2 ms·
Cutting back on bloated tech staff could absolutely help speed up new product development for all the usual Mythical Man Month reasons.... in theory. I've nev
by georgemcbay 14y ago
Cutting back on bloated tech staff could absolutely help speed up new product development for all the usual Mythical Man Month reasons.... in theory.
I've never seen it work in practice. In practice, in my experience, layoffs never target exactly the right set of dead weight. Company politics always come into play and you end up with a situation where some of the right people got axed, but not enough and worse sometimes the layoffs hit people who are actually great producers but who weren't visible enough to upper management to be spared. And once this event occurs it tends to have a ripple effect among the survivors -- nobody really feels safe and so everyone starts considering other opportunities and naturally your best talent has the easiest time of landing new jobs so they're among the first out the door, and now you're on a downward spiral of fucked.
- almost_usual 14y agoI experienced this exact situation a few weeks ago. Fortunately, I wasn't laid off but it did spark incentive for me to find a new employer. I landed a great position at a new company a couple weeks later and feel much happier now. I've heard through the grapevine that the megacorp I worked for is now in the downward spiral of 'fucked'.
- josephjrobison 14y agoYea I did a similar thing, but once I got the new job with an awesome raise, it made me think - "should I have applied and interviewed at a lot more places if it was that easy?"
- preferToAnony 14y ago// layoffs never target exactly the right set of dead weight// This is exactly what happened today. This layoff is not based on performance (as communicated by the internal email from the director). Several top performers are asked to leave, while under performers are still there.