4 ms·

This has probably already been said, but places that mandate that X% of people need to be put on performance improvement plans are not great. This can force man

This has probably already been said, but places that mandate that X% of people need to be put on performance improvement plans are not great. This can force managers (or HR, depends on who decides the PIP) to put otherwise good engineers or staff on PIP when they are perfectly fine employees - they may not be 10x, perfect, and can just be doing what they need to do to do their jobs, but they still aren't doing anything wrong and end up on a PIP because the company is forcing them to put atleast some percentage of people on it each year

bellgrove 3y ago
I completely agree. Plus, part of Amazon's candidate evaluation is to consider whether they are (or clearly have potential to be) better than 50% of your peers, as part of the hiring bar. Between that and stack-ranking/forced-attrition, even previously high-performing employees can one day find themselves on the chopping block.
- kudokatz 3y ago
  tl;dr: "You can't raise the bar if you can't pick the bar raisers. " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619#21732841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619#21732841
jeremiahbuckley 3y ago
And don’t you end up with hire-to-fire practices as a result of this? Hire a lame employee just so they can be the one on the chopping block; preserving your actual valuable team members?
- eschneider 3y ago
  Yeah, but why do that when you can hire someone good, get good work out of them, then toss them on the chopping block, preserving your 'actual' valuable team members?
eenell 3y ago
"Radical Candor" calls it rocks & rock stars. You need steady, reliable people, who are happy excelling in their current position (rocks) just as much as you need highly motivated people looking to work up the ladder into leadership positions (rock stars).
- paganel 3y ago
  > You need steady, reliable people, who are happy excelling in their current position (rocks) Exactly, there was no winning at the early 2000s Real Madrid full of rock stars (Zidane, the original Ronaldo, Figo, Beckham etc) until a rock like Makelele came around in the midfield. I'm surprised that the business luminaries have stopped seeing this basic fact, maybe it's because of the monopoly/oligopoly positions where they've managed to put themselves in and which makes them impervious to how badly their teams are run.
soco 3y ago
In some countries it's even illegal. But since when did this stop (US) management from trying it.

bellgrove 3y ago

I completely agree. Plus, part of Amazon's candidate evaluation is to consider whether they are (or clearly have potential to be) better than 50% of your peers, as part of the hiring bar. Between that and stack-ranking/forced-attrition, even previously high-performing employees can one day find themselves on the chopping block.

kudokatz 3y ago
tl;dr: "You can't raise the bar if you can't pick the bar raisers. " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619#21732841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619#21732841

jeremiahbuckley 3y ago

And don’t you end up with hire-to-fire practices as a result of this? Hire a lame employee just so they can be the one on the chopping block; preserving your actual valuable team members?

eschneider 3y ago
Yeah, but why do that when you can hire someone good, get good work out of them, then toss them on the chopping block, preserving your 'actual' valuable team members?

eenell 3y ago

"Radical Candor" calls it rocks & rock stars. You need steady, reliable people, who are happy excelling in their current position (rocks) just as much as you need highly motivated people looking to work up the ladder into leadership positions (rock stars).

paganel 3y ago
> You need steady, reliable people, who are happy excelling in their current position (rocks) Exactly, there was no winning at the early 2000s Real Madrid full of rock stars (Zidane, the original Ronaldo, Figo, Beckham etc) until a rock like Makelele came around in the midfield. I'm surprised that the business luminaries have stopped seeing this basic fact, maybe it's because of the monopoly/oligopoly positions where they've managed to put themselves in and which makes them impervious to how badly their teams are run.

soco 3y ago

In some countries it's even illegal. But since when did this stop (US) management from trying it.