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Comment by kartan | Hacker News Reader

I like the article, and it has some really good ideas. And it is not about making firing people easier or cheaper. It is about on how to decide when to fire someone.

About firing fast and easy, it is a bad idea.

I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about what we expect from her, and what she expects from the job.

I worked previously in Spain, I saw a lot of people fired for no good reason. And they were also hired without too much attention. Shorts interviews, no real testing, are part of a process that ends consuming a lot of effort from everyone after hiring someone that is not the correct person. Other times that people is good, and leaves, because was not the job for them.

Both seem related. Cheap and easy firing produces careless recruiting. And that is more expensive that people realizes.

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I have worked in Sweden, and I would like to offer a counter point.

I don't think we disagree that the reason the hiring process is so involved in Sweden is because it's so hard to fire someone. This results in a situation where the company does everything they can to minimise the risk of hiring the wrong person.

The downside of this is that companies will not take any chances when it comes to hiring people. I believe this is the reason why I have seem some really bad diversity (both cultural and gender) in the Swedish tech industry, compared to other countries where I have worked.

If it's easier to fire someone, it's also easier to take a chance on someone that might night be the "perfect candidate" at first glance, but perhaps he or she will shine if given the opportunity.

I work in the UK and it's similar. Except we have a lot of diversity due to a vibrant contractor (at-will) market. Which the Tories are trying desperately to destroy, for some reason.

Permanent employees are basically impossible to fire. It's a mixed bag I think. On the one hand, there is a large social benefit to having such gov enforced job security. On the other hand, it drives down wages, and hurts companies that get stuck with a really bad employee. At least as workers we can choose to earn more money and take the riskier route via contracting.

Contractors are especially needed in unionized permanent companies - where contractors/3rd party companies are needed just to get things moving in the direction management wants.

Scabs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker

Not in a strike scenario. Its just that I've been in a unionized environment and while it has many benefits, if the employee doesnt feel like doing something management wants - they simply wont do it.

Dont agree with the direction, not something they are familiar with.... they like things just the way they have been used to these last few decades.

Total bollocks in the UK you can let a fulltime employee go at any time in the first 2 years and its fairly easy to fire after that you just have to follow a simple procedure.

I would disagree that the UK is exactly the same as Scandinavia (having worked in both). Maybe for general companies around the country but definitely not for startups. I have seen many get fired for no particular good reason. They might be arranged via some theater of made up performance reviews then fired, but job security in the startup scene in London at least is a lie. But also those startups get a reputation and suffers for it.

Which is why I am now a contractor in London. No theater. They can let me go on short notice ethically and legally, and I am fine with that. Mostly as I am financially fine with it.

"Permanent employees are basically impossible to fire."

That really isn't true at all - you can be fired for pretty much anything in the first two years and after that the process is pretty straightforward.

I've never seen a company fail to get rid of someone they didn't want working there - one way or another.

It's harder to do in Europe, but it's still possible. Especially, as you say, if there's management determination that the person has to go.

You really can't generalize across Europe

To be completely honest, the legal and cultural landscape in Europe is nothing at all like the US when it comes to letting employees go. Being US based, I would be extremely hesitant taking your advice if you haven't spent time in the US.

Which is when US managers work for European based companies this causes issues if they don't adapt.(And I am sure is the case also in the other direction).

I have come across American managers move straight from Silicon Valley to Europe and not understanding that firing people in Europe (well in the parts I know, UK & Scandinavia) is rare, and not expected. Not understanding that there is a limited pool of potential new employees, with a busy grapevine, and you do not want a reputation as a hire and fire company. Not understanding that internally people no longer want to move to that team etc.

My naïve Scandinavian background balked when seeing the behavior of these managers over and over again. And made me very wary of ever working for a US company even if located in Europe. The culture clash from senior management would be too much.

Though to be fair I have met several very good American colleagues and managers as well. Obviously it is not ubiquitous.

> Which is when US managers work for European based companies this causes issues if they don't adapt.

This is such an important idea that Ireland advertises it as a perk of doing business there. In addition to tax breaks and all their other incentives, the government works hard to promote Ireland as a "stepping stone" to European business. EU rules, Eurozone finances, with an intermediate, English-speaking culture to help get past the pain points of leaving the US.

It sounded a bit silly to me at first, but on reflection I'll bet it's a pretty good move. Picking up a bad reputation in a new market is hard to recover from, and I expect a successful move to Europe would require either careful planning or a totally autonomous branch.

> I work in Sweden. I don't think I have seen ever anyone fired. What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes. The process looks at the candidate values, and skills. And there is a discussion about what we expect from her, and what she expects from the job.

I have worked for a few years in a company that is based in Sweden but also has a very large U.S. presence. Couple of points:

1. The recruiting process is involved in Sweden is more involved than in the U.S, agreed. However it is not perfect. False positives do enter the system. Folks there have started getting junior candidates intern/contract as a way of evaluating them. This unfortunately has its own bias.

2. Yes, I think it is impossible to fire people in Sweden. What is typically done in those rare situations is to shuffle you in such a way that you don't do any work. Imagine a head of a team suddenly head in title but with no reports.

3. On the U.S. side, interviews are way easier but then at will employment takes care of that in those rare situations.

I worked for a while in Norway, so quite similar to Sweden, and I only really encountered one person whom had been fired. And that was for being a total dickhead and breaking the law. Mostly the incompetent or unmotivated people I met get moved around to harmless projects until they leave from boredom, but that might take a few years or they retire.

And the hire process can be more elaborate, my father's company used 7 rounds of interviews before anyone was hired... But in "our sector", developer roles etc it was mostly just 1 max 2 face to face interviews and no different than the UK and elsewhere I have worked.

And in Norway (at least in Oslo) there is no hesitance in hiring people due to the severe drought of qualified people and near 0% unemployment in cities means companies are desperate even if letting them go will be difficult.

But there is a proliferance of contractors via consultancies everywhere as they are easy to fire.

> What I have seen is some of the best hiring processes.

....in software? So Sweden has figured out the software engineering hiring process?

>Both seem related. Cheap and easy firing produces careless recruiting. And that is more expensive that people realizes.

Well put but doesn't address context.

If I just got gas-fire funding, intending to blow up my company, I will need to hire a dozen people a month.

It is a risk. But so is taking 200 hours to hire 1 person.

We are in the business of balancing many risks with many rewards.

People should be hired upon need, not because there is money and the founder feels like inflating his ego by hiring people just because he can.

If there is a clear need, the hiring process should come about naturally, as in tests to see if people have a certain set of skills and if they are a cultural fit.

I suspect the race to adopting whatever is hyped at the moment (known as "let's rewrite in...") is partially due to this hastened hiring process.

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