5 ms·

Seems like a hiring problem, not a firing problem.

VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
I have lots of experience hiring tech people. Most of the time they turn out to be just as good as we thought they would be. But sometimes they don't. It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let those people go.
- drawkward 2y ago
  It would be terrible for businesses to fire people arbitrarily. I'd rather give more rights to individuals than to businesses, because I am biased in an anti-business way: businesses arent bounded by human lifespans or biological constraints, get preferential treatment by the American legal system, have orders of magnitude more money and political power than individuals. It's almost like the USA fought a war and chartered individual rights in a document over this kind of shit, but never imagined businesses would be more encompassing than governments.
  - VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
    Off-shoring is already very prevalent in US tech work. So there certainly needs to be a balance in workers rights and business interest if those jobs are going to stay domestic. In general I agree with your perspective. But there is a harsh alternative reality that we're going to continue to face in the tech workforce.
  - 9x39 2y ago
    Would it be terrible if employees could fire their employers arbitrarily? Both parties have freedom in this arrangement, but we can find examples of both employees and employers with weak negotiating positions. I don't think that invalidates the benefits of freedoms of association. To your point about business being bound by constraints, they absolutely are bound by the niche they operate in. As markets change, world events unfold, competitors appear, decisions are made, companies can struggle and fail, yet are typically unable to pivot. Consider a company that makes ICE cars that can't follow the market into making EVs. Or a company that has never had competition might be in the stranglehold of "this is the way we've always done it" when a fierce competitor emerges, and won't adapt. True, most employees typically don't have equity (so they don't share in all the upside), but they also aren't married to the company when it looks like a supertanker headed for an inevitable collision with a bridge (getting wiped out on the downside).
    - drawkward 2y ago
      >Would it be terrible if employees could fire their employers arbitrarily? Yes.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let those people go. About half the people on this thread seem to be misreading that sentence. It's very clear that "just cause" includes cases of low performance. So no, it's not about making it impossible to fire these people.
  - BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
    also isn't that why trial periods exist? as in you have 3 month or so to change your mind after hiring someone/taking a job if it turns out to be a bad fit, for whatever reason, at either employer or employees initiative?
mediaman 2y ago
Hiring consistently high performing employees is not a solved problem. Making it hard to fire low performers results in low performing teams, and there are no reliable solutions to this.
- drawkward 2y ago
  One wonders if it is not solved simply because of at will employlemt? Almost like firms are lazy, and unwilling to go beyond the bare minumum required by law.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    There's nothing stopping someone from performing well at interviews then stop performing once they get hired and have the job secured.
    - drawkward 2y ago
      Moral obligations, a sense of pride in ones work, ethical worldview...thats just off the top of my head. It seems if the problem you allege were true at scale, the entire labor force is sitting around doing nothing. Are you really claiming that the only reason all (tech) employees do their job is just to avoid firing? How do you operate in a zero-trust life?
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - kjksf 2y ago
    If you ever went through interview loop at Google or a similar company, I doubt you would call those companies "lazy" wrt. hiring. An interview is at least 4 people, each grilling you for an hour, asking hard questions. Their hiring bar is high and they optimize for avoiding bad hires (which of course is pissing off the commenters who want to be hired and therefore would prefer lower hiring standard). In Europe they make it harder to fire people and guess what happened? First, companies have probatory period (2-6 months, depending on the country) where you're hired but can be fired at will. This is to minimize chances of being stuck with a poor performer. Second, EU economy is about the size of US and China but software industry (and the tax / employment riches associated with it) is largely in US Chine. Might be a coincidence but I think there's causality between over-regulation and stagnation of the economy.

I have lots of experience hiring tech people. Most of the time they turn out to be just as good as we thought they would be. But sometimes they don't. It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let those people go.

drawkward 2y ago
It would be terrible for businesses to fire people arbitrarily. I'd rather give more rights to individuals than to businesses, because I am biased in an anti-business way: businesses arent bounded by human lifespans or biological constraints, get preferential treatment by the American legal system, have orders of magnitude more money and political power than individuals. It's almost like the USA fought a war and chartered individual rights in a document over this kind of shit, but never imagined businesses would be more encompassing than governments.
- VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
  Off-shoring is already very prevalent in US tech work. So there certainly needs to be a balance in workers rights and business interest if those jobs are going to stay domestic. In general I agree with your perspective. But there is a harsh alternative reality that we're going to continue to face in the tech workforce.
- 9x39 2y ago
  Would it be terrible if employees could fire their employers arbitrarily? Both parties have freedom in this arrangement, but we can find examples of both employees and employers with weak negotiating positions. I don't think that invalidates the benefits of freedoms of association. To your point about business being bound by constraints, they absolutely are bound by the niche they operate in. As markets change, world events unfold, competitors appear, decisions are made, companies can struggle and fail, yet are typically unable to pivot. Consider a company that makes ICE cars that can't follow the market into making EVs. Or a company that has never had competition might be in the stranglehold of "this is the way we've always done it" when a fierce competitor emerges, and won't adapt. True, most employees typically don't have equity (so they don't share in all the upside), but they also aren't married to the company when it looks like a supertanker headed for an inevitable collision with a bridge (getting wiped out on the downside).
  - drawkward 2y ago
    >Would it be terrible if employees could fire their employers arbitrarily? Yes.
aguaviva 2y ago
It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let those people go. About half the people on this thread seem to be misreading that sentence. It's very clear that "just cause" includes cases of low performance. So no, it's not about making it impossible to fire these people.
- BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
  also isn't that why trial periods exist? as in you have 3 month or so to change your mind after hiring someone/taking a job if it turns out to be a bad fit, for whatever reason, at either employer or employees initiative?

mediaman 2y ago

Hiring consistently high performing employees is not a solved problem. Making it hard to fire low performers results in low performing teams, and there are no reliable solutions to this.

drawkward 2y ago
One wonders if it is not solved simply because of at will employlemt? Almost like firms are lazy, and unwilling to go beyond the bare minumum required by law.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  There's nothing stopping someone from performing well at interviews then stop performing once they get hired and have the job secured.
  - drawkward 2y ago
    Moral obligations, a sense of pride in ones work, ethical worldview...thats just off the top of my head. It seems if the problem you allege were true at scale, the entire labor force is sitting around doing nothing. Are you really claiming that the only reason all (tech) employees do their job is just to avoid firing? How do you operate in a zero-trust life?
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      [flagged]
- kjksf 2y ago
  If you ever went through interview loop at Google or a similar company, I doubt you would call those companies "lazy" wrt. hiring. An interview is at least 4 people, each grilling you for an hour, asking hard questions. Their hiring bar is high and they optimize for avoiding bad hires (which of course is pissing off the commenters who want to be hired and therefore would prefer lower hiring standard). In Europe they make it harder to fire people and guess what happened? First, companies have probatory period (2-6 months, depending on the country) where you're hired but can be fired at will. This is to minimize chances of being stuck with a poor performer. Second, EU economy is about the size of US and China but software industry (and the tax / employment riches associated with it) is largely in US Chine. Might be a coincidence but I think there's causality between over-regulation and stagnation of the economy.