Comment by Dangeranger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dangeranger | Hacker News Reader

These sorts of sterile PR responses ...

> "As part of a continued planning process where we regularly assess our resourcing levels against our company priorities, we decided to realign some of our resources to better drive focus and support our long-term growth. This resulted in some hard decisions that impacted approximately 4% of all Unity workforce. We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Unity and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.”

... are dehumanizing, and serve only as a legal smoke screen.

I really wish that layoff announcements acknowledged the pain of those people let go, and the pain of those people who will remain who have to take up the slack under a tighter fiscal belt.

This best expressed by George Carlin's quote on "soft language"[0], which stated; "Americans have trouble facing the truth, So they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it"

Pretending it doesn't hurt doesn't help. Let go of the euphemisms.

[0] https://www.thoughtco.com/soft-language-euphemism-1692111

You would have lawsuits on your desk before the first layoffs even left the building. I remember a lawyer or someone told me 'if you ever get into an accident, don't even say sorry'. There are people who will truly be hurt, and an apology would do a great deal of good for them, but there are also people who will seek any opportunity to pull you through the mud as soon as you give them an admission of guilt.

Again, whether it is right or wrong is a different discussion from the fact that it is the current state of legal things, and incentives are high for all kinds of foul play.

> I remember a lawyer or someone told me 'if you ever get into an accident, don't even say sorry'.

Lawyers often say this but it's bad advice (except perhaps for their bottom line). People who say sorry pay out significantly less in damages on average.

Interesting! I think this is a good take and one that also kind of makes sense

First, it was "you're fired". That became too harsh so then we moved on to "layoffs". But that seeped into the popular lexicon too, so nowadays we say "your role has been impacted". I wonder what the next evolution will be. Maybe "we are enabling you to help the company cut costs" or something.

It's a high level domain specific language, just precise enough to explain what's happening and why it's happening on high level. A bit like the way doctors speak to each other in formal settings, if you wish.

The good wishes and sincere dialogs are better held on personal level, i.e. the managers can have it with their subordinates in private.

Is less euphemistic language somehow better? If they said, "The economy is in bad shape, so we've decided we need to be spending less money right now. One way we're going to do that is by laying people off. We're sorry, but we're a corporation and we have to make prudent business decisions even if they cause some people to suffer." would that make anybody who got laid off feel better?

Plain language like that would be fantastically refreshing yes.

Human beings understand this, which is why any manager with half a heart will translate to the plain language version instinctively after they're done reading the HR-prescribed spiel.

HR is a profession whose purpose is to turn the process of hiring and employing human labor into a pantomime of financing and procuring capital goods or raw materials. Since their business is treating people like anything but people ("resources", contracts, "headcount", "cycles", etc.), this often slips their mind.

Better? probably. Being honest with people is usually better.

But this is a good time to remind everyone that you owe zero -- ZERO -- loyalty to a company. Be just as ruthless to them as they are to you.

As an employee know that the company that employs you does not have your best interest in mind. They will dump you as soon as the asymmetry between what you provide to them vs. what they provide to you is no longer in their favor. I mean, it has to be that way, but you need to keep your eyes open to it.

This is a very cynical view, but ultimately, the company couldn't care less about you. You are disposable, and will be disposed-of at the first opportunity it's called for.

Remember that asymmetry can go the other way too. The very moment they are no longer providing high-value to you as an employer you can (and should) start searching for something better, where the asymmetry is more in your favor. You can ditch them just as quickly and easily as they ditch you.

It's not cynical, it's business. The dishonesty always flows from corporation to employee.

I’m surprised by how and why people believe company statements claiming that there won’t be layoffs. Nothing can be a matter of belief in business. The company can either commit to a penalty in case there are layoffs or the statement effectively doesn’t exist.

It's a good view to have. HR stands for human resources. The company views you the same way as a EC2 instance. They make layoff decisions the same way they spin down servers if their AWS bill gets too high.

People aren't identical and they take time to ramp up. You can't just fire someone and then later get back someone exactly as good.

Sure, but if you only have cash for one person's wages, that's a cost you can eat in the future, when or if things improve.

Probably, and probably not enough to matter.

What would really help is that the previous statement were in the form of "by policy, we never discuss the possibility of a layoff" instead of having a policy of lying while you prepare it.

It's possible. I've been in a Fortune 100 company that did this. They explained the timeline too, with a deadline to accept a voluntary leave package, then a later date where those staying could be affected by layoffs.

Being a large company, they were able to plan it in such a way as to encourage those close to retirement to leave, those who wanted to jump to go ahead and leave, and minimize the brain drain. They weren't running on a razor thin runway where ever day was bleading cash.

Because one of the downsides of surprize layoff announcements, is that while many execs think they are just removing the lowest performing tier, what actually happens is the top performers who do have options see the writing on the wall and go ahead and jump elsewhere. Cost-cutting achieved but teams lobotomized and further decline ensues.

Yes. This shows respect.

If you have to do layoffs, the very least you can do is treat them like professionals and give good references.

Acknowledging pain caused by the company's actions could be seen as admitting to directly causing psychological distress. IANAL but I'm sure these company's legal departments want to white-wash the messaging as much as possible.

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