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Comment by j-bos | Hacker News Reader

How does one, as a non executive, secure a bronze parachute? Maybe silver?

This is not a rhetorical question.

Work in a European country where severance is based on years employed. When Nokia started downsizing in Finland, I heard of several old-timers (ICs, not senior execs) getting severance payments worth several years' salary.

This is somewhat standard in the US. I’ve worked for some companies I thought of as cheap or not so great but they both paid out some hefty severance packages based on years of experience. Some ex-coworkers got 24 months of severance based on the years of employment.

HN leads me to believe that SV companies don’t do severance and just fire you at a whim but I wouldn’t say it’s the norm.

The norm is 6-12 weeks in my experience. I have never heard of 104. I think that's unusual.

You don't have to be an executive. Anybody can get any kind of parachute they want... if they're valuable enough to the company and negotiate for it.

If a company wants you bad enough, they'll give you what you want... the trick is being that valuable.

So just be really, really good at what you do.. or at least have a great reputation in your field, and you may have the leverage to negotiate yourself a sweet deal from the company lucky enough to hire you.

But the parachute is when leaving. Why would the company not simply fire you and pay you the minimum severance package offered in your contract?

You must always negotiate the parachute when joining (or perhaps, when staying) - when leaving it is too late.

Stay bonuses [1] are probably the most common case. It's actually pretty common in a merger, especially one with a long period between announcement and integration, to hand out parachutes of various metals to key employees.

If you're the CEO closing a deal where the buying party is overpaying by $15B, they really really don't want you to quit in the middle.

If you're a rock star category manager, they still want you to stick around because you might get the job after in the combined entity, and even if you won't, who will they be able to hire to manage the category while they're doing the deal?

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2015/03/28/what-is-a-st...

So golden parachutes, in the commonly used C* sense, are subtly different -- they're buying an orderly transition.

And why would you need to buy an orderly transition?

Because the outgoing person is likely to have (a) massive organizational authority during the transition, (b) legal ways to abuse that authority to screw the company over, & (c) political power within the company.

The money is predicated on having a role with access to those three things, and it's a payment for not abusing them in a time when incentives not to abuse them are removed (because you're being fired).

Not very relevant when you're fired on the spot and escorted out of the building, as apparently happened at Twitter, but very relevant in a more traditional (and slow) leadership change. And hence why it's a standard part of contracts for those roles.

Unionize your workplace. I’m serious, this is the only realistic way for non-executive workers to get anything like this guaranteed in an employment contract. Severance is completely discretionary otherwise.

That will work in some cases, but in many you'll be expected to work for the duration.

My contract has a 3 month notice period, which is pretty standard in Europe for senior roles.

Ah that’s interesting to know about Europe, I should have specified the US context of what I said. That kind of arrangement is not common here, typically an involuntary termination will take effect immediately.

Being dismissed due to misconduct can be instant, e.g. if you were stealing or otherwise breaking the law. (Sometimes this goes to court, and the court can say the dismissal was unfair and grant the missing pay. Unions often help with this.)

Being made redundant has the paid period, and depending on the business it might require working, or it might not. If the factory just burned down, or (like in this Twitter case) management decided a whole team was completely pointless for the business, or if you do something with serious security measures, you'll probably not need to come to work, but if they're closing the factory on a known schedule you probably do.

There's usually a similar notice period when the employee resigns, although it's common for this period to be less. I think mine is 3 months either way, but in my previous job it was 1 month when I resigned, and 2 months if they dismissed me (but 0 for misconduct).

A lower bound of some of these rights is in EU/UK law, and many countries go beyond the minimum. These laws were passed through pressure from (mostly) unions.

The way I do it: be you real self. Meaning: don’t care about what people think about you. Push the things you deem right for the business. Be brutally open to superior. Speak your mind. And then wait and see.

Either everybody loves what you’re doing. Then it’s a great company you’re fitting well in. Or…

How does this secure you a severance payment?

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