11 ms·

This seems common in American companies. I wonder how much of this is a result of lawsuit culture. For example, American companies won't tell job applicants wh

This seems common in American companies. I wonder how much of this is a result of lawsuit culture. For example, American companies won't tell job applicants why they get rejected, lest they get sued by the rejected candidates. And perhaps this has carried into feedback for actual employees. It sounds like the author wasn't even he was on a performance improvement plan, he had to infer it and pull it out of his manager. Is this the general state of things in the US? In the same way people are afraid to say their (non-racist) opinions on Twitter due to groupthink and getting hit by mobs, are companies now taking this approach with their employees out of fear of being sued?

antupis 3y ago
Also if pips are constant it will just create a nasty culture which is very hard to turn back.
- aestetix 3y ago
  Well it seems that PIPs are not actually improvement plans. An honest performance improvement plan would identify key areas that can reasonably be improved, steps to improve in those areas, and a timeframe to achieve that improvement. Ideally with occasional check-ins to ensure the employee is on target for reaching the goals. What I hear about American PIPs is that they are unrealistic or impossible goals for anyone to achieve, and presented falsely as an improvement plan because the company is too cowardly (or incompetent) to either fire the person or give actual feedback. In other words, it sounds like an extremely passive aggressive way to avoid confrontation, and also serve as a shield in an overall toxic climate where the legal system won't just tell the person with the frivolous lawsuit to go blow sand.
  - me_me_me 3y ago
    PIPs (at least in europe) are a way for company to prove employee was fired because they are incompetent. We tried to help employee X, see the paperwork? But they are not good enough. Its a system to shield company from local laws and lawsuits. Its not a sign of cowardliness or incompetence. Its cold calculation and foolproof process, that on scale protects corpo from multi-million settlements I have only heard secondhand of two cases where pip didnt result in being fired (but cant confirm it, could have been a propaganda stories passed on by gullible)
    - aestetix 3y ago
      But the point is, would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP? If you give an employee guardrails for success and they flounder anyways, then it seems the employee was not a good fit for the role. It says more about the employee than the process.
      - blitzar 3y ago
        > would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP 90%+ of the situations I have witnessed, extreme luck or act of god would be required to achieve the requirements. In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. I have also had the misfortune to witness one where the employee didnt realise it was all a con to fire them; they got the miracle, 10x'd their teams sales but "failed" some pointless side quest to get coffee for the boss every morning by 6am.
        re-thc 3y ago
        > In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. An examples on how those played out? Curious if the line managers then get punished?
        blitzar 3y ago
        For the most part they looked like they worked out fine - generally it was a personal problem, people not "liking" people. The line manager gave the nudge and wink to be "extra nice" to the meglomaniac in the senior suite and after a few months cooler heads prevail, along with a documented performance. A lot of actual real world peformance and what people actually do isnt really visible when you are a few layers up (or in a different team). Sooner or later in an organisation large enough someone is going to assume simply because they dont like someone over there, that person does nothing all day long. If one was particularly skilled you could probably use these sorts of things to undermine upper management that is already on the ropes - but that is an advanced technique.
CalRobert 3y ago
This is random but I was recently rejected for a role from a company I find very interesting - https://www.overstory.com/ https://www.overstory.com/ - and when I asked, the engineering manager gave me clear, detailed feedback on why (I don't have experience with satellite imagery tools like STAC, I accessed dict members with x['a'] instead of x.get('a', {}), and I didn't go in to depth on my takehome assignment.). I really appreciate it and mention them since it's rare to get such helpful feedback. Though admittedly I think their takehome time estimate was optimistic. When I was at Auth0 we started checking the commit logs on candidate repos and it was clear that people were spending MUCH longer than we were asking on takehome exercises.
- rand_r 3y ago
  Depending on your perception, x.get is either error recovery (good) or a silent failure (bad). One is not necessarily better than the other; it depends on what you want. In my experience, x[] is usually the better choice because failing fast makes debugging easier. I hope no one is recommending x.get as a general practice, because that is pretty naive.
  - orwin 3y ago
    You're right, but actually... If you're a very junior sw engineer reading this, who hasn't done a lot of python, use x.get(). Almost always, so for you, always. This doesn't apply if you're a scientist or mostly writing small scripts, but if you are doing SWE, always use x.get(). Once you've understood python you can use x[] in limited cases. Never in your unit or functional tests. I code using x[], but later on I replace a lot of them with getter (around my second refactoring, when I add type hints and tests) especially in library or code that'll be shared.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      For what it's worth, I only use x.get when having a missing key is a normal and expected part of the process. If I need to be able to expect a key to be in the dict then I'll use x[] so I can get a useful exception for debugging. Though really, this should only happen with validated inputs, and as Python adopts more type hinting dealing with this should get easier over time.
actionfromafar 3y ago
Common everywhere unions are weak.
thereisnospork 3y ago
PIPs exist pretty much solely to create cover for firing someone[0]. Really just an awkward beaurocratic necessity with a deceptive name. [0] Almost all employment in the US is 'at-will' so in principle anyone is fireable for any reason that isn't in a short list of illegal discrimination (e.g. can't fire someone for being black, or for not sleeping with you). In practice having even a flimsy veneer of poor performance becomes necessary as proactive legal defense.
- hef19898 3y ago
  You what's funny? When this PIP culture hits German labour laws. Then the result is basically pointless bossing, which ultimately results in, for the employer, rather expensive severance packages. Nothing funny about bossing, but funny that employers still want to force their head through a wall, instead of just offering the package they have to pay anyway from the get go.
  - wil421 3y ago
    Large companies just stagnant hiring in one region or another to offset risk. I’ve seen companies hire like crazy in places like the US and India but the same people have been working in the UK/EU for decade(s) without any new hires. UK/EU companies will do the same and recoup costs by laying off regions like US/India because it’s easier. You can easily avoid these kinds of companies who are always hiring and firing. I’ve never had to deal with a threat of a PIP.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Companies hire where employees are cheaper, and where labor protections are weaker. All the time. They also are limited to hire in regions that can support their business, e.g. Poland in case of Germany. India wouldn't work for an inhouse team running order management for a German production company, but Poland might. Might because getting such an org off the ground, and running, takes considerable efforts which might not justify whatever salary savings one might have. That being said, Amazon in Germany is more like a up-or-out place than a hire-and-fire one for white collar folks. And the blue collar personal is pretty much treated like logistics workers at other places, read not really great. Salaries tend to be higher so (accounted for region and other things). No idea how things are on the ground in the US so, but I guess worse. Which seems to be a general thing so.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>This seems common in American companies. If that same American culture is all over companies worldwide now, is it still American culture anymore? >For example, American companies won't tell job applicants why they get rejected, lest they get sued by the rejected candidates. Same in Europe, you get ghosted or at best, you get the same bland cookie cutter politically correct copy-paste rejection massage, no matter what the actual reason is, even if you explicitly ask for detailed feedback and promise to be open minded and not sour about it. So back to my original question, is that still an American company thing, or just a $COMPANY_THING now?
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  This is absolutely not true in Europe, unless you're talking UK or a subject of an US company.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Yes it's true for Europe. (big) companies' HR just ghost you or reject you with the same legally safe cookie cutter template messages. Maybe at very small companies if you only interacted with the hiring manager he might have the time and inclination to give you some personalized feedback but that's very rare. No, not UK, just Austrian companies in Austria for example. Swedish companies in Sweden. Also German companies in Germany. In Eastern Europe too. Is that enough of a sample size for my opinion on European companies?
    - boffinAudio 3y ago
      Austrian resident here, checking in. I have yet to see this heinous practice in the Austrian job market, but I guess ymmv. Every single time [*] I've asked for feedback on the interview process, I've gotten it - including details for why I was not considered for a position. Perhaps you just need to ask. [* - except Qualcomm, I just remembered...]
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
_the_inflator 3y ago
Senior Manager here. This is common to any large entity and may only influenced by workers' rights and culture. 1. Large numbers In large companies, you have numbers. There are 10000 individuals so to say. There is a difference between individuals and groups. The larger the group, the more HR and controlling tend to use their understanding of statistics. This is the conflict between groups and individuals. Why take care of one person? In sum, it does not pay off. This is not my opinion, but I heard it over and over behind closed doors: Where wood is chopped, splinters must fall, and so instead of working with the individual, you have different scenarios of the cost of litigation vs. others. 2. Job Offers and Rejections - Behind the scenes Also there are processes to be met officially. Say there is a job offer on a job portal and you apply to it. Behind the scenes, there is already the right candidate with the right profile. However, in order to get the candidate through all the controls along the process, you have to evaluate other candidates as well. In the end, HR "knows" whom to pick, and this is also a reason why a perfect job interview can mean rejection. You simply are not the chosen one. Process met, company happy - rejected candidate falsy scrutinizes himself. Would you as a company tell the candidate: "Hey, sorry for your time, investment, interest etc. But there was not really an offer for you, we simply had to comply to a process. Have fun + bye!"? Nope. Take this into account. There is a balance between "Not the right fit" and "Not the chosen fit".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aestetix 3y ago
  > Why take care of one person? In sum, it does not pay off. That assessment is extremely short-sighted. The reason it will pay off is because other employees will see how you treat the one person. If they see you give someone who is struggling needed support, they will know that in the future, they might get that as well. Having a stable environment full of people who trust each other will pay off far more in the future. > Also there are processes to be met officially By "officially" do you mean legally? Because it sounds to me that a good faith law was met with a bad faith effort by that company. It wastes a candidates time, and gives false hope, while applying to the letter of the law without actually following the spirit of it. Which actually feeds into the broken legal culture of the PIPs. It also wastes HRs time, playing to make the government happy while ignoring potential workplace problems they could be addressing.
HenryBemis 3y ago
[flagged]
- LocalH 3y ago
  This is the spectre of infinite growth permeating everything, at every level.
- adaml_623 3y ago
  "curry-eating"? Really?
toasted-subs 3y ago
What are we not talking about 996 culture. Personally I feel like I'd rather jump off a bridge than work in toxic environments.
astura 3y ago
This is not common in any company I've ever worked for, fwiw.
chadash 3y ago
> For example, American companies won't tell job applicants why they get rejected, lest they get sued by the rejected candidates In my experience, this isn’t always true. If you ask the person who interviewed you they will often give you feedback. The issue is that often you do an interview with person x, but then get a rejection email from person y in HR. Person Y doesn’t know enough detail to give you feedback so they don’t. I’ve also conducted hundreds of interviews. I generally don’t give feedback unless asked because a) it takes time and b) some candidates will push back and argue even though I’ve already made a decision and c) sometimes it’s just awkward. For example, a team might reject someone because they find the candidate doesn’t communicate well, but that’s awkward feedback to give someone, even if it’s useful. But if someone reaches out and asks for feedback, I usually try to schedule a five minute phone call to help them out.
M2Ys4U 3y ago
>I wonder how much of this is a result of lawsuit culture Or a lack of union protection.
scarface_74 3y ago
Even without worrying about lawsuit, it isn’t a good use of your time as interviewer to tell the candidate. It’s just like having a long conversation with someone you don’t want to go out with any more. They will keep trying to “explain why you’re wrong”.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

antupis 3y ago

Also if pips are constant it will just create a nasty culture which is very hard to turn back.

aestetix 3y ago
Well it seems that PIPs are not actually improvement plans. An honest performance improvement plan would identify key areas that can reasonably be improved, steps to improve in those areas, and a timeframe to achieve that improvement. Ideally with occasional check-ins to ensure the employee is on target for reaching the goals. What I hear about American PIPs is that they are unrealistic or impossible goals for anyone to achieve, and presented falsely as an improvement plan because the company is too cowardly (or incompetent) to either fire the person or give actual feedback. In other words, it sounds like an extremely passive aggressive way to avoid confrontation, and also serve as a shield in an overall toxic climate where the legal system won't just tell the person with the frivolous lawsuit to go blow sand.
- me_me_me 3y ago
  PIPs (at least in europe) are a way for company to prove employee was fired because they are incompetent. We tried to help employee X, see the paperwork? But they are not good enough. Its a system to shield company from local laws and lawsuits. Its not a sign of cowardliness or incompetence. Its cold calculation and foolproof process, that on scale protects corpo from multi-million settlements I have only heard secondhand of two cases where pip didnt result in being fired (but cant confirm it, could have been a propaganda stories passed on by gullible)
  - aestetix 3y ago
    But the point is, would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP? If you give an employee guardrails for success and they flounder anyways, then it seems the employee was not a good fit for the role. It says more about the employee than the process.
    - blitzar 3y ago
      > would a similar employee who made a good faith effort be able to graduate out of the PIP 90%+ of the situations I have witnessed, extreme luck or act of god would be required to achieve the requirements. In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. I have also had the misfortune to witness one where the employee didnt realise it was all a con to fire them; they got the miracle, 10x'd their teams sales but "failed" some pointless side quest to get coffee for the boss every morning by 6am.
      - re-thc 3y ago
        > In the other 10% the PIP was an order from above that the line managers disagreed with and thus set a reasonable performance level. An examples on how those played out? Curious if the line managers then get punished?
        blitzar 3y ago
        For the most part they looked like they worked out fine - generally it was a personal problem, people not "liking" people. The line manager gave the nudge and wink to be "extra nice" to the meglomaniac in the senior suite and after a few months cooler heads prevail, along with a documented performance. A lot of actual real world peformance and what people actually do isnt really visible when you are a few layers up (or in a different team). Sooner or later in an organisation large enough someone is going to assume simply because they dont like someone over there, that person does nothing all day long. If one was particularly skilled you could probably use these sorts of things to undermine upper management that is already on the ropes - but that is an advanced technique.

CalRobert 3y ago

This is random but I was recently rejected for a role from a company I find very interesting - https://www.overstory.com/ https://www.overstory.com/ - and when I asked, the engineering manager gave me clear, detailed feedback on why (I don't have experience with satellite imagery tools like STAC, I accessed dict members with x['a'] instead of x.get('a', {}), and I didn't go in to depth on my takehome assignment.). I really appreciate it and mention them since it's rare to get such helpful feedback. Though admittedly I think their takehome time estimate was optimistic. When I was at Auth0 we started checking the commit logs on candidate repos and it was clear that people were spending MUCH longer than we were asking on takehome exercises.

rand_r 3y ago
Depending on your perception, x.get is either error recovery (good) or a silent failure (bad). One is not necessarily better than the other; it depends on what you want. In my experience, x[] is usually the better choice because failing fast makes debugging easier. I hope no one is recommending x.get as a general practice, because that is pretty naive.
- orwin 3y ago
  You're right, but actually... If you're a very junior sw engineer reading this, who hasn't done a lot of python, use x.get(). Almost always, so for you, always. This doesn't apply if you're a scientist or mostly writing small scripts, but if you are doing SWE, always use x.get(). Once you've understood python you can use x[] in limited cases. Never in your unit or functional tests. I code using x[], but later on I replace a lot of them with getter (around my second refactoring, when I add type hints and tests) especially in library or code that'll be shared.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    For what it's worth, I only use x.get when having a missing key is a normal and expected part of the process. If I need to be able to expect a key to be in the dict then I'll use x[] so I can get a useful exception for debugging. Though really, this should only happen with validated inputs, and as Python adopts more type hinting dealing with this should get easier over time.

actionfromafar 3y ago

Common everywhere unions are weak.

thereisnospork 3y ago

PIPs exist pretty much solely to create cover for firing someone[0]. Really just an awkward beaurocratic necessity with a deceptive name. [0] Almost all employment in the US is 'at-will' so in principle anyone is fireable for any reason that isn't in a short list of illegal discrimination (e.g. can't fire someone for being black, or for not sleeping with you). In practice having even a flimsy veneer of poor performance becomes necessary as proactive legal defense.

hef19898 3y ago
You what's funny? When this PIP culture hits German labour laws. Then the result is basically pointless bossing, which ultimately results in, for the employer, rather expensive severance packages. Nothing funny about bossing, but funny that employers still want to force their head through a wall, instead of just offering the package they have to pay anyway from the get go.
- wil421 3y ago
  Large companies just stagnant hiring in one region or another to offset risk. I’ve seen companies hire like crazy in places like the US and India but the same people have been working in the UK/EU for decade(s) without any new hires. UK/EU companies will do the same and recoup costs by laying off regions like US/India because it’s easier. You can easily avoid these kinds of companies who are always hiring and firing. I’ve never had to deal with a threat of a PIP.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Companies hire where employees are cheaper, and where labor protections are weaker. All the time. They also are limited to hire in regions that can support their business, e.g. Poland in case of Germany. India wouldn't work for an inhouse team running order management for a German production company, but Poland might. Might because getting such an org off the ground, and running, takes considerable efforts which might not justify whatever salary savings one might have. That being said, Amazon in Germany is more like a up-or-out place than a hire-and-fire one for white collar folks. And the blue collar personal is pretty much treated like logistics workers at other places, read not really great. Salaries tend to be higher so (accounted for region and other things). No idea how things are on the ground in the US so, but I guess worse. Which seems to be a general thing so.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>This seems common in American companies. If that same American culture is all over companies worldwide now, is it still American culture anymore? >For example, American companies won't tell job applicants why they get rejected, lest they get sued by the rejected candidates. Same in Europe, you get ghosted or at best, you get the same bland cookie cutter politically correct copy-paste rejection massage, no matter what the actual reason is, even if you explicitly ask for detailed feedback and promise to be open minded and not sour about it. So back to my original question, is that still an American company thing, or just a $COMPANY_THING now?

KptMarchewa 3y ago
This is absolutely not true in Europe, unless you're talking UK or a subject of an US company.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Yes it's true for Europe. (big) companies' HR just ghost you or reject you with the same legally safe cookie cutter template messages. Maybe at very small companies if you only interacted with the hiring manager he might have the time and inclination to give you some personalized feedback but that's very rare. No, not UK, just Austrian companies in Austria for example. Swedish companies in Sweden. Also German companies in Germany. In Eastern Europe too. Is that enough of a sample size for my opinion on European companies?
  - boffinAudio 3y ago
    Austrian resident here, checking in. I have yet to see this heinous practice in the Austrian job market, but I guess ymmv. Every single time [*] I've asked for feedback on the interview process, I've gotten it - including details for why I was not considered for a position. Perhaps you just need to ask. [* - except Qualcomm, I just remembered...]
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago

_the_inflator 3y ago

Senior Manager here. This is common to any large entity and may only influenced by workers' rights and culture. 1. Large numbers In large companies, you have numbers. There are 10000 individuals so to say. There is a difference between individuals and groups. The larger the group, the more HR and controlling tend to use their understanding of statistics. This is the conflict between groups and individuals. Why take care of one person? In sum, it does not pay off. This is not my opinion, but I heard it over and over behind closed doors: Where wood is chopped, splinters must fall, and so instead of working with the individual, you have different scenarios of the cost of litigation vs. others. 2. Job Offers and Rejections - Behind the scenes Also there are processes to be met officially. Say there is a job offer on a job portal and you apply to it. Behind the scenes, there is already the right candidate with the right profile. However, in order to get the candidate through all the controls along the process, you have to evaluate other candidates as well. In the end, HR "knows" whom to pick, and this is also a reason why a perfect job interview can mean rejection. You simply are not the chosen one. Process met, company happy - rejected candidate falsy scrutinizes himself. Would you as a company tell the candidate: "Hey, sorry for your time, investment, interest etc. But there was not really an offer for you, we simply had to comply to a process. Have fun + bye!"? Nope. Take this into account. There is a balance between "Not the right fit" and "Not the chosen fit".

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aestetix 3y ago
> Why take care of one person? In sum, it does not pay off. That assessment is extremely short-sighted. The reason it will pay off is because other employees will see how you treat the one person. If they see you give someone who is struggling needed support, they will know that in the future, they might get that as well. Having a stable environment full of people who trust each other will pay off far more in the future. > Also there are processes to be met officially By "officially" do you mean legally? Because it sounds to me that a good faith law was met with a bad faith effort by that company. It wastes a candidates time, and gives false hope, while applying to the letter of the law without actually following the spirit of it. Which actually feeds into the broken legal culture of the PIPs. It also wastes HRs time, playing to make the government happy while ignoring potential workplace problems they could be addressing.

HenryBemis 3y ago

[flagged]

LocalH 3y ago
This is the spectre of infinite growth permeating everything, at every level.
adaml_623 3y ago
"curry-eating"? Really?

toasted-subs 3y ago

What are we not talking about 996 culture. Personally I feel like I'd rather jump off a bridge than work in toxic environments.

astura 3y ago

This is not common in any company I've ever worked for, fwiw.

chadash 3y ago

> For example, American companies won't tell job applicants why they get rejected, lest they get sued by the rejected candidates In my experience, this isn’t always true. If you ask the person who interviewed you they will often give you feedback. The issue is that often you do an interview with person x, but then get a rejection email from person y in HR. Person Y doesn’t know enough detail to give you feedback so they don’t. I’ve also conducted hundreds of interviews. I generally don’t give feedback unless asked because a) it takes time and b) some candidates will push back and argue even though I’ve already made a decision and c) sometimes it’s just awkward. For example, a team might reject someone because they find the candidate doesn’t communicate well, but that’s awkward feedback to give someone, even if it’s useful. But if someone reaches out and asks for feedback, I usually try to schedule a five minute phone call to help them out.

M2Ys4U 3y ago

>I wonder how much of this is a result of lawsuit culture Or a lack of union protection.

scarface_74 3y ago

Even without worrying about lawsuit, it isn’t a good use of your time as interviewer to tell the candidate. It’s just like having a long conversation with someone you don’t want to go out with any more. They will keep trying to “explain why you’re wrong”.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]