5 ms·

Someone on Reddit said: "These are not layoffs. SpaceX cut the bottom 2-5% of the company for non-excellence. Most if not all of the positions will be back-fill

Someone on Reddit said: "These are not layoffs. SpaceX cut the bottom 2-5% of the company for non-excellence. Most if not all of the positions will be back-filled with more talented staff." (Not sure if he/she works at the company)

easytiger 12y ago
That's a pretty broken way to run a business IMHO. Also completely illegal in Europe
- throwaway0010 12y ago
  You don't think businesses should fire under-performers? That's nuts.
  - mcpherrinm 12y ago
    Targetting a percentage to fire for underperformance is nuts. I hear stories from companies that have incredibly broken incentives as a result: Managers try to hoard bad employees so they have people to fire when word from the top comes down to drop the bottom 5%, you've got people to let go.
    - nyrulez 12y ago
      What is a good solution to deal with under performers from your perspective ? - Keep them ? Let them suck and just be compassionate. They have stomachs to feed. - Let them go over time, one by one. Can create a very fearful atmosphere where there is a sword hanging over anyone who can be let go for any definition of "under performance". - Let them go at once, within a x% range, which probably gets decided based on a ton of things. But at least it is not slowly degrading the morale day by day. The downside is that if this a regular periodic thing, it can create a fiercely competitive and insecure environment in the company.
  - kryptiskt 12y ago
    What is the cost of a system where a third of the employees or so live in fear of being stack ranked out of their jobs? I can't see that leading to a good environment, rather I would predict blame games and general bullshit to proliferate. The derision against Microsoft's stack ranking was pretty universal here.
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    Firing under-performers is one thing, doing it decimation-style en masse is another. Employees who don't measure up need to be judged on a case by case basis and removed from the company in a timely, individual manner. Mass firings, however justified, represent broken management. It means some poor performers were allowed to remain much longer than they should have, and that some poor performers have not been given sufficient opportunity to work with management to resolve issues. It also means morale is going to suffer - even if every single firing here is well justified, mass firings make everyone nervous. I fully expect a healthy organization to trickle away bad hires one at a time as their unsuitability becomes evident. I don't expect healthy organizations to disgorge unsuitable employees in large globs.
    - kraig 12y ago
      you got all of that from some crappy forum thread?
    - throwaway0010 12y ago
      "Mass firings, however justified, represent broken management" I don't think you've supported this opinion very well. Here's a counterpoint: Hiring and firing are a completely normal part of a business cycle. Every company should expect to have some ratio of hiring to firing. And yes, a firing typically means imperfect hiring practice (which is not the same as imperfect management) -- but here's the key I believe you may not understand: The world is imperfect. We can bank on the fact that we make mistakes; we will always make mistakes. Your other assertion that morale will suffer is empirically false. I know many folks at companies with this sort of practice in place and it boosts their morale because they don't feel like they're dragged down by under-performers. Maybe it lowers the morale of those who are under-performing, but that's not exactly a problem, is it?
      - potatolicious 12y ago
        I think you failed to read the entirety of my post. Of course firing is a normal part of company operations - I stated that explicitly, multiple times in my post. Mass firing however, is not. Hiring will be imperfect, no matter how hard we try. Once in a while someone bad will make it into the company, and it's of great importance that the company identify and fire these people in a timely manner. Note the last part: timely manner. Unless a company has been completely asleep at the wheel, there is no scenario under which people will suddenly go "woah woah woah! these 200 people must go!". To let go of so many all at once suggests you either weren't policing bad hires actively and let too many under-performers stick around for too long (and are just now getting around to cleaning house), and/or suggests a knee-jerk overreaction to some stimulus, and now you're about to throw some baby out with the bathwater. Firing is normal. Mass firings are not. And your "empiricism" is backed by your own personal anecdotes. Funny. In any case, I agree that individual firings can be morale-neutral (never morale-positive, despite your claim). When you fire Bob, who's been underperforming, only the people who work with Bob hear about it. Everyone knows Bob is hard to work with and not very good at his job, and people don't feel threatened by Bob's firing. This isn't true when you're firing 200 people. People in the company hear about it, but they don't know everyone on the list - in fact, they may not know anyone on the list. So now the "obviousness" of the firings isn't so obvious, and people start wondering just how bad these people were to get fired, and they start wondering about their own performance. This is the start of a bad cycle, and morale is going to drop no matter which way you play it. Firing 1 person has a tremendously different dynamic than firing 200 people. So, we agree that firing people who can be saved is a good idea. We disagree fundamentally on whether or not mass firings are a good idea.
- latch 12y ago
  Legitimately curious what alternative you suggest for handling under-performing employees?
  - easytiger 12y ago
    Well as an employer it is your responsibility to ensure you have hired someone suitable for the job in the probationary period. Any further dismissals should be subject to a disciplinary policy and breaches of specific targets on multiple occasions as agreed with the employee. Having a hard limit of 5-x% of staff to remove on an annual basis is indicative of either megalomania or a complete failure of hiring policies. It is certainly within the reasonable to assume that on certain occasions all staff will be performing admirably and will not be required to leave; however a hard cut policy would require sacking perfectly fine employees. This is the kind of shit that happened in old wall st brokerages. Further to this European countries employment legislation would render this most likely illegal. I've worked at European start ups that became mid size companies and there were regular culling based almost entirely on the whim of the CEO who didn't like the cut of their jib. Many of these resulted in several very expensive court actions for the companies involved. Furthermore the culture such a policy would foster in the workplace would most likely be completely destructive and demotivating.
    - swimfar 12y ago
      I didn't read "cut the bottom 2-5% of the company for non-excellence" to mean they used a hard limit. It could just be an approximation of the number of "under performers" at the company. And because he said "non-excellence" was the reason, that tells me that they weren't perfectly fine employees (by the company's standards). But it's probably best to wait for an official announcement with more details before criticizing/defending them too much.
    - kraig 12y ago
      spacex isn't a european business
      - argonaut 12y ago
- peteretep 12y ago
  And yet, SpaceX seem to be doing pretty well.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    Yes, will all the lobbied government contracts and backed by hostility towards Russia, it surely does.
- nyrulez 12y ago
  Wow - way to feel entitled. Slackers have free reign in Europe? If you call them out, you are "broken" ? We can argue about the mechanics of letting low performers go. But this is nuts.
  - easytiger 12y ago
    Is that what i said?

easytiger 12y ago

That's a pretty broken way to run a business IMHO. Also completely illegal in Europe

throwaway0010 12y ago
You don't think businesses should fire under-performers? That's nuts.
- mcpherrinm 12y ago
  Targetting a percentage to fire for underperformance is nuts. I hear stories from companies that have incredibly broken incentives as a result: Managers try to hoard bad employees so they have people to fire when word from the top comes down to drop the bottom 5%, you've got people to let go.
  - nyrulez 12y ago
    What is a good solution to deal with under performers from your perspective ? - Keep them ? Let them suck and just be compassionate. They have stomachs to feed. - Let them go over time, one by one. Can create a very fearful atmosphere where there is a sword hanging over anyone who can be let go for any definition of "under performance". - Let them go at once, within a x% range, which probably gets decided based on a ton of things. But at least it is not slowly degrading the morale day by day. The downside is that if this a regular periodic thing, it can create a fiercely competitive and insecure environment in the company.
- kryptiskt 12y ago
  What is the cost of a system where a third of the employees or so live in fear of being stack ranked out of their jobs? I can't see that leading to a good environment, rather I would predict blame games and general bullshit to proliferate. The derision against Microsoft's stack ranking was pretty universal here.
- potatolicious 12y ago
  Firing under-performers is one thing, doing it decimation-style en masse is another. Employees who don't measure up need to be judged on a case by case basis and removed from the company in a timely, individual manner. Mass firings, however justified, represent broken management. It means some poor performers were allowed to remain much longer than they should have, and that some poor performers have not been given sufficient opportunity to work with management to resolve issues. It also means morale is going to suffer - even if every single firing here is well justified, mass firings make everyone nervous. I fully expect a healthy organization to trickle away bad hires one at a time as their unsuitability becomes evident. I don't expect healthy organizations to disgorge unsuitable employees in large globs.
  - kraig 12y ago
    you got all of that from some crappy forum thread?
  - throwaway0010 12y ago
    "Mass firings, however justified, represent broken management" I don't think you've supported this opinion very well. Here's a counterpoint: Hiring and firing are a completely normal part of a business cycle. Every company should expect to have some ratio of hiring to firing. And yes, a firing typically means imperfect hiring practice (which is not the same as imperfect management) -- but here's the key I believe you may not understand: The world is imperfect. We can bank on the fact that we make mistakes; we will always make mistakes. Your other assertion that morale will suffer is empirically false. I know many folks at companies with this sort of practice in place and it boosts their morale because they don't feel like they're dragged down by under-performers. Maybe it lowers the morale of those who are under-performing, but that's not exactly a problem, is it?
    - potatolicious 12y ago
      I think you failed to read the entirety of my post. Of course firing is a normal part of company operations - I stated that explicitly, multiple times in my post. Mass firing however, is not. Hiring will be imperfect, no matter how hard we try. Once in a while someone bad will make it into the company, and it's of great importance that the company identify and fire these people in a timely manner. Note the last part: timely manner. Unless a company has been completely asleep at the wheel, there is no scenario under which people will suddenly go "woah woah woah! these 200 people must go!". To let go of so many all at once suggests you either weren't policing bad hires actively and let too many under-performers stick around for too long (and are just now getting around to cleaning house), and/or suggests a knee-jerk overreaction to some stimulus, and now you're about to throw some baby out with the bathwater. Firing is normal. Mass firings are not. And your "empiricism" is backed by your own personal anecdotes. Funny. In any case, I agree that individual firings can be morale-neutral (never morale-positive, despite your claim). When you fire Bob, who's been underperforming, only the people who work with Bob hear about it. Everyone knows Bob is hard to work with and not very good at his job, and people don't feel threatened by Bob's firing. This isn't true when you're firing 200 people. People in the company hear about it, but they don't know everyone on the list - in fact, they may not know anyone on the list. So now the "obviousness" of the firings isn't so obvious, and people start wondering just how bad these people were to get fired, and they start wondering about their own performance. This is the start of a bad cycle, and morale is going to drop no matter which way you play it. Firing 1 person has a tremendously different dynamic than firing 200 people. So, we agree that firing people who can be saved is a good idea. We disagree fundamentally on whether or not mass firings are a good idea.
latch 12y ago
Legitimately curious what alternative you suggest for handling under-performing employees?
- easytiger 12y ago
  Well as an employer it is your responsibility to ensure you have hired someone suitable for the job in the probationary period. Any further dismissals should be subject to a disciplinary policy and breaches of specific targets on multiple occasions as agreed with the employee. Having a hard limit of 5-x% of staff to remove on an annual basis is indicative of either megalomania or a complete failure of hiring policies. It is certainly within the reasonable to assume that on certain occasions all staff will be performing admirably and will not be required to leave; however a hard cut policy would require sacking perfectly fine employees. This is the kind of shit that happened in old wall st brokerages. Further to this European countries employment legislation would render this most likely illegal. I've worked at European start ups that became mid size companies and there were regular culling based almost entirely on the whim of the CEO who didn't like the cut of their jib. Many of these resulted in several very expensive court actions for the companies involved. Furthermore the culture such a policy would foster in the workplace would most likely be completely destructive and demotivating.
  - swimfar 12y ago
    I didn't read "cut the bottom 2-5% of the company for non-excellence" to mean they used a hard limit. It could just be an approximation of the number of "under performers" at the company. And because he said "non-excellence" was the reason, that tells me that they weren't perfectly fine employees (by the company's standards). But it's probably best to wait for an official announcement with more details before criticizing/defending them too much.
  - kraig 12y ago
    spacex isn't a european business
    - argonaut 12y ago
peteretep 12y ago
And yet, SpaceX seem to be doing pretty well.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Yes, will all the lobbied government contracts and backed by hostility towards Russia, it surely does.
nyrulez 12y ago
Wow - way to feel entitled. Slackers have free reign in Europe? If you call them out, you are "broken" ? We can argue about the mechanics of letting low performers go. But this is nuts.
- easytiger 12y ago
  Is that what i said?