About 700 Microsoft employees will be laid off next week, sources say
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Why wouldn't they just fire the underperformers and reassign the others? Mass indiscriminate layoffs are bad.
It sounds like this is close to what is happening, except it's less about underperformer and more about specific skillsets.
It's like no one really cares if anything adds up anymore. Perhaps it was always this way?
Software has so much domain knowledge that there are all sorts of funny memes about what happens whenever the person that originally wrote the code leaves the company.
I don't know who they're laying off but if they worked in, say, ARM Surface Hardware or maybe phone hardware engineering, they're going to have a smaller amount of places to go. Yes they could go learn software development but if they haven't done it that ramp up time is going to be years.
Also, it's worth noting that I'm very familiar with Microsoft.
I was working there when they laid off 18,000 people. Everyone I knew personally who lost their job was rehired by the company within three months. One of them was even rehired to their original team, go figure.
I saw good performers laid off while poor performers kept their jobs. I also saw poor performers rehired. The rumor at the time was that the list of people being laid off was chosen at random. That certainly makes sense, as it would allow the company to say, "We randomly laid off X% of people doing Y work in Z division." in the event of any discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuits.
Companies of this size treat people as cogs in a machine. Provided all your cogs meet a certain minimum standard your machine functions well. If you need to cut down on the number of moving parts, you don't get too concerned over which individual cogs you get rid of. It's horrible and impersonal, but I guess it's somewhat necessary for a company like Microsoft.
With programming, I've seen some great work done when good people are tasked with alien problems.
I think the novelty gets people excited again while making them (temporarily) more careful.
Agreed. A company with 94000 people in US lays off 700 people, and its because of them worker visas.
If you google "microsoft mass layoff", it's like they have these pre-ordained layoffs of thousands every year, while their visa certifications are in the low thousands every year. In this case, the 700 is just a single wave of a layoff planned the middle of last year.
I am not knocking worker visas here. I am knocking Microsoft's honesty.
The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy systems, like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be fully integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the people you already have?
I didn't see where it said who they were laying off. What if they were laying off hardware engineers? If they haven't done software before that ramp up time to integrate into a software development team may be years.
They do a lot more than just software. I agree if they're laying off of software then there is no reason they can't be retrained in another dev team but that's not always the case here.
You're also missing the part where Microsoft gives them 60 days to find a new position within the company. I'm assuming they have to re-interview but probably no way to avoid that.
"The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more."
Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.
I was referring to the type of people, mostly. Like, software engineers, hardware engineers, designers, HR folks, etc.
> Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.
They announced these over 6 months ago so I'm not necessarily convinced that's why. Though I would love to know for sure.
As Daniel Kahnemen has said there is high demand for overconfidence these days.
And the tech industry has blindly satisfied that demand by creating platforms that prop up characters like POTUS. Not just in the sphere of politics but you can see this within your family, friends, teachers, scientists, religious and biz leaders basically everywhere you look.
If we want solutions that trend has to be reversed.
You assume adults are let into the room and will be making the decision. He is the POTUS as long as he cares and isn't lazy enough to pawn it off he'll be the one making decisions.
> some guise
I would expect many companies to do this so the employee can save face by being laid off rather than fired.
I don't know how I would handle that mentally, to have to re-apply to the company that just laid me off. The message is weird. "We're letting you go, but if you REALLY want to stay, find a team that wants you. Here, we'll put a 2 month timer on it."
Sorry if that sounds like rambling, but I simply don't understand.
"Your team is going to be no more or is being downsized because its not as important anymore, we really want to keep you though, so we are going to give you 2 months to find another place inside the company where you would like to work at."
(I had a friend in MSFT HR at the time who confirmed that the 2014 layoffs were conducted by-algorithm and were absolutely not based on job-performance - hence why management had to resort to creative ways to retain people they wanted).
Even for those who were granted the "privilege" of applying internally, it was incredibly stressful for them because now there was rampant competition for a limited number of places. The QA/SDET roles were hit the hardest because most of the open positions were exclusively SDE - and SDE hiring managers are reluctant to engage SDETs.
I don't know about Microsoft. But I've known quite a number of people at Intel who have gone thru this sort of procedure.
Every two or three years there would be a re-org and thousands would get thrown into a layoff pool, from which they had perhaps 60 days to get hired into another group. But there really wasn't a stigma, many people successfully navigated that process four or five times over the years.
The real downside was that being in the pool was your severance. When your 60 days ran out you were SOL.
The similarities and differences between different bureaucracies in different "tech" companies, some quite similar and others quite different by design, is interesting too.
Regardless, it fundamentally looks like the decent companies that have a system to truly hire employees worth investing in, and are qualified enough investors to never let that investment in their people lapse (since it always pays off, short-term or long-term), would be the last ones to lay people off at all. Certainly not layoffs as part of a non-emergency long-term planned business strategy, in such a non-astute effort known as "across-the-board", or even more childishly by algorithm.
As a businessman while trying to maintain or accelerate growth, if you can also limit the downside to the rate of attrition, you will never need to lay anybody off.
Depends on how good a businessman you are.
There have always been companies that are not decent, some even have an actual system to exclude potential employees who would otherwise provide the most return on resource investment, and there are some that never even leverage a respectable percentage of their capable people anywhere near their full potential.
Even for these lesser companies, bold downsizing leaves unmeasurable damage to the company and remaining employees, just as strongly as it can to those who are kicked out. Although many who are laid off move on to much better careers after being separated from companies which didn't seem so poor up until that point.
When the unmeasured damage exceeds the cost of retaining actual good people, the direct negative effect on the bottom line can still be completely obfuscated. This can easily be ignored by the ignorant or malicious, or swept under the rug by a large variety of bureaucracies, most of which are not capable of building or maintaing alignment of employee interests with those of shareholders. In this case it can be a significant notch-down in opportunities for both employees and shareholders from that point forward, with no indication whatsoever on any current financial statement. Too bad it's the future financial statements that will be less impressive or more disappointing, depending on the situation.
Just like in the 20th Century, 19th Century . . .
What if they can do what you pay them to do, but you can no longer afford them?
That's exactly what a layoff is...the result of the fact that employing this group of people is economically unsensible.
In Germany cases where companies truly cannot afford the person the following rules apply:
1. there is absolutely no way for the person to conduct different work inside the company 2. the company needs to choose those that can more easily afford to be laid off. (employment duration, young, single etc) 3. the place of work has to permanently be gone
Beforehand, the company has to talk to the workers council though so they can possibly find solutions to the problem without having to fire people.
Companies would be a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring someone if they know that they can let them go easily if things don't work out.
Disclaimer: I have owned a small business (~$8MM/year revenue) with employees.
You're free to make your argument though. Most of the rest of the first world doesn't agree with your sentiment.
I don't see why you think being a libertarian or not has anything to do with anything, by the way.
Simplifying a bit, you have to have attempted to help the employee meet standards, or find a suitable position. Also, if the employee develops problrns like alcohol abuse you have to attempt to get them to sort it out.
That's my general understanding as an employee.
that seems to be beyond what an employer should have to bear. If an employee develops problems, it doesn't make sense for an employer to help them (unless it's from their job - e.g., a wine taster getting addicted to alcohol). They aint running a charity!
My comment was intended in the context of a regular employee in the scope of "unfair dismissal"[1] which you may have a claim to if you believe your dismissal was "harsh, unjust or unreasonable manner." Slightly different rules for small businesses under 15 employees etc.
1. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/unfair-dismiss...
The reason why is be because starting a company in America is generally a good idea
While it's an upheaval to be sure, the vast majority of these laid-off employees have in-demand skills in a growing industry. Who I really feel for is people who get laid off in shrinking industries, where it's basically a game of musical chairs and there are fewer seats each round.
Do you have any on hand?
Leaving off energy companies, 9 out of the top 16 companies are American.
4.5% of the world's population, ~55% of the world's great companies.
I'm sure at will employment alone wouldn't crush the American economy. But it'd be a hit to it.
Once one of the former said goodbye after all the announcements after work drinks. It was really awkward.
We had a guy on my team just tell us "today is my last day," out of nowhere. He was in the director's office earlier.
We suspected these people were given some money and told to quit, rather than keep them on. It was usually people who turned out to not really be great engineers and I think they just wanted to get rid of them without having to fire them.
I also worked in Australia for a year. My first day on the job, my hiring manager, who had been with the company for six years, was made redundant.
Great, now you know one reason that Americans prefer America to other countries. A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. Note, however, that these rules are largely at the state, not federal, level, and not all state are "at will".
Also there are more possibilities to employment than American "any time for any reason" and European "at least a month either way". In Canada you have to have a justified cause to fire people or just give notice, and for quitting you customarily give 2 weeks notice (I'm not even sure if you're legally bound to).
Isn't putting aside savings to account for possible interruptions in employment simply prudent management of one's personal finances?
It's an example of the preferential treatment employers receive over employees.
nit: their, not there.