> Sucks because my manager was only told this morning
As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. I wonder how they chose who to lay off. Most recent performance rating? Next level managers impression?
Yes, it's normal for layoffs to be planned and executed by a very small group, typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized. This in turn means less-than-perfect information is available, and so less-than-scientific cuts are made.
"Ideally", your layoff strategy dictates some cuts regardless of performance: Say we're shutting down the self-driving car division, folding up recruiting, or choosing to accept the risk that comes with getting rid of the whole security team; sadly, the performance of the individuals involved isn't really considered.
Tenure, seniority, and comp are also factors that can come into play & are straightforward to establish without lower-level involvement.
It's even more common to hire one of the big consulting firms to do most of this. Every layoff at large companies I've been involved with was done via a Bain, BCG, etc...
> Say we're shutting down the self-driving car division, folding up recruiting, or choosing to accept the risk that comes with getting rid of the whole security team.
Did you intend this to be a spit take? The sentence read about the same as “Say you’re taking a stroll around town, visit a few cafés, or decide to end the day by jumping into an active volcano.”
No, I didn’t mean it that way or in reference to a specific company - although I can see how it read that way! Your comment made me laugh.
The point was more that layoffs can take out big slugs of staff without considering the individual, in a few different ways: initiatives we can just cancel completely (self driving cars); people we will likely need later but less in the shorter term (recruiting); or places where we consciously take on added risk (losing security).
I do think that for the company that sacked their security team, the executives may very well have had a full understanding of the risks it created — but couldn’t easily say so publicly (“we chose to 10x our risk of a security incident, so we keep 1 more product initiative staffed which might save us”). Just speculation. Not a situation I think many of us would be comfortable in.
frankly, as someone who is absolutely not a security expert but who pays attention to security concerns, most security efforts provide very little business benefit.
What was it Steve Yegge said in that legendary platforms rant?
"But I'll argue that Accessibility is actually more important than Security because dialing Accessibility to zero means you have no product at all, whereas dialing Security to zero can still get you a reasonably successful product such as the Playstation Network."
Even if you get bit by a huge data leak, it's just not going to matter that much (from a business perspective) if you already managed to become a big, significant part of the world (like PSN or Equifax - they're still around today, largely unimpacted by their screwups).
If you don't manage to become a big, significant part of the world, security successes or failures just won't matter that much. You don't have a lot of value, because you don't have a huge treasure trove of data, so you're not a primary target for most attackers. You'll sit there being irrelevant, and if there is a breach someday, probably neither you nor any of your handful of customers will actually notice."
Am I content that the world functions this way? No.
But I think it's important to recognize that it does.
> , typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized
When a layoff is known to be coming, the best and most employable people will often head for the doors quickly... leaving the company with a greater concentration of less desirable employees.
If it's by surprise then you'll lose fewer of the people you wanted to keep.
I don't that's really generally true. If it seems like the company is a "sinking ship", then yes, people who can see the writing on the wall and have food opportunities elsewhere will often leave quickly.
But in this case, nobody is worried about Stripe's long term trajectory or viability. I doubt the best and most employable people are leaving Stripe.
Imagine you had a recruiter call you for this next gig at great company which has +20% salary bump. Once you hear something bad is coming in your current company and no idea if you will be caught in it or not, its much easier step to just go and accept the next offer that you would otherwise pass.
I work at a company that did layoffs recently as well, about double this size.
Our managers also had no idea until day of. The entire day was spent watching co workers google calendars and slack accounts. Once they got a meeting booked with HR, their meeting titles all turned into "busy", so we would know who is getting cut and who wasn't. It was a brutal day.
In our case I don't think they were picking people based on performance whatsoever. It seemed to just be about who was paid the best and who in the org structure could have their job removed and someone else take over. Really weird.
Is it "really weird," though? Layoffs, especially when you start talking about entire teams, divisions, products, etc. is about revenue, profitability, and righting the ship (or safeguarding the ship so you don't have to right it 6 months from now). Whether Jim got "exceeds expectations" or "greatly exceeds expectations" is irrelevant when an EVP needs to trim $12M off their budget and Jim's department lost $9M last year.
A common sentiment you see on the internet (especially from younger people who haven't experience a tough labor market) is that only the low performers get laid off. So I can see how they think it's really weird if managers aren't involved.
Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. It's the one window that companies can mostly let go of employees without being sued. (Though, if they lay off too many people in a protected class, still can get sued). What's interesting about a lot of the division or sector-downturn layoffs, that you end up seeing solid performers, and, when you are dropping a good portion of your division - very good performers let go. Most companies try to make a play for keeping their 10x developers - but, I've been in layoffs (Browser Division, Netscape, 1997sh) - where just absolutely everyone was dropped, regardless of performance.
> Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs.
This is totally not true. Usually they make jobs redundant not people. If there's a pool of people doing the same job and that headcount is reduced then it will often be the lowest performers that go however some places have done LIFO or cut the most expensive.
However if you're doing layoffs and you reduce your frontend team the it's likely low performers from the backend team get to stick around.
I've been through 18 layoffs since 1996, about 12 of them while in management. I can only speak to the Bay Area - practices may be different outside. You are correct, that lots of times positions/jobs are made "redundant" as part of the layoffs - but speaking as someone who both observed, and participated in the process - those "redundant" positions were quickly backfilled after the layoffs if there was any need.
The one exception might have been when the entire browser division was dropped back in Netscape - everyone was chopped there - but I can't say with certainty whether low-performing Server Division people were impacted (though IT and HR positions were chopped). So - fair, when a division or operating group is cut wholesale, low-performers in other divisions might not be dropped - but knowing the mindset of management - they really like to take advantage of a layoff as a "get out of jail free" card to let someone go. Much less stress, and way, way less paperwork.
When I saw layoffs at a small company (i.e., you could know all the engineers in the company) you could have probably guessed who they would have been by how well they seemed to perform. When I saw it in a big company, not much rhyme or reason tbh.
Which "makes sense" since companies usually try to keep the team deciding who to lay people off very small for fear of leaks. So the n people at a small company making the decisions might know everyone but the same n people at a large company might barely even know the names of all the middle-managers much less all the individual contributors and how well they are each doing within their role.
Everyone is in a protected class because everyone has a nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, etc.
The EEOC investigates workplace discrimination, so if you suspect it, it would help to file a complaint with them. They can gather evidence to determine if discrimination took/takes placr and hold the employer accountable.
One of HRs jobs is to track % of people who are > 40. If you are a company of 1000 employees, and you are 25% of each age group 20+,30+,40+,50+ and you do a 100 person layoff, and 100% of them are 40+ - you will be sued and they will almost certainly win.
I was part of lay offs some years ago. Managers didn’t know until the day of, and it wasn’t based on performance. All the performance reviews were already done months before. Some people were even due for promotions.
If layoffs are occurring, companies or managers are going to want to cut poor performers or trouble employees at that time.
So if younger employees are saying it's cutting low performers, and the rest are left as the younger and lower paid workers to pick up the slack, where senior levels are cut indiscriminately or based on salary, because they are higher paid and the goal is to cut expensive workers.
Assuming perfect information, Jim's skill being transferable, and Jim's performance eval being objective, you'd expect that the company would profit from transferring Jim and other top performers to their profitable products, and cutting the worst employees from those projects (after all, even a department making profit is likely to have some employees on the low end of the performance bell curve).
Of course that isn't as easy because of morale, team cohesion, performance evals rarely being comparable across teams, and people being not as fungible as the above suggests. Not to mention all the work this takes, in a time when you probably have other worries. So maybe it's not "really weird", just "not immediately obvious"
I feel like pc86 was just being straightforward about how those decisions are made. They can speak for themselves though.
When I was part of a mass lay-off, it was big enough to trigger CA state law where they had to detail everything. You could clearly see that it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level).
>The 'righting' came because of shitty financial decisions made from top-down. The top should be fired first and foremost. The company wouldn't be in the position its in if management were doing their fucking jobs.
Should but rarely, if ever, happens. Some even get a larger bonus when meeting next quarter targets or some other short-term indicator.
> it was strictly based on who was paid the most (below the managerial level)
The "(below the managerial level)" part is the problem and the reason it is outrageous to people invested in a company but not in a position of power (such as the actual developers/engineers, even in a tech-centric company, at least once it has grown to a given size).
A lot of times what you'll see done is structured more as a reorg than just a straight layoff, where if they need to trim $xM from the budget, they'll start shrinking and eliminating teams at the IC level until they reach .7-.8 of that figure, then see how many "extra" managers they have and start trimming there, typically just based on seniority rather than pay. Rinse and repeat until you're at .9-1.1x depending on how many people you think will resign after the layoffs.
When you want to do broad company-wide layoffs, you have to adopt some broad strategies, otherwise it'll be way too much work to find 15% of the company. It's like trying to do surgery with a scalpel when you really need a saw to amputate an arm.
Imagine the mechanics if they involved every single low-level manager in decision making. You'd never find 15%. Everyone would justify where a person on their team or their team as a whole deserves to be saved. So you apply broader rules (eg certain products, certain types of jobs, performance based). The upside is that you can avoid people-specific favoritism. The downside is that you lose good people in those areas as you're not distinguishing good from bad.
My current company did a layoff, not quite 15%, but in that ballpark. They went down as far as the directors and gave them a number. I.e. pick X people to lose. This was in addition to some specific cuts where they axed the entire product and all teams associated with it.
It definitely allowed management to cut a few people that had been on their short list for a while.
I have a number of friends who all work at Stripe and this was definitely a secret circulating among the staff for at least the last week or so, like well beyond the "I wonder if we'll also have layoffs" rumors going around at almost every tech co right now.
I have a friend who worked at Stripe unit last year. He recently warned me that things are not going well, and he has heard rumors and I should avoid interviewing there. So I think they had some idea that something is going on.
> As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks.
That's something I don't quite get. This adversarial relationship between employees and employers and management is stupid. Why not tell the workforce you have to cut costs, so if you're thinking of changing careers now is the time. Whoever is left presumably wants to stay.
Like the court system being adversarial, it’s that way because it’s the only thing that scales, for a number of reasons. The longer a company can avoid it/bigger they can be without it, the better everything is. At some point however, it’s inevitable.
To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’ (in most hiring managers minds).
So it’s pretty common for all the ‘high performers’ to bail (happens anyway, but to a lesser extent on it’s own the moment ‘growth’ isn’t the first thing on peoples minds), and the folks left behind to be those that don’t feel comfortable finding another position.
Either because they have a mortgage hanging over their heads, or don’t feel confident in their skills, or are preoccupied with other responsibilities (kids, older parents, etc) and have less free time/are less interested in doing extra hours, or just hate interviewing, etc.
It’s basically the equivalent of a hot/pretty boyfriend or girlfriend. They are able to find other options easier, so tend to be the first to bounce if they stop getting what they want.
If you’re a manager, that’s obviously not great. Especially if you’re shallow.
> To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’.
Maybe, but some of these "best" people might just leave after a round of layoffs anyway right? And now you're even more short-staffed than you wanted to be.
Though the issue they are trying to solve appears to be having too many staff (overall).
Understaffing is almost always a local/team level concern.
As long as nothing important implodes after the cuts, it’s working as intended from their perspective.
The line and middle managers are the ones who always get really screwed in these situations, as they’re the ones responsible for figuring out how to keep who they need and keep things running (and growing!) while having the rug pulled out from under them staffing wise (and probably in other ways too).
This is when you figure out what (if any) power they have, how well they can prioritize, and what their personal character really is.
Will they level with people, cut things that don’t matter (as much), even if it’s a hard decision, give people flexibility where it matters, go up to bat for folks who it’s important that be done?
Or will they deflect, throw people under the bus to avoid making hard calls, and emotionally manipulate who’s left to keep things afloat while burning them out and underpaying them?
This is a crazy approach. It signals the company is on trouble so the first to go will be your best, who all have lots of options. Anyone half decent will immediately start risk diversification by looking for other opportunities. Meanwhile nothing will get done by anybody and in the end your left with the dregs.
Far better for everyone involved to do it quick rather than perfect. Those getting let go shouldn't see it coming and those staying shouldn't find out before it's all been done.
The tell in advance approach is common place in countries with strong unions. The company might need to announce layoffs half a year in advance of the actual layoffs.
In effect noone will lose their job quickly unless there is a bankruptcy.
There is probably way less confusion in that way since you know that security guards wont escort you out any minute ...
You may not get the number of volunteers you need, so you still have to do layoffs. Except now, more people have been stressing about it for a longer period of time.
The "low performers" who will have a hard time finding a new job elsewhere are unlikely to voluntarily leave. So you offer a buyout package to derisk the decision for them. But then the "high performers" who you'd rather retain might decide that yeah, it's easy to get a new job, so they'll take a sack of cash and go do something new.
Yes, there's stress associated with possible layoffs, but buyout packages and knowing it's not going to happen for, say 6 months, means there's loads of time to make the necessary adjustments. I think a big part of the stress is the suddenness of it all. Something like 50% of people are living paycheque to paycheque, so of course a sudden round of layoffs would be crazy stressful because there's a chance that your life is about to implode. Knowing you have 6 months to figure something out would not be nearly so bad.
So what I'm suggesting is that you announce ahead of time and let people who were considering a change go ahead.
Then when that deadline is reached, you offer those buyout packages to the low performers or others you don't want, until you reach your target.
I'm open to the idea that there might be some employees who would find this more humane.
However, I think a lot of people really struggle with uncertainty. During these six months, especially in a large corporate environment, there would be a lot of horse-trading. Employees will seek assurances they won't be fired. They may avoid projects or people they think are likely to get cut.
At the same time, the business likely has an idea of where they want to go. The "in" managers will navigate their preferred people to safe projects. But there isn't room in the boat for all of their employees -- after all, the business has announced the target for layoffs.
This was my experience when I was at Microsoft during their horribly ill-conceived layoffs in 2009. They basically announced that there would be 3 rounds of layoffs tallying up to 5,000 people over the next several months. It was... incredibly demoralizing.
I still remember one fellow on my team who got fired in the 2nd or 3rd round. He took it poorly (understandably!) and then ripped into the people who didn't get fired (also understandable, but still really shitty).
I don't really know that the advance warning helped him. I think he knew he was likely to get fired when layoffs were announced. Being a dead man walking... not very good for anyone, really.
I think you're saying that if you were being fired, and you were given a choice of:
(1) you're fired immediately, with 3 months severance pay
(2) 6 months notice, at the end, you're fired with no severance pay
you'd prefer the second choice?
That's reasonable!
The uncertainty I was describing in my comment applied not only to the fired employees, but to the ones who were being kept. From the company's perspective, there's value in providing clarity to those employees. That's why they'd rather pay 3 months severance (and get no labour from the employee) vs paying 6 months notice (and, theoretically, getting 6 months of labour from the employee).
that'd cause an org wide panic, and you might lose key personel in your actually profitable business units. cutting costs at this scale is not just reducing employees, it's getting rid of employees who are working in areas you need to cut. the secrecy lets management retain control.
> cutting costs at this scale is not just reducing employees, it's getting rid of employees who are working in areas you need to cut.
Sure, but if people are going to leave after cost cutting is announced, then you can often shuffle people from those areas into other areas without dealing with whole hiring rigamarole.
Apologies for the throwaway account but it's for obvious reasons.
I work at one of the mega-cap tech companies and manage a large team of engineers. It's extremely clear to me based on various pieces of information that I have access to that we'll be having a significant round of layoffs sometimes in the next quarter or two, yet I have zero involvement in the process. I suspect that at some point I'll be officially "told" that it's happening; perhaps the morning of?
Give it some time. I've been the manager of multiple engineering teams that had to undergo cuts, and in most cases I found myself in a situation similar to yours: it was obvious it was coming within months or weeks, but nobody was consulting me (which of course led me to believe I was being cut too).
But in every case, I was either consulted for input, or at least given a courtesy heads before the actual layoffs occurred.
In one case I was looped in a few weeks out and asked to help narrow things down. In another case I was simply shown a list of names the night before and offered a token opportunity to object. The list was sound, and I'm pretty sure my boss was doing me a solid on that one by sparing me the hardest decisions.
Line managers aren't always looped in for a few good reasons. Mainly, to prevent leaks. But also I think it can go a long way towards maintaining morale in a post layoff environment. There are countless anecdotes in these threads with people claiming their managers had no idea. Those same employees are now far less likely to be resentful of their managers for laying off their friends.
Best of luck. I don't envy being in your position.
There's an ongoing leak about layoffs just about for any company on Blind at any given time whether it will happen or not. Too much trolling to be ever reliable.
As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. I wonder how they chose who to lay off. Most recent performance rating? Next level managers impression?