Peter MerholzJan 6, 2023
“Layoffs are a social contagion.” This quote is gold. From: https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/
What explains recent tech layoffs, and why should we be worried? | Stanford News

As layoffs in the tech sector mount, Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer is worried. Research – by him, and others – has shown that the stress layoffs create takes a devastating toll on behavioral and physical health and increases mortality and morbidity substantially. Layoffs literally kill people, he said.

Stanford News
Show threadMike CA

@peterme When doing layoffs a company will always try to layoff the lowest performers and least essential employees.

Even so layoffs are always traumatic and result in some of the best employees who can easily find jobs elsewhere leaving afterwards. In a tech company where the employees are one of the most important assets, this always hurts the company.

Jan 6, 2023 at 6:33amWeb
Show threadSean OJan 6, 2023
@mikeca42 @peterme I work in a field where it’s almost impossible to fire anyone. So that makes hiring decisions even more critical. If a company has low performers, they need to hire better, not “fix” the problem with morale-reducing layoffs.
Show threadJohn Carlsen 🇺🇸🇳🇱🇪🇺Apr 25, 2023

@seano @mikeca42 @peterme

Hiring better is one way to have fewer "low performers".

But how many companies do you see that actually develop their employees into better performers?

"Performance improvement plans" (PIPs) shouldn't be synonymous with remediation.

How about creating a collegial environment that encourages (or even requires) "top performers" to mentor others?

Show threadEmma Builds 🚀Jan 6, 2023

@mikeca42

Please explain "lowest performers."

Show threadCapritiaJHJan 7, 2023
@emmah @mikeca42 lowest performers: the people who are a thorn in management's side about technical debt that management really really wants to kick down the road hoping to make it someone else's problem. Among others.
Show threadEmma Builds 🚀Jan 7, 2023

@patriciajhawkins @mikeca42

Ah, the people who refuse to ship and make it support or operations' problem.

Show threadMike CAJan 8, 2023

@emmah

I am now retired but I worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley for almost 40 years. I was a manager for part of that time. I worked at companies that annually ranked all the engineers into a list from best to worst. Obviously this was subjective.

Although I never worked at one, I knew of companies that annually ranked all employees and then laid off the bottom 5%.

These rankings were done by managers. Obviously, the biases of the managers effect this kind of evaluation.