[TorKlingberg]

> Sucks because my manager was only told this morning

As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. I wonder how they chose who to lay off. Most recent performance rating? Next level managers impression?

[mik3y]

Yes, it's normal for layoffs to be planned and executed by a very small group, typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized. This in turn means less-than-perfect information is available, and so less-than-scientific cuts are made.

"Ideally", your layoff strategy dictates some cuts regardless of performance: Say we're shutting down the self-driving car division, folding up recruiting, or choosing to accept the risk that comes with getting rid of the whole security team; sadly, the performance of the individuals involved isn't really considered.

Tenure, seniority, and comp are also factors that can come into play & are straightforward to establish without lower-level involvement.

[taude]

It's even more common to hire one of the big consulting firms to do most of this. Every layoff at large companies I've been involved with was done via a Bain, BCG, etc...

[anyfoo]

> Say we're shutting down the self-driving car division, folding up recruiting, or choosing to accept the risk that comes with getting rid of the whole security team.

Did you intend this to be a spit take? The sentence read about the same as “Say you’re taking a stroll around town, visit a few cafés, or decide to end the day by jumping into an active volcano.”

[nullc]

> , typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized

When a layoff is known to be coming, the best and most employable people will often head for the doors quickly... leaving the company with a greater concentration of less desirable employees.

If it's by surprise then you'll lose fewer of the people you wanted to keep.

[dmurdoch]

I work at a company that did layoffs recently as well, about double this size.

Our managers also had no idea until day of. The entire day was spent watching co workers google calendars and slack accounts. Once they got a meeting booked with HR, their meeting titles all turned into "busy", so we would know who is getting cut and who wasn't. It was a brutal day.

In our case I don't think they were picking people based on performance whatsoever. It seemed to just be about who was paid the best and who in the org structure could have their job removed and someone else take over. Really weird.

[pc86]

Is it "really weird," though? Layoffs, especially when you start talking about entire teams, divisions, products, etc. is about revenue, profitability, and righting the ship (or safeguarding the ship so you don't have to right it 6 months from now). Whether Jim got "exceeds expectations" or "greatly exceeds expectations" is irrelevant when an EVP needs to trim $12M off their budget and Jim's department lost $9M last year.

[dboreham]

Hmm. I think we were at the same place.

[freshfunk]

When you want to do broad company-wide layoffs, you have to adopt some broad strategies, otherwise it'll be way too much work to find 15% of the company. It's like trying to do surgery with a scalpel when you really need a saw to amputate an arm.

Imagine the mechanics if they involved every single low-level manager in decision making. You'd never find 15%. Everyone would justify where a person on their team or their team as a whole deserves to be saved. So you apply broader rules (eg certain products, certain types of jobs, performance based). The upside is that you can avoid people-specific favoritism. The downside is that you lose good people in those areas as you're not distinguishing good from bad.

[rootusrootus]

My current company did a layoff, not quite 15%, but in that ballpark. They went down as far as the directors and gave them a number. I.e. pick X people to lose. This was in addition to some specific cuts where they axed the entire product and all teams associated with it.

It definitely allowed management to cut a few people that had been on their short list for a while.

[sharkweek]

I have a number of friends who all work at Stripe and this was definitely a secret circulating among the staff for at least the last week or so, like well beyond the "I wonder if we'll also have layoffs" rumors going around at almost every tech co right now.

[truncate]

I have a friend who worked at Stripe unit last year. He recently warned me that things are not going well, and he has heard rumors and I should avoid interviewing there. So I think they had some idea that something is going on.

[naasking]

> As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks.

That's something I don't quite get. This adversarial relationship between employees and employers and management is stupid. Why not tell the workforce you have to cut costs, so if you're thinking of changing careers now is the time. Whoever is left presumably wants to stay.

[lazide]

Like the court system being adversarial, it’s that way because it’s the only thing that scales, for a number of reasons. The longer a company can avoid it/bigger they can be without it, the better everything is. At some point however, it’s inevitable.

To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’ (in most hiring managers minds).

So it’s pretty common for all the ‘high performers’ to bail (happens anyway, but to a lesser extent on it’s own the moment ‘growth’ isn’t the first thing on peoples minds), and the folks left behind to be those that don’t feel comfortable finding another position.

Either because they have a mortgage hanging over their heads, or don’t feel confident in their skills, or are preoccupied with other responsibilities (kids, older parents, etc) and have less free time/are less interested in doing extra hours, or just hate interviewing, etc.

It’s basically the equivalent of a hot/pretty boyfriend or girlfriend. They are able to find other options easier, so tend to be the first to bounce if they stop getting what they want.

If you’re a manager, that’s obviously not great. Especially if you’re shallow.

[winphone1974]

This is a crazy approach. It signals the company is on trouble so the first to go will be your best, who all have lots of options. Anyone half decent will immediately start risk diversification by looking for other opportunities. Meanwhile nothing will get done by anybody and in the end your left with the dregs.

Far better for everyone involved to do it quick rather than perfect. Those getting let go shouldn't see it coming and those staying shouldn't find out before it's all been done.

[cldellow]

Some possible reasons:

You may not get the number of volunteers you need, so you still have to do layoffs. Except now, more people have been stressing about it for a longer period of time.

The "low performers" who will have a hard time finding a new job elsewhere are unlikely to voluntarily leave. So you offer a buyout package to derisk the decision for them. But then the "high performers" who you'd rather retain might decide that yeah, it's easy to get a new job, so they'll take a sack of cash and go do something new.

[jlrubin]

that'd cause an org wide panic, and you might lose key personel in your actually profitable business units. cutting costs at this scale is not just reducing employees, it's getting rid of employees who are working in areas you need to cut. the secrecy lets management retain control.

[reikonomusha]

Presumably because you want to lay off 15%, not 50%.

[ahoy]

Wage labor in capitalism is by its very nature adversarial, I'd say.

[lay0ffthr0waway]

Apologies for the throwaway account but it's for obvious reasons.

I work at one of the mega-cap tech companies and manage a large team of engineers. It's extremely clear to me based on various pieces of information that I have access to that we'll be having a significant round of layoffs sometimes in the next quarter or two, yet I have zero involvement in the process. I suspect that at some point I'll be officially "told" that it's happening; perhaps the morning of?

[bitbuilder]

Give it some time. I've been the manager of multiple engineering teams that had to undergo cuts, and in most cases I found myself in a situation similar to yours: it was obvious it was coming within months or weeks, but nobody was consulting me (which of course led me to believe I was being cut too).

But in every case, I was either consulted for input, or at least given a courtesy heads before the actual layoffs occurred.

In one case I was looped in a few weeks out and asked to help narrow things down. In another case I was simply shown a list of names the night before and offered a token opportunity to object. The list was sound, and I'm pretty sure my boss was doing me a solid on that one by sparing me the hardest decisions.

Line managers aren't always looped in for a few good reasons. Mainly, to prevent leaks. But also I think it can go a long way towards maintaining morale in a post layoff environment. There are countless anecdotes in these threads with people claiming their managers had no idea. Those same employees are now far less likely to be resentful of their managers for laying off their friends.

Best of luck. I don't envy being in your position.

[bergenty]

Usually squads that aren’t totally “essential”. We ended up firing a lot of our analytics department since our new head wasn’t as data oriented.

[ffggvv]

not at stripe but another similar company that recently had layoffs.

ones at my company were decided by the next level manager, based on the most recent perf review

[RRL]

The layoff was leaked on Blind 24-48hrs ago

[seabriez]

There's an ongoing leak about layoffs just about for any company on Blind at any given time whether it will happen or not. Too much trolling to be ever reliable.