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Googler... ex-Googler

(nerdy.dev)
1071 points namukang | 3 comments | 11 Apr 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.003s | source
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abdj8 ◴[14 Apr 25 05:08 UTC] No.43678249[source]▶
Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hour of announcement. The CEO detailed the process of selecting people. The severance was very generous (3-6 months pay) along with health and other benefits. The impacted employees were allowed to keep the laptop and any other assets they took from the company. They even paid the same severance to contractors.

After the announcement, the laid off employees were given a few days in the company to allow them to say good byes. I love the CEOs comment on this ' I trusted them yesterday, I trust them today'. This was by far the kindest way of laying off employees imo. People were treated with dignity and respect.

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apexalpha ◴[14 Apr 25 06:20 UTC] No.43678562[source]▶
Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else.

Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc...

Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

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asadalt ◴[14 Apr 25 06:29 UTC] No.43678595[source]▶
that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.
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BlobberSnobber ◴[14 Apr 25 06:34 UTC] No.43678620[source]▶
Always someone with a horrible opinion to give in this hellsite
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asadalt ◴[14 Apr 25 06:57 UTC] No.43678740[source]▶
i have had to avoid hiring excellent candidate(s) from EU, just because they would become unflushable if it comes to that.
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1. dani__german ◴[14 Apr 25 15:11 UTC] No.43682175[source]▶
people are getting quite snippy about this comment, but hating this mindset means you lock yourself away from so much actual wealth. It means you confine and condemn people to significantly worse economic conditions by limiting people's ability to freely associate and disassociate.

just to hammer this point home: Every mandatory employee benefit has a huge cost, and adding enough of them kills your economy. It makes it more expensive to have an employee than X many jobs can justify. That X grows every year, and that's X people who cant do that job and get paid money for it.

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2. asadalt ◴[14 Apr 25 17:13 UTC] No.43683570[source]▶
exactly, as a startup founder i wouldn’t commit to a yearly reserved ec2 instance for a year let alone an employee.
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3. disgruntledphd2 ◴[16 Apr 25 15:57 UTC] No.43706991[source]▶
Wow, that's an interesting perspective.

Meanwhile, Big tech (pre-2022) went to pretty extreme lengths to keep tenured employees around because of all the knowledge they'd built up which made them valuable to the company.

But whatevs, you do you. I'd advise you to only hire contractors if you want people to stay less than a year.

And it's worth noting that you appear to be responding to people who are in German speaking countries, where 3 months notice is standard. Other parts of Europe are not like this, and in Ireland you can fire as per the US for the first 6 months/year, and only need to pay redundancy if they've been there 2+ years.