8 ms·

This is a classic layoff debate -- is it better to do it with zero warning, or is it better to let employees know that a layoff is coming? Personally, I believ

This is a classic layoff debate -- is it better to do it with zero warning, or is it better to let employees know that a layoff is coming? Personally, I believe advance notice is better, because it signals to employees that, if layoffs are going to happen, there will be some time to prepare. By choosing to blindside employees, it creates a culture of paranoia, IMO. ("Will today be layoff day?" "What about next month?" "Oh no, it's the end of the quarter, does that mean tomorrow my laptop will lock up at 4am?")

tycho-newman 3y ago
California has the WARN Act.
tiffanyh 3y ago
In my experience, your best talent then leaves. Which is the opposite of what you want.
- euos 3y ago
  No where to leave. Industry is dead rn, at least if you're an SWE in Silicon Valley. All open positions are paying 50% less.
  - altdataseller 3y ago
    What do you mean 50% less? That sounds off.. by a lot. Salaries have either flattened or increased a bit from last year for SWEs
    - riffraff 3y ago
      If I may suggest am interpretation: different kind of professionals may see different things. E.gm I'm told the market rate for react devs dropped like a brick, which is not the case for other software engineers.
      - altdataseller 3y ago
        If you call yourself a react dev, then I’m sorry you’re not a software engineer. That’s like calling urself a Facebook marketer instead of a marketer. Good way to box yourself into a niche that may run out of demand
  - grandmczeb 3y ago
    Not even remotely true. Levels.fyi says SWE salaries are basically flat over the last year, which matches my experience. https://www.levels.fyi/2023/ https://www.levels.fyi/2023/
    - ninkendo 3y ago
      I don’t know which of you is right, but I think you’re saying different things. They’re saying positions that are actually open right now are paying less, and you’re saying salaries for existing employees are flat. They could be right if the positions which are open are only recruiting those with lower salary expectations.
      - grandmczeb 3y ago
        No, I’m saying pay for new openings is flat. I just went through a job search, the numbers in the level.fyi data match my own job search experience looking at current openings.
    - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
      ... inflation happened. Flat salaries is a 20-30% paycut.
      - antisthenes 3y ago
        From 2019 maybe. 2023 inflation was ~3.5%
        dragontamer 3y ago
        3.4% according to the latest number released in the past 24 hours.
        AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        That's interesting, because: - soda is up about 50% for name brand, and generic soda is up around 80% - diesel is up, what 50%? how much is regular gas in california? - housing "values" where I am at are up 25-40% in the last two years - Potato chips are up at least 40% - Apples are much more expensive - Restaurants are up at least 25%, some 50-75% Many of these products went up by these amounts yet also engaged in shrinkflation. The biggest example of this is Chipotle which almost doubled the cost of its burritos but also shrunk them in size by about a third. Governments are motivated to reduce inflation in inflation statistics. Perhaps the cost of goods for the ultra-rich hasn't really changed much, but for the poor (or cheap) they have all gone up quite dramatically in two years.
  - bane 3y ago
    If you can't collude on salaries, you can collude on layoffs which will drive salaries down if at large enough scale.
    - Ferret7446 3y ago
      If you can collude on layoffs, that means industry demand for labor is down and salaries are reflecting lowered demand. (which is to say that is just natural market forces, not collusion)
      - lmm 3y ago
        > If you can collude on layoffs, that means industry demand for labor is down and salaries are reflecting lowered demand. No it doesn't. You make a "gentleman's agreement" to do your layoffs and trust your chums to keep to it. Are you arguing that industry collusion is impossible?
        throwaway2037 3y ago
        Do you have any evidence of industry collusion? Else, this sounds like tinfoil hat stuff.
        lmm 3y ago
        The "silicon valley anti-poaching agreement" is a known case where it happened a few years ago. So it's not too implausible to think that the current round of layoffs might be being coordinated in a similar way.
        jstarfish 3y ago
        All you have to do is look at how these things play out. One large company announces they're considering layoffs, which primes everyone else to compile their own lists. After a month or two one company announces they're going through with layoffs, and that sets off a chain reaction for the rest to execute their own plans as soon as possible. It always happens like this. Everyone just decides now is the time to clean house, all at the same time, and we all decided to do this independent of each other... The "collusion" is a dog-whistle protocol happening in plain sight. There is no "evidence," no damning email to be found, only behavioral patterns to observe. It's the same playbook every single time.
  - pie420 3y ago
    boo hoo, how will SWE survive on a paltry $150k per year for adjusting drop down menu fonts. The salaries in tech were ridiculous and an insult to other professionals that actually improved the world. Now that 0% interest rates are gone and most tech is mature and cranking up margins by pushing more ads, you don't need as many SWEs. Michelin-chef meals, onsite daycare, 400K salaries, and nap rooms were not a sustainable long term thing
- infotainment 3y ago
  Isn't that the case in all layoffs, regardless of announcement timing? I'd argue all layoffs are, as a rule, foolish and short-sighted, because they tend end up with so many unintended consequences like that.
  - matthewfcarlson 3y ago
    Agreed. Once you open up the option for layoffs, it’s never going to be the same. The best way to do a layoff is to never have one
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      > The best way to do a layoff is to never have one Sure, in fantasyland. This is unrealistic. What if you have a severe business downturn? No choice, but to layoff. In services, your number one cost is always people (talent).
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      Couldn't disagree more strongly. Saying "The best way to do a layoff is to never have one" is really saying that you want to hire so cautiously that you will prevent people from getting the opportunity to have a job in the first place. Look, so much of layoffs from the past 1.5 years or so are the result of massive overhiring during the pandemic. Sure, it's easy to argue companies were short sighted, but even if they hadn't been, why would it be better to never have hired all those people to begin with? That is, even if a company had thought "the pandemic has really just pulled demand forward - we need a lot more workers now that we won' need when the pandemic ends", why shouldn't they hire workers for that period? Yes, I totally agree this is bad form to disrupt someone's career tenure if it's for a very short period, but a lot of these pandemic hires lasted several years. All those people got great experience and salaries, and I don't think the better thing would have been to never have hired them in the first place. I wish people would move away from the mindset that a layoff is the most awful thing possible, as long as people are treated respectfully and with adequate severance. When a company hires me, I don't expect to work there for life, nor do I expect them to have an obligation to keep me employed for life. As long as we give each other enough heads up if we decide to separate (and folks can have an honest debate over how long "enough" is), I don't see the problem.
- Yodel0914 3y ago
  I think this is one of those situations where the optimal strategy for one interaction is very different to that for multiple, iterative interactions. The company has to presumably hire again in the future, and having a reputation for firing without notice may make it harder to attract the people you want.
  - tiffanyh 3y ago
    You don’t want to give your top talent a reason to look for another job. Telling your top talent a layoff is coming, even if they feel “secure” in their role, still gives them a reason to look. Let alone competitors now have a great pitch to your top talent - “do you want to risk getting laid off or join our awesome company”.
    - joeblubaugh 3y ago
      on the other hand, top talent is also likely to feel disrespected by having layoffs sprung on their team with no warning. It was a trigger for 3 of my job changes during my career, each time a "regretted attrition."
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    "firing without notice": First, not legal in California where most of their highest skilled people work (Emeryville, last that I knew). These people will probably will receive (very) large severance packages worth months of pay. Plenty of time to find a new job. If they are very high skill, it will be easy to find a new role. Also, reputation for an employer is quickly forgotten if salaries are high enough. Please don't forget how many people went to work on dumb projects at the height of Facebook. After the Metaverse was cancelled and many people were laid off, suddenly a bunch of blog posts appeared: "That place was awful to work, but they paid me lots of money." (Example: Eric Lippert) Investment banking is similar. In short, if you pay enough, there are enough (plenty of?) people who don't care about your reputation.
    - obmelvin 3y ago
      > "firing without notice": First, not legal in California where most of their highest skilled people work Can you expand? Doesn't at-will meant that you can be fired without advanced notice?
- gedy 3y ago
  Even if they don't leave, I was at a company that warned us 3 months before a 20% layoff, and basically everyone treaded water for 3 months until they knew if were staying. Huge company loss of productivity.
- freetanga 3y ago
  Maybe you identify your best and worst before, and after giving heads up you sit with the best and tell them they are safe? Even give them reinforced contracts to make them at ease?
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Your best talent at a company like this knows they aren't going to get fired. In fact at a company like this, your best talent probably wishes the bottom 10% would get trimmed because they produce so little relative to higher performers.
  - snotrockets 3y ago
    You mistakenly assume those making the lists of employees to be fired actually know, or care, about quality of said employees.
  - georgemcbay 3y ago
    The best talent is often the highest paid and that gets factored into these decisions as well when the company is trying to hit specific budget targets. And this is the sort of thing that can be especially problematic in creative companies when the layoffs are being run by bean-counting executives who have no presence in the day to day work of ICs. Will top talent get sacked at Pixar? I have no idea, but as a 50 year old tech worker I've seen a number of layoffs first-hand and have heard anecdotal reports of dozens more that lead me to the conclusion that being among the "top talent" does not make you immune when it comes to large belt-tightening layoffs.
  - gopher2000 3y ago
    Large layoffs are rarely, if ever, performance anchored at the IC level. They're anchored in the performance at product/unit level. So the major decider for layoffs is whether you're working on something that is deemed as business positive or not.
- ambicapter 3y ago
  Why would the "best talent" leave? Are they worried they're going to get laid off? Or were they just looking for an excuse to leave?
  - bradfitz 3y ago
    Can most easily find new jobs.
    - joquarky 3y ago
      With new coworkers who are not demoralized by the impending layoff
  - AmVess 3y ago
    No point in staying on a sinking ship.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    It's like with a sinking ship. In Titanic the folks that got on lifeboats early survived, the ones that didn't got caught up in whatever traps as the rest of the ship goes down. If the ship is going down, its good to not ride it to the depths. If it's not going down, then maybe it's not worth jumping. That's thr skill in it I guess, knowing which is which.
  - FLT8 3y ago
    Layoffs usually occur within the wider context of a more cost constrained/austere environment. Essentially the high performers understand that they'll be expected to do more with less (people, resources, benefits, ...). Likely the layoffs won't affect the layers of grifters above them, so it becomes a question of whether they really want to work harder for little or no personal gain, just to support the layers above them who are making and being rewarded for the bad decisions, or whether the high performers should look elsewhere for something more aligned with their personal happiness.
  - watwut 3y ago
    Things change with layoffs - whatever they liked about company before is not there anymore. The relationships get worst, there is a lot more political infighting due to unclear competencies and changes. The people who stay after layoff tend to be demotivated in general too.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  In my experience, the best talent has the privilege to pick jobs based on what they really want - because they have the most options. If they didn't want to be at Pixar, they'd already be gone. If they like it there, they aren't too worried about getting fired, because they know it won't be hard to find a different (probably better) job.
  - rob74 3y ago
    Maybe they wanted to be at Pixar because it was a successful company with safe jobs, but don't want to be at the new less successful layoff-threatened Pixar anymore? And the "best talent" also tends to have better salaries, and management decisions are often not really well-informed, so IMHO thinking you are immune from layoffs because you're better than average is hubris...
  - triyambakam 3y ago
    best talent !== most confident and self aware talent, thus good talent gets scared and leaves
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    This is tempered by everyone's financial situation. Even in tech a large group of people don't have the resources to sit on the shelf for a few months unpaid. Even if they know a severance package is included the amount is unknown and there are not a ton of animation studios that can probably compete with Pixar on salary, a few but not a lot. Its a big risk to just wait it out and see if you are not financially secure.
- dsabanin 3y ago
  Not all actions have to be self-serving.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  My experience is different. _When_ (not always!) I was considered a top performer, you had a 1:1 or small group meeting with senior leaders who told you point blank: "Layoffs are coming. You are top performers. None of you will be laid-off." People would sigh with relief, then go back to their desk. The layoff announcement would come moments later.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    This happens only when layoffs are small and targeted. In reality of big corps your whole department would be cut including the managers promising you that you wouldn't be affected
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      > This happens only when layoffs are small and targeted. Thank you for speaking on my behalf. No, it does not. In my experience, I am never concerned with small and targeted layoffs because I am never in the bottom 25% performers in my team. Instead, when the layoff are mass and broad, only then, have I experienced those personalised meeting with senior management. (To be crystal clear: I was only invited to those meetings when I was viewed as a top-top performer. Not always.)
- baby 3y ago
  What’s the argument here? Why would talent leave?
  - thih9 3y ago
    Layoffs often indicate lack of growth - might be harder to grow professionally, or get promoted. Also saving money on hiring often means saving money in general and elsewhere too, worsening quality of life. In particular projects can get canceled, priorities shifted, grind increased, privileges revoked, remote work banned, etc. People who have the option to leave might do just that.
    - pie420 3y ago
      Layoffs could also mean trimming the dead weight at the company that is sitting around and collecting paychecks, which in my experience is super common in california tech. Hit L4/L5, attend that weekly standups, and rest and vest till 50, then FAT FIRE and move to New Zealand
      - thih9 3y ago
        Unless you’re the one conducting layoffs, what you think is dead weight and what people conducting layoffs think is dead weight might be different people. Plus that L4/L5 employee might look stellar on paper. Or even be stellar, just not very vocal about what they’re doing.
    - baby 3y ago
      > Layoffs often indicate lack of growth I thought that was true as well but the tech layoffs that have been happening have all been about being leaner to grow faster. Look at Meta, for example, that did layoffs in spite of massive continuous growth.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    For a lot of people going through a first layoff, it would be shocking. This company that keeps telling them they are all family here just cut x% of them. Its a slap in the face and makes them understand that there is no loyalty from the business to the employee so why be loyal to the business? This drives people to take a more mercenary approach to work and look for better pay elsewhere.
- happymellon 3y ago
  In my experience the best talent will leave after a 10% layoff anyway. It's never just 10%, just 10% this week. Once they see stocks go up, and costs go down because everyone is working an extra hour a week to keep on track why wouldn't you cut another 15%?
- watwut 3y ago
  People will make choices to leave either way. If you do not give advance warnings and just fire people, remaining people will still make decisions to leave. You cant force the talent to stay.
- michaelcampbell 3y ago
  The "Dead Sea Effect" will have been going on already, but this certainly speeds it up.
redserk 3y ago
Or there is the third option: do the layoffs, immediately cut access, then give a generous amount of severance with benefits.
- infotainment 3y ago
  I'd argue that's basically option 2: blindsiding employees. Severance softens the blow, but fundamentally doesn't fix the "I might get axed tomorrow" paranoia.
tharne 3y ago
> This is a classic layoff debate -- is it better to do it with zero warning, or is it better to let employees know that a layoff is coming? No good answers here. They're both bad, but in different ways, and I suspect that whether one is worse than the other is probably a matter of personality type.
deeviant 3y ago
I feel that's less of a benefit if you don't know it is you that is getting laid off or not...
pdimitar 3y ago
They just want people to leave voluntarily so they don't have to pay severance.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  It depends on the amount of severance and the person. Not sure if everybody would prefer to get a couple months worth of severance but have to go through the stress of quickly finding a new job. I find that stressful even if I live in a country where I have the same level of healthcare no matter whether I'm employed or not. How do you guys in the US cope with that? Is it as bad as it looks from outside or you have mechanisms to not lose all your healthcare if laid off?
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    You get severance and can claim unemployment for a while too if you're laid off. Getting people to jump ship themselves avoids severance payouts and UI claims. If you plan to jump ship, negotiate with HR to get the severance package and voluntary leave, especially if you're hot shit and can get another job quickly, otherwise you're leaving money on the table. The only thing you lose here is eligibility for unemployment, which you won't need anyway. Healthcare is a shitshow. You can do COBRA, which lets you maintain your health plan by picking up the tab the employer previously paid. I've never done it myself but heard premiums were like $800 per person per month, years ago.
voidfunc 3y ago
It's kind of a weird move for companies to make because it's an oddly pro-labor signal to tell employees ahead of time to prepare for layoffs. I agree, I prefer it.. but also, it's weird in 2024 where corps basically try to fuck everyone at every possible turn that they're being so open about these layoffs.
dojitza1 3y ago
I know it's not practical because of select few bad apples, but giving a year's notice to the affected people, letting them finish up the work and mentally prepare, and all the while coaching them through the process of finding a new job seems like a humane thing to do.
John23832 3y ago
Immediate layoff, long period of transition. What Pixar has created is an environment where nobody knows is they’re going to stay, so people self select into two buckets: 1) those who say “I’m not going to bust my ass just to get fired”. They coast and prepare to leave. And 2) those who work their ass off to try to “prove” themselves. If any of 2 get fired, it’s a bad morale hit for anyone around after the layoffs. You’ll lose actual talent this way. Make the decision of who to layoff and do it, but be kind as you do.
nunez 3y ago
There is no good option. Either embrace the suck immediately, or let the suck consume you.

tycho-newman 3y ago

California has the WARN Act.

tiffanyh 3y ago

In my experience, your best talent then leaves. Which is the opposite of what you want.

euos 3y ago
No where to leave. Industry is dead rn, at least if you're an SWE in Silicon Valley. All open positions are paying 50% less.
- altdataseller 3y ago
  What do you mean 50% less? That sounds off.. by a lot. Salaries have either flattened or increased a bit from last year for SWEs
  - riffraff 3y ago
    If I may suggest am interpretation: different kind of professionals may see different things. E.gm I'm told the market rate for react devs dropped like a brick, which is not the case for other software engineers.
    - altdataseller 3y ago
      If you call yourself a react dev, then I’m sorry you’re not a software engineer. That’s like calling urself a Facebook marketer instead of a marketer. Good way to box yourself into a niche that may run out of demand
- grandmczeb 3y ago
  Not even remotely true. Levels.fyi says SWE salaries are basically flat over the last year, which matches my experience. https://www.levels.fyi/2023/ https://www.levels.fyi/2023/
  - ninkendo 3y ago
    I don’t know which of you is right, but I think you’re saying different things. They’re saying positions that are actually open right now are paying less, and you’re saying salaries for existing employees are flat. They could be right if the positions which are open are only recruiting those with lower salary expectations.
    - grandmczeb 3y ago
      No, I’m saying pay for new openings is flat. I just went through a job search, the numbers in the level.fyi data match my own job search experience looking at current openings.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    ... inflation happened. Flat salaries is a 20-30% paycut.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      From 2019 maybe. 2023 inflation was ~3.5%
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        3.4% according to the latest number released in the past 24 hours.
      - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        That's interesting, because: - soda is up about 50% for name brand, and generic soda is up around 80% - diesel is up, what 50%? how much is regular gas in california? - housing "values" where I am at are up 25-40% in the last two years - Potato chips are up at least 40% - Apples are much more expensive - Restaurants are up at least 25%, some 50-75% Many of these products went up by these amounts yet also engaged in shrinkflation. The biggest example of this is Chipotle which almost doubled the cost of its burritos but also shrunk them in size by about a third. Governments are motivated to reduce inflation in inflation statistics. Perhaps the cost of goods for the ultra-rich hasn't really changed much, but for the poor (or cheap) they have all gone up quite dramatically in two years.
- bane 3y ago
  If you can't collude on salaries, you can collude on layoffs which will drive salaries down if at large enough scale.
  - Ferret7446 3y ago
    If you can collude on layoffs, that means industry demand for labor is down and salaries are reflecting lowered demand. (which is to say that is just natural market forces, not collusion)
    - lmm 3y ago
      > If you can collude on layoffs, that means industry demand for labor is down and salaries are reflecting lowered demand. No it doesn't. You make a "gentleman's agreement" to do your layoffs and trust your chums to keep to it. Are you arguing that industry collusion is impossible?
      - throwaway2037 3y ago
        Do you have any evidence of industry collusion? Else, this sounds like tinfoil hat stuff.
        lmm 3y ago
        The "silicon valley anti-poaching agreement" is a known case where it happened a few years ago. So it's not too implausible to think that the current round of layoffs might be being coordinated in a similar way.
        jstarfish 3y ago
        All you have to do is look at how these things play out. One large company announces they're considering layoffs, which primes everyone else to compile their own lists. After a month or two one company announces they're going through with layoffs, and that sets off a chain reaction for the rest to execute their own plans as soon as possible. It always happens like this. Everyone just decides now is the time to clean house, all at the same time, and we all decided to do this independent of each other... The "collusion" is a dog-whistle protocol happening in plain sight. There is no "evidence," no damning email to be found, only behavioral patterns to observe. It's the same playbook every single time.
- pie420 3y ago
  boo hoo, how will SWE survive on a paltry $150k per year for adjusting drop down menu fonts. The salaries in tech were ridiculous and an insult to other professionals that actually improved the world. Now that 0% interest rates are gone and most tech is mature and cranking up margins by pushing more ads, you don't need as many SWEs. Michelin-chef meals, onsite daycare, 400K salaries, and nap rooms were not a sustainable long term thing
infotainment 3y ago
Isn't that the case in all layoffs, regardless of announcement timing? I'd argue all layoffs are, as a rule, foolish and short-sighted, because they tend end up with so many unintended consequences like that.
- matthewfcarlson 3y ago
  Agreed. Once you open up the option for layoffs, it’s never going to be the same. The best way to do a layoff is to never have one
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > The best way to do a layoff is to never have one Sure, in fantasyland. This is unrealistic. What if you have a severe business downturn? No choice, but to layoff. In services, your number one cost is always people (talent).
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Couldn't disagree more strongly. Saying "The best way to do a layoff is to never have one" is really saying that you want to hire so cautiously that you will prevent people from getting the opportunity to have a job in the first place. Look, so much of layoffs from the past 1.5 years or so are the result of massive overhiring during the pandemic. Sure, it's easy to argue companies were short sighted, but even if they hadn't been, why would it be better to never have hired all those people to begin with? That is, even if a company had thought "the pandemic has really just pulled demand forward - we need a lot more workers now that we won' need when the pandemic ends", why shouldn't they hire workers for that period? Yes, I totally agree this is bad form to disrupt someone's career tenure if it's for a very short period, but a lot of these pandemic hires lasted several years. All those people got great experience and salaries, and I don't think the better thing would have been to never have hired them in the first place. I wish people would move away from the mindset that a layoff is the most awful thing possible, as long as people are treated respectfully and with adequate severance. When a company hires me, I don't expect to work there for life, nor do I expect them to have an obligation to keep me employed for life. As long as we give each other enough heads up if we decide to separate (and folks can have an honest debate over how long "enough" is), I don't see the problem.
Yodel0914 3y ago
I think this is one of those situations where the optimal strategy for one interaction is very different to that for multiple, iterative interactions. The company has to presumably hire again in the future, and having a reputation for firing without notice may make it harder to attract the people you want.
- tiffanyh 3y ago
  You don’t want to give your top talent a reason to look for another job. Telling your top talent a layoff is coming, even if they feel “secure” in their role, still gives them a reason to look. Let alone competitors now have a great pitch to your top talent - “do you want to risk getting laid off or join our awesome company”.
  - joeblubaugh 3y ago
    on the other hand, top talent is also likely to feel disrespected by having layoffs sprung on their team with no warning. It was a trigger for 3 of my job changes during my career, each time a "regretted attrition."
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  "firing without notice": First, not legal in California where most of their highest skilled people work (Emeryville, last that I knew). These people will probably will receive (very) large severance packages worth months of pay. Plenty of time to find a new job. If they are very high skill, it will be easy to find a new role. Also, reputation for an employer is quickly forgotten if salaries are high enough. Please don't forget how many people went to work on dumb projects at the height of Facebook. After the Metaverse was cancelled and many people were laid off, suddenly a bunch of blog posts appeared: "That place was awful to work, but they paid me lots of money." (Example: Eric Lippert) Investment banking is similar. In short, if you pay enough, there are enough (plenty of?) people who don't care about your reputation.
  - obmelvin 3y ago
    > "firing without notice": First, not legal in California where most of their highest skilled people work Can you expand? Doesn't at-will meant that you can be fired without advanced notice?
gedy 3y ago
Even if they don't leave, I was at a company that warned us 3 months before a 20% layoff, and basically everyone treaded water for 3 months until they knew if were staying. Huge company loss of productivity.
freetanga 3y ago
Maybe you identify your best and worst before, and after giving heads up you sit with the best and tell them they are safe? Even give them reinforced contracts to make them at ease?
CyberDildonics 3y ago
Your best talent at a company like this knows they aren't going to get fired. In fact at a company like this, your best talent probably wishes the bottom 10% would get trimmed because they produce so little relative to higher performers.
- snotrockets 3y ago
  You mistakenly assume those making the lists of employees to be fired actually know, or care, about quality of said employees.
- georgemcbay 3y ago
  The best talent is often the highest paid and that gets factored into these decisions as well when the company is trying to hit specific budget targets. And this is the sort of thing that can be especially problematic in creative companies when the layoffs are being run by bean-counting executives who have no presence in the day to day work of ICs. Will top talent get sacked at Pixar? I have no idea, but as a 50 year old tech worker I've seen a number of layoffs first-hand and have heard anecdotal reports of dozens more that lead me to the conclusion that being among the "top talent" does not make you immune when it comes to large belt-tightening layoffs.
- gopher2000 3y ago
  Large layoffs are rarely, if ever, performance anchored at the IC level. They're anchored in the performance at product/unit level. So the major decider for layoffs is whether you're working on something that is deemed as business positive or not.
ambicapter 3y ago
Why would the "best talent" leave? Are they worried they're going to get laid off? Or were they just looking for an excuse to leave?
- bradfitz 3y ago
  Can most easily find new jobs.
  - joquarky 3y ago
    With new coworkers who are not demoralized by the impending layoff
- AmVess 3y ago
  No point in staying on a sinking ship.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  It's like with a sinking ship. In Titanic the folks that got on lifeboats early survived, the ones that didn't got caught up in whatever traps as the rest of the ship goes down. If the ship is going down, its good to not ride it to the depths. If it's not going down, then maybe it's not worth jumping. That's thr skill in it I guess, knowing which is which.
- FLT8 3y ago
  Layoffs usually occur within the wider context of a more cost constrained/austere environment. Essentially the high performers understand that they'll be expected to do more with less (people, resources, benefits, ...). Likely the layoffs won't affect the layers of grifters above them, so it becomes a question of whether they really want to work harder for little or no personal gain, just to support the layers above them who are making and being rewarded for the bad decisions, or whether the high performers should look elsewhere for something more aligned with their personal happiness.
- watwut 3y ago
  Things change with layoffs - whatever they liked about company before is not there anymore. The relationships get worst, there is a lot more political infighting due to unclear competencies and changes. The people who stay after layoff tend to be demotivated in general too.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
In my experience, the best talent has the privilege to pick jobs based on what they really want - because they have the most options. If they didn't want to be at Pixar, they'd already be gone. If they like it there, they aren't too worried about getting fired, because they know it won't be hard to find a different (probably better) job.
- rob74 3y ago
  Maybe they wanted to be at Pixar because it was a successful company with safe jobs, but don't want to be at the new less successful layoff-threatened Pixar anymore? And the "best talent" also tends to have better salaries, and management decisions are often not really well-informed, so IMHO thinking you are immune from layoffs because you're better than average is hubris...
- triyambakam 3y ago
  best talent !== most confident and self aware talent, thus good talent gets scared and leaves
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  This is tempered by everyone's financial situation. Even in tech a large group of people don't have the resources to sit on the shelf for a few months unpaid. Even if they know a severance package is included the amount is unknown and there are not a ton of animation studios that can probably compete with Pixar on salary, a few but not a lot. Its a big risk to just wait it out and see if you are not financially secure.
dsabanin 3y ago
Not all actions have to be self-serving.
throwaway2037 3y ago
My experience is different. _When_ (not always!) I was considered a top performer, you had a 1:1 or small group meeting with senior leaders who told you point blank: "Layoffs are coming. You are top performers. None of you will be laid-off." People would sigh with relief, then go back to their desk. The layoff announcement would come moments later.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  This happens only when layoffs are small and targeted. In reality of big corps your whole department would be cut including the managers promising you that you wouldn't be affected
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > This happens only when layoffs are small and targeted. Thank you for speaking on my behalf. No, it does not. In my experience, I am never concerned with small and targeted layoffs because I am never in the bottom 25% performers in my team. Instead, when the layoff are mass and broad, only then, have I experienced those personalised meeting with senior management. (To be crystal clear: I was only invited to those meetings when I was viewed as a top-top performer. Not always.)
baby 3y ago
What’s the argument here? Why would talent leave?
- thih9 3y ago
  Layoffs often indicate lack of growth - might be harder to grow professionally, or get promoted. Also saving money on hiring often means saving money in general and elsewhere too, worsening quality of life. In particular projects can get canceled, priorities shifted, grind increased, privileges revoked, remote work banned, etc. People who have the option to leave might do just that.
  - pie420 3y ago
    Layoffs could also mean trimming the dead weight at the company that is sitting around and collecting paychecks, which in my experience is super common in california tech. Hit L4/L5, attend that weekly standups, and rest and vest till 50, then FAT FIRE and move to New Zealand
    - thih9 3y ago
      Unless you’re the one conducting layoffs, what you think is dead weight and what people conducting layoffs think is dead weight might be different people. Plus that L4/L5 employee might look stellar on paper. Or even be stellar, just not very vocal about what they’re doing.
  - baby 3y ago
    > Layoffs often indicate lack of growth I thought that was true as well but the tech layoffs that have been happening have all been about being leaner to grow faster. Look at Meta, for example, that did layoffs in spite of massive continuous growth.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  For a lot of people going through a first layoff, it would be shocking. This company that keeps telling them they are all family here just cut x% of them. Its a slap in the face and makes them understand that there is no loyalty from the business to the employee so why be loyal to the business? This drives people to take a more mercenary approach to work and look for better pay elsewhere.
happymellon 3y ago
In my experience the best talent will leave after a 10% layoff anyway. It's never just 10%, just 10% this week. Once they see stocks go up, and costs go down because everyone is working an extra hour a week to keep on track why wouldn't you cut another 15%?
watwut 3y ago
People will make choices to leave either way. If you do not give advance warnings and just fire people, remaining people will still make decisions to leave. You cant force the talent to stay.
michaelcampbell 3y ago
The "Dead Sea Effect" will have been going on already, but this certainly speeds it up.

redserk 3y ago

Or there is the third option: do the layoffs, immediately cut access, then give a generous amount of severance with benefits.

infotainment 3y ago
I'd argue that's basically option 2: blindsiding employees. Severance softens the blow, but fundamentally doesn't fix the "I might get axed tomorrow" paranoia.

tharne 3y ago

> This is a classic layoff debate -- is it better to do it with zero warning, or is it better to let employees know that a layoff is coming? No good answers here. They're both bad, but in different ways, and I suspect that whether one is worse than the other is probably a matter of personality type.

deeviant 3y ago

I feel that's less of a benefit if you don't know it is you that is getting laid off or not...

pdimitar 3y ago

They just want people to leave voluntarily so they don't have to pay severance.

ithkuil 3y ago
It depends on the amount of severance and the person. Not sure if everybody would prefer to get a couple months worth of severance but have to go through the stress of quickly finding a new job. I find that stressful even if I live in a country where I have the same level of healthcare no matter whether I'm employed or not. How do you guys in the US cope with that? Is it as bad as it looks from outside or you have mechanisms to not lose all your healthcare if laid off?
- jstarfish 3y ago
  You get severance and can claim unemployment for a while too if you're laid off. Getting people to jump ship themselves avoids severance payouts and UI claims. If you plan to jump ship, negotiate with HR to get the severance package and voluntary leave, especially if you're hot shit and can get another job quickly, otherwise you're leaving money on the table. The only thing you lose here is eligibility for unemployment, which you won't need anyway. Healthcare is a shitshow. You can do COBRA, which lets you maintain your health plan by picking up the tab the employer previously paid. I've never done it myself but heard premiums were like $800 per person per month, years ago.

voidfunc 3y ago

It's kind of a weird move for companies to make because it's an oddly pro-labor signal to tell employees ahead of time to prepare for layoffs. I agree, I prefer it.. but also, it's weird in 2024 where corps basically try to fuck everyone at every possible turn that they're being so open about these layoffs.

dojitza1 3y ago

I know it's not practical because of select few bad apples, but giving a year's notice to the affected people, letting them finish up the work and mentally prepare, and all the while coaching them through the process of finding a new job seems like a humane thing to do.

John23832 3y ago

Immediate layoff, long period of transition. What Pixar has created is an environment where nobody knows is they’re going to stay, so people self select into two buckets: 1) those who say “I’m not going to bust my ass just to get fired”. They coast and prepare to leave. And 2) those who work their ass off to try to “prove” themselves. If any of 2 get fired, it’s a bad morale hit for anyone around after the layoffs. You’ll lose actual talent this way. Make the decision of who to layoff and do it, but be kind as you do.

nunez 3y ago

There is no good option. Either embrace the suck immediately, or let the suck consume you.