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Yes but the GP used poor individual performance as their only positive reason of layoffs not needing justification. So the reply was that individual performance
by wholinator2 1y ago
Yes but the GP used poor individual performance as their only positive reason of layoffs not needing justification. So the reply was that individual performance is almost never a factor in actual layoffs, a point which you and I agree with. Thus, poor employee performance is not a monolith that can be used to explain all layoffs, and these companies should have to give better reasons that align with actual reality.
It's about the immense asymmetry of power here. Yes, a person can leave just like a company can fire. But a single person quitting is nearly never a massive disruption to the business, but the business firing someone is nearly always a catastrophy for that person.
I don't need to justify quitting because I'm not harming you by doing so. Laying off hundreds of people absolutely requires careful and validated justification as your significantly harming nearly everyone impacted.
Of course these companies do pay well usually, but not all of them do, and not every individual has the privilege of cheap health and rent and a cheap family. Any single significant factor in a persons life can cause that "well paid" factor to mean a lot less, especially if it drags out to 6 months or more like it is known to do
- brailsafe 1y agoYa, it's an easy mistake though, very subtle difference between general dismissal/firing/layoff. They're interpreting layoff to mean the same as "firing" or general dismissal, but as far as I understand it's more like a shortage of work thing due to lack of income on the company side, compared to insufficient productivity on the worker's side. A subtle difference in terminology, but a bit difference in terms of outcome. In a layoff you'll likely have no issues getting severance if it was ever on the table to begin with, employment insurance, it's not a mark against you on a resume necessarily or socially.
- parineum 1y ago> ... individual performance is almost never a factor in actual layoffs They always are. High performers aren't getting let go, even if they are in department being cut, they will be moved.
- fvgvkujdfbllo 1y agoAbsolutely, not true. CTOs don’t care about productivity at IC level. I have seen plenty of high performers getting laid off with rest of their teams.
- watwut 1y agoThey are let go. Frequently who gets fired geta decided from top or by consultants that dont know anything about people. They you have firings of whole sections. Aaaand people with highest salaries are let go to save more movey. Some of them are actually high performers. And then you have layoffs by managers who decides who stays based on printed code people presented ...
- Retric 1y agoA 20% cut across the entire company isn’t the only form of layoffs. When everyone at a factory is laid off individual performance means absolutely nothing. Sometimes a company decides a specific market it’s worth it and every single programmer in the company is let go. Sometimes companies decide everything making over X$ in a position isn’t worth keeping etc.
- BeetleB 1y ago> High performers aren't getting let go, even if they are in department being cut, they will be moved. Wishful thinking. I just survived (yet another) round of layoffs. They are desperate to bring headcount down. If a whole team is being cut, everyone goes. It's really a question of how flexible upper management is in the numbers they set out. If there's wiggle room - sure. They will try to find a place in an adjacent team. But if the whole department is getting slashed, there is no adjacent team.
- Arainach 1y agoThis really isn't true. Take Microsoft, for instance - one of their recent layoffs eviscerated the Principal band including a number of high performers. I'm talking people I personally knew who had climbed the ladder rapidly, were directly working with multiple external partners driving tens of millions in revenue (that is, external partner has problem, threatens to pull spend on product, this employee is one of the first pulled in to engage and get it solved), with visibility all the way to the VP level and higher happy with their work and partner teams trying to poach them away - still laid off.
- terminalshort 1y agoYou aren't harming someone by declining to pay them for their work, especially not when there is severance involved.
- lovich 1y agoWith the way our society is set up to tie a large number of benefits necessary to live to employment, then yes you are actually harming someone by ending their employment. Severance might outweigh that harm, but it depends on the amount, if any is given. Also I want to point out that the vast majority of companies give 0 severance. I’ve gotten it once in my life and I’m fairly certain it was “shut the fuck up” money as they had done some shady shenanigans to a bonus I was entitled to.
- terminalshort 1y agoThey aren't necessary to live. They are necessary to live a luxurious first world lifestyle.
- Arainach 1y agoHealthcare is necessary to live. Rent is necessary to live.
- lovich 1y agoAh yes, I forgot that surviving treatable diseases is a luxurious first world lifestyle. If you don’t believe that US regulations and law are set up in a way that pressures people to maintain employment at a company, then you have your head in the sand
- terminalshort 1y ago> surviving treatable diseases is a luxurious first world lifestyle Unironically correct
- 1y ago