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Comment by midislack | Hacker News Reader

Listen you don't tell people there are going to be layoffs. It's bad management.

That's not what he did. He specifically told people they weren't happening. He could've just not said anything until the actual layoffs had to happen.

Any time you hear a CEO say categorically that no layoffs are coming, layoffs are definitely coming.

“Never believe anything until it is officially denied” is a great phrase about this.

> It's bad management.

[citation needed]

I prefer honest and open employers who could be upfront with me when things are going bad, one way or another.

The idea is if you let it out that layoffs are coming (which isn't a real big deal because the employees know it's coming most of the time, no matter how much it is denied; when layoffs are not coming nobody asks) then the best employees will leave ASAP and the worst will stick around until the layoff date.

I haven't seen it myself, really, and post-layoff date your best employees may already be looking anyway (especially in a layoff as the company folds vs a "rightsizing layoff").

> then the best employees will leave ASAP and the worst will stick around until the layoff date.

I see this tossed around and I question it. The people that will leave are the people with who have good intuition about what is going to go down. In other words, the people who are best able to see through corporate politics.

It's not a given that the "best performers" or "top engineers" have a good eye for "corporate political BS". It's not a given they'll see what is going down and run for the exits. Being a "top performer" in some subject matter they are paid for doesn't imply they are "top performers" in playing the game.

It is just as likely that "the dead wood" have an "A game" with corporate politics and they run for the door instead.

I know plenty of extremely good engineers who would not run for the doors in such a situation.

I agree, companies are more worried about it than they need to be, but they see it as a risk they don't need to entertain.

Most people continue doing what they were doing the day before unless pushed.

Do you have any advise on how to get that intuition?

I can see mess of certain companies and their bullshit but I was wrong thinking that they would collapse as they still are limping and alive. Granted it is during good times and have to wait to see during such bad times.

Employers can't have people monkey wrenching as they seethe before getting canned.

I do too but because it helps ME not the company. Why would my company give a shit about me?

...and I prefer honest and open employees who won't immediately stop all work, squeeze whatever they can out of the company and dedicate 100% of their time to finding a new job on my dime.

The citation you're looking for is anyone who's experienced early warning of unspecified lay-offs yet to come, and what that's like.

Wow. "I prefer honest and open employees no matter how many lies we have to tell to get that" is quite the take.

The "slave mindset" is unreal in this thread. They openly defend their sociopath leader's behavior whatever you throw at them.

yes, but saying "there are no layoffs coming" and then laying people off cheapens the meaning and trust of "there are no layoffs coming" - then "there are no layoffs coming" doesn't mean anything and people panic anyway.

Right. People learn the code language and learn that others lie, then look to other observations (e.g., insider word from friendly executives, market reports, etc.) to determine the truth. In the end, people are laid off anyway, except now they've learned to mistrust those in authority.

Savvy folks know that no CEO will ever say "yes, we are planning a layoff", and so they know that "there are no layoffs coming" really gives you no information. Naive and younger people will believe it though, so there is still value in saying it.

The key is to listen to the case the CEO makes. "There are no layoffs coming, I promise" is a signal that layoffs are coming.

"There are no layoffs coming. We are growing X% YOY and hiring pace of Y% has not slowed. Yada yada yada." is a signal that it's true.

This all strikes me as very Life-of-Brian-ish:

> "I'm not the messiah!"

> "Only the true messiah would deny his divinity."

> "Well what chance does that give me?! Alright, I am the messiah!"

If the CEO says layoffs are coming, people freak out. So the CEO says no layoffs are coming, so we immediately assume that layoffs are coming.

That is the common thinking but perhaps you are all just wrong about that.

Agreed. Otherwise they will likely lose another 5% due to people wanting to get out of there. If he had something to the effect of, there may be layoffs we just don’t know where yet, here’s how we are approaching it and how we plan to let people go. They may still lose some people but at least it doesn’t feel like a sinking ship you need to get away from.

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