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Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

Why would anything besides performance and value factor into this decision? "Mary just gets more done for the money than Bob does... but I haven't seen her in awhile... Gone."

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That assumes rationality, unfortunately. It would be nice if performance was the only factor in a managers decision, but we all know that managers have a tendency to prefer the employees that they see often. That being said if you were hired as a remote employee, I wouldn't worry.

It's 100% rational from the manager's individual POV to choose to lay off someone you don't know so well vs someone you see every day in person and consider a friend.

Performance is pretty hard to measure without resorting to gameable KPIs.

There is always a "perceived performance". Once a year (typically) managers evaluate the associates; same evaluation is performed when one has to go. If seen somebody everyday plays a role, yes, maybe.

But for example, 5 years ago, I worked in a team, when I was only couple of days in the office. Others every day. I saw my team manager the days I was in the office... and also at weekends, because we were friends... so... it all depends.

Yep. It can help if you ask their coworkers across the business for multiple types of feedback, but it's never going to be anything close to perfect. How do you define "performance" of someone who spent time helping 5 other teams deliver with their expertise, but then didn't quite do the thing they were given to do? It's not an absolute thing, and so we shouldn't be bemoaning that it's not used enough as a measurement.

One of the arguments is that people do not objectively determine performance and value and are likely to become biased by spending time with people in-person.

> Why would anything besides performance and value factor into this decision?

Because people making decisions are often influenced by their own biases and social preferences, unfortunately.

We have never operated as a meritocracy like that at a society wide level.

How do you measure performance

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