reaperman 3y ago
  He's advocating that the powers-that-be should consider targeting a slightly underdamped hiring system. Where they over-hire, and as they're overshooting the goal then reduce the rate of hiring, allowing the normal low rate of attrition to bring the PV back down to the SP. e.g. a one-half critically-damped system. something following a standard first-order ODE like: \frac{dh}{dt} = K_p (h^\* - h) - K_i \int (h^\* - h) dt - f(h) where h is the instantaneous number of employees, h* is the desired number of employees, f(h) is your attrition rate as a function of current number of employees, and Kp and Ki are "rate of hiring" coefficients which will be your proportional and integral terms of a PID controller to control your rate of hiring. The point is, the "rate of layoffs" here is zero and doesn't appear as a term. Is this a proper model for a human organization? Who the fuck knows but it's the model you're advocating for and I'm just re-explaining what the other guy you replied to was suggesting in the first place, but this time using your framing. Yes, he also mentioned they should consider a slightly over damped system but he 100% did advocate for considering an underdamped system.
  - aeternum 3y ago
    Right, I was advocating for underdamped. Yes you overshoot, but you generally spend more time near your setpoint (optimal value).
    - reaperman 3y ago
      Ehhhh, your argument was more that "severely underdamped" could be the best, even if it requires an additional forcing factor (firing/layoffs) to bring it back down to the setpoint. The person you replied to was arguing that perhaps something a bit more mildly underdamped could get rid of the requirement for that extra complication (firing / layoffs).
      - aeternum 3y ago
        Yeah, and I disagree. Goal should be to get to the setpoint as quickly as possible even if you overshoot as human nature is to keep the status-quo which generally means talented people wasting their time at obsolete companies.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  Control theory in sociology proposes no such thing. Your using an engineering term used to describe machines which is largely the point; human capital being as disposable as a cog in a machine.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Tech companies over-hire to excess and then under-hire to excess. It's like people trying to follow a 1000-calories/day diet who then give up and eat 4000 calories a day. They are never going to hit a healthy weight. Neither is my jackass company, who has laid off more people in 2023 than we hired in 2022, and is still on a hiring freeze.
scott_w 3y ago
Honestly, I think this is a wicked problem, in that it's impossible for us to know in advance what the right decision would have been. Was it foreseeable that the economy would be volatile post-pandemic? Yes. Was it guaranteed that it would mean layoffs? No. In addition, what about the boom itself? What if you're cautious but, during that boom period, you get outcompeted in key areas as a result? This might put you in a worse situation during the bust phase than if you'd over-hired. Hindsight is 20/20, so I prefer to avoid being judgemental over these types of decisions, while still holding people accountable to doing the right thing, even in tough times.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Or lots of individuals just don't get hired and you'd have had lots of people railing against headlines like "Despite surging demand, companies keep hiring choked off."
marcosdumay 3y ago
To use an even more reasonable framing, absent some small numbers effect or some really high-impact shock, it's incredibly stupid to almost double the size of a company in one year. That's how you lose your culture and throw the dice again on market fitness. (Well, that and randomly firing people.) Knowledge work just can't scale that fast, and nowadays every work is knowledge work. What those companies did is bad from every possible point of view.

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago

> Why is that better? Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle.

cbsmith 3y ago
> Because it doesn't create unnecessary suffering for the unfortunate people who find themselves out of a job because some executive over-allocated for a particular role or department. Unnecessary suffering is going to happen either way. Keep in mind, at the time of hiring, there is real demand, and while "forever" is more than a bit ridiculous (and no doubt a misrepresentation of the executives' thinking), the truth is nobody knows exactly how long it will last, so you're getting it wrong no matter what you do. > Fundamentally, we want people to still participate in the capitalist system and not reject it because they're constantly treated like cattle. That some people don't always have a job is part of the capitalist system. What happens to them when they're not employed, that's not about capitalism.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  > Keep in mind, at the time of hiring, there is real demand, That seems like a big claim for which I haven't seen any evidence.
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    > That seems like a big claim for which I haven't seen any evidence. Umm... the entire basis for the article was that there was a belief that market conditions at the time would remain true "forever". That's a very different delusion from thinking there isn't something there. ...and there's plenty of evidence that there was real demand. Real revenue grew significantly during that time. Streaming services saw significant increases in subscriptions. Computer sales were up. In tech in general, sales were up across the board. If you haven't seen any evidence of increases in demand during that time period, I don't think you'll ever see evidence of increases in demand.

Tade0 3y ago

People often have to uproot their lives to get into a new role. It's only ultimately worth it if it's a long-term commitment on both sides. Also later in life having to suddenly switch jobs is neither easy nor desirable.

bilvar 3y ago
Cry me a river, the same people who demand a long-term commitment from their employer will jump ship in an instant for 10k more after 6 months of employment. Companies are full of them.
- newswasboring 3y ago
  When a person moves to another company, the company doesn't have to move to another state and restart its social life from scratch. The person with more power, needs to take more responsibility. Holy batman, sometimes I feel like people don't even have a heart anymore.
  - scarface74 3y ago
    Isn’t it your responsibility to weigh the pros and cons and risk for uprooting your family for more compensation? It’s business. It’s purely transactional. Why would you expect a company to “have a heart”?
    - newswasboring 3y ago
      Because I thought in America businesses were people. And I have been fortunate enough to work with businesses which seem like they have a heart. Consequently, I've rejected several offers to come work in America for extra pay. I think a system which is purely transactional is inferior, boring and at times immoral due to power imbalance. Society is not a computer program, businesses exist in society and they should behave like that.
      - scarface74 3y ago