9 ms·

Not sure that it's such a great business decision to lose almost half your staff, and probably moreso the higher-performing ones with other options. I'm guessin

• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > I'm guessing that this was intended to reduce the headcount without paying severance The employees were planning to unionize, and the RTO plan "conveniently" came up right at that time. These are pretty classic union-busting techniques. I'm actually pretty nervous for users from a security perspective. The Grindr data is essentially a blackmail gold mine - combine a ton of disgruntled employees with the loss of expertise to maintain app security (which had a number of issues in the past), and I don't think it bodes well.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    > These are pretty classic union-busting techniques. The NLRB has been notified, mentioned in the article.
    • giantg2 3y ago
      The real question is will they do anything.
      • toomuchtodo 3y ago
        It's likely. https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/ https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-wor... https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-d... https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/national-labor-relations-board-issues-final-rule-to-restore-fair-and https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/national-labor...
        • mrguyorama 3y ago
          That looks like a lot of marketing to me trying to shore up Biden's reputation with Union workers after he killed the railroad strike and left our necessary workers to the dogs.
          • enraged_camel 3y ago
            You’re getting downvoted because that wasn’t Biden, it was Congress. Biden is probably the most union-friendly president over the past 50 years.
            • red-iron-pine 3y ago
              which I wouldn't have expected, honestly
          • dabraham1248 3y ago
            From the _IBEW_ ( https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/2306... ): > “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
            • nxobject 3y ago
              That's amazing – it's strange that I never noticed that. Although I can imagine that it would benefit a lot of dealmakers to lower the public attention on this issue a little.
              • rhaway84773 3y ago
                No it doesn’t benefit any deal maker to do this. The media simply doesn’t cover this for obvious reasons. The media is corporate and pro union actions aren’t good for them either.
  • dehrmann 3y ago
    I'm not sure if unionization plans came before or after the RTO plans. If it was before, I'd actually consider it a new union-busting technique.
    • pstoica 3y ago
      It was before. They didn't acknowledge it and put the RTO in effect. (Second-hand account.)
    • piece_of_mind 3y ago
      Unionization efforts started at least 2 weeks before the RTO plans.
  • datavirtue 3y ago
    They forgot to mention that all of their customers just left also. One of those employees has all the data. Guaranteed.
  • jstarfish 3y ago
    > I'm actually pretty nervous for users from a security perspective. The Grindr data is essentially a blackmail gold mine - combine a ton of disgruntled employees with the loss of expertise to maintain app security (which had a number of issues in the past), and I don't think it bodes well. This shouldn't change anything from an opsec perspective. Google itself will always have record of you having downloaded it to your device. The Chinese were looking to buy Grindr for some reason. Someone could leak, sure, but nothing stops the company itself from selling out to anyone interested in membership records at any time.
    • Animats 3y ago
      > The Grindr data is essentially a blackmail gold mine. More than that. It's leaked before.[1] Grindr data was used to catch a senior US Catholic official: "... an analysis of app data signals correlated to Burrill’s mobile device shows the priest also visited gay bars and private residences while using a location-based hookup app in numerous cities from 2018 to 2020, even while traveling on assignment for the U.S. bishops’ conference." “On Monday, we became aware of impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior by Msgr. Burrill. What was shared with us did not include allegations of misconduct with minors. However, in order to avoid becoming a distraction to the operations and ongoing work of the Conference, Monsignor has resigned effective immediately,”[2] [1] https://www.engadget.com/grindr-location-data-sold-for-years-145320411.htm https://www.engadget.com/grindr-location-data-sold-for-years... [2] https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-g...
      • mrguyorama 3y ago
        Amazing how quickly they solve the "problem" when it involves completely legal consensual adult activity, compared to when it's a YOUNG boy
        • johnnyanmac 3y ago
          GPS for "meeting young boys" just points to church, unfortunately. One's much easier to track with tech.
  • gwright 3y ago
    > These are pretty classic union-busting techniques. It may be a union-busting technique, but I'm not sure about "classic". I mean how often has the economy had to recover from a multi-year work at home mandate due to a pandemic? The massive switch to remote work and the pendulum swinging back towards more in-office work is a unique phenomena, not a recurring "classic" situation.
• stronglikedan 3y ago
  Being that the job market is currently favoring employers over employees, I'd say they'll likely have no trouble finding new staff that has no problem with working in the office. They still have enough staff to get the new folks trained up. This would have hurt them a few years ago, but not now.
  • sarchertech 3y ago
    Losing half your staff is going to hurt you no matter what the labor market looks like. It’s likely that they’ll be losing a disproportionate number of high performers, and it’s going to take more than a year to work that many people through the hiring pipeline, and ramp them up fully.
    • btbuildem 3y ago
      And good luck hiring anyone respectable after that show of disloyalty.
  • spacemadness 3y ago
    Jokes on the people that stayed. The CEO should thank them for their sacrifice in working overtime constantly “for the good of the company.”
    • znpy 3y ago
      The people who stayed can give their two week notice next week and argue that they are way more critical now.
      • hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
        Unless they do it en masse, it won't work.
        • znpy 3y ago
          actually if they do it one by one it's just better.
• readthenotes1 3y ago
  Without knowing their staff size in January 2020, it's hard to know how many of these people were proactive hires with no real job to do.
• JackFr 3y ago
  > probably moreso the higher-performing ones That's a pretty big assumption there.
  • mjhay 3y ago
    Higher-performing employees generally have more options than lower-performing ones, so they aren't desperate enough to go through a disruptive and expensive move in order to keep their job. For similar reasons, I'd expect senior-level employees to be over-represented, because they're more likely to have kids, a spouse, and an existing mortgage.
    • boringg 3y ago
      True but the switching costs are still quite high for higher performing employees and it seems like the pool of tech companies requiring working in an office presence is also gaining share (ie pool of companies to switch to without in office work is low).
      • hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
        Yes, as already predicted in numerous places we witness forming distinct styles of work with full WFH being in minority so the candidates who want to WFH need to be more competitive. If I wanted I could easily switch my job to an office-based one with a better pay; doing the some for a remote job is much more difficult (but well worth the effort!).
      • bhdlr 3y ago
        I imagine if tech companies continue to force the rto issue they will continue losing talent to other companies Anecdotally I'm currently in the process of leaving a tech company and joining a legacy fortune 500, where I'll be full time WFH.
• atkailash 3y ago
  [dead]
• factorymoo 3y ago
  > " with zero ability to think through long-term consequences" The median tenure in tech is one to two years before moving on to another team or company [1]. You need to say that what you care about is long term, but that's now how we're compensated (read: incentivised). Plus you're not there to see it anyways so there are really very little incentives to think long term. [1] some googling but couldn't find a great source for this. Though it matches what I've observed in the industry.
  • layer8 3y ago
    > The median tenure in tech is one to two years before moving on to another team or company [1]. Note that individuals who switch jobs often inherently will figure in a higher number of tenures that you’re taking the median of here. This means the majority of software engineers will actually have a longer tenure.
    • philipov 3y ago
      So what we should be looking at is the median number of tenures, not the median length of tenures? How would one weight the latter by the former to get a more robust measure of tenure length?
      • layer8 3y ago
        Well, what do you want to ascertain? In any case you won’t capture the long tail of long tenures, because you don’t know how long current tenures will extend into the future. What you could measure is the median current seniority of tech employees (how long they are in their current job), which would be a lower bound for the median of (eventual) tenures of current employments.
    • eckza 3y ago
      Jobs Georg, who has changed jobs 10,000 times in the last three years, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
    • twic 3y ago
• piece_of_mind 3y ago
  It's a terrible decision. The company is mortally wounded now, and the management (CEO especially) lost any trust, however small that was. Also, all the employees who quit took the six month severance.
• derekdahmer 3y ago
  They did pay severance. > The West Hollywood, California-based company also gave a severance package to staff who were unable to relocate, in what the CWA alleged was an attempt “to silence workers from speaking out about their working conditions,” according to a statement from the organization.
  • darth_avocado 3y ago
    They’d have to pay more if they have to layoff people (WARN related expenses). That’s probably what OP meant.
• groestl 3y ago
  > probably moreso the higher-performing ones with other options They probably didn't get the memo that other companies tend to give some leeway, unofficially, to higher performing employees when enforcing RTO so the whole thing is for weeding out, and nothing else.
• polski-g 3y ago
  Businesses aren't required to pay severance to reduce headcount.
• that_guy_iain 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure this was basically an unofficial layoff. The company seems happy with the result. Plus, everyone they hire in the future won’t have an issue with office work. Short to mid term it may be painful. Long term as in 5-10 years this will be a blip.