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One important factor Paul left out was the ability to terminate bad employees. If an organization can't get rid of poor performers at reasonable cost, due to re
by DThrasher 18y ago
One important factor Paul left out was the ability to terminate bad employees. If an organization can't get rid of poor performers at reasonable cost, due to restrictive labor contracts or tenure for example, the organization will have to put much more effort into screening candidates.
- pg 18y agoThis is true. I didn't go into detail about the reasons large organizations can't cheaply measure the performance of recruits, but this is the sort of thing I meant.
- miked 18y agoThe usefulness of measuring depends on how actionable the measurements are. I think this is one of the big reasons that the startup culture in Europe has never really developed. In most European countries (and US government agencies) it's almost impossible to fire someone after a short probationary period. This distorts labor markets so badly that even left-leaning labor economists (e.g., Brad DeLong) have sharply criticized European labor laws. This brings up an interesting sorting issue. If it's easy for people to be terminated and/or quit (because they know that there are other jobs, available in part because other employees have been fired or quit), there should, over time, be an improvement in the matching between employees and jobs. This should lead to higher productivity as well, not to mention greater job satisfaction.