General > General Technical Chat
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
fourfathom:
--- Quote from: KaneTW on August 26, 2022, 01:43:50 am ---
--- Quote from: fourfathom on August 26, 2022, 01:20:25 am ---And I have worked at places where the written policy was to lay off 10% of the staff every year
--- End quote ---
That sounds insane to me. The training/onboarding overhead must be enormous. I have a hard time hiring as-is.
Then again, big companies can be much less careful in who they hire.
I do think it's definitely too hard to fire people over here, but it's also a different work culture.
--- End quote ---
Admittedly it was a *big* company, one of the biggest in Silicon Valley. Remember when we were discussing the Pareto Principle on another thread? Where 20% of the people do 80% of the work? In a big outfit it's not too hard to find people to trim, in times of growth often hiring more people than you fire. Even in my small startup with 20, or later 200 employees, we ended up firing a few. It wasn't 10%, and not a policy, but we did hire some who ended up being disruptive or just not happy working in our little pressure-cooker. Nobody I know likes firing people, and it's often bad for the morale (but I recall that there was widespread cheering when we got rid of one particular bad actor.)
If you don't fire the deadwood, then good people start to leave. That's why I quit at least two companies. In the long run, a little churn is good for everyone.
bdunham7:
--- Quote from: fourfathom on August 26, 2022, 02:49:27 am ---If you don't fire the deadwood, then good people start to leave. That's why I quit at least two companies. In the long run, a little churn is good for everyone.
--- End quote ---
A few decades back I acquired a small, existing company with 7 employees, 5 full time and 2 part time (partially retired old-timers). I needed the real estate and the company was a natural complement to my own so I figured I could merge them and cross-train people. It turned out that 4 of the full time employees were problematic--two complete slackers, one well-meaning idiot and a manager that just wasn't so great. All 4 were fired, the two slackers first and then the other two in what was a fairly contentious morning with shouting and yelling and threats of lawsuits (they'd been there a while and had bled the previous owner dry). Ugly but necessary and my biggest fear was how the other three would take it, especially the part-timers who could easily quite anytime they liked. It turned out they were thrilled and I was able to get more done with 3 than with 7. Both part-timers would come in early and have more done before lunch than either of the slackers would do in a week.
SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on August 26, 2022, 01:47:33 am ---
--- Quote from: Bud on August 26, 2022, 12:52:53 am ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 24, 2022, 06:54:45 pm ---, promoting an employee to a management position for no clear apparent reason (including, they didn't ask for it) can be a red flag indeed. It's a common way for a company to push someone out gently when it has no solid ground for sacking them.
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I do not know who would do it this, it seems to be a really weird way to get rid of someone.
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They do it because they don't want any potential hassle of an unfair dismissal lawsuit or claim. Some disgruntled employees can tie up a lot of your time and/or lawyer money if you just fire them.
If the employee quits because they don't like the job any more then it's way way harder to hassle you about that.
--- End quote ---
Yep! And, it's also usually easier to either "push" someone to fault (given that there are more responsabilities), or at least push them to their level of incompetence, at a management position.
Brumby:
I once worked at a company (last millennium) who hired a person to work in the Mail Room. The Mail Room was run by a lady who really knew what she was doing and had an effective and harmonious group of staff.
However, this new hire flatly refused to follow any instruction from a female. Within an hour of starting, it was clear he was unrepentant and had to go, but his dismissal still had to follow the process at the time. This involved 3 separate, documented meetings where the behaviour was addressed. These were conducted after a period of time where the person had opportunity to demonstrate acceptable performance.
Starting at 9am, he was out the door around 2pm.
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: Brumby on August 26, 2022, 06:25:45 am ---However, this new hire flatly refused to follow any instruction from a female.
--- End quote ---
I have seen this kind of behaviour, but never in any workplace I worked myself (and I've worked in quite different kinds of jobs).
One thing that worries me regarding D-E-I and intersectionalism, is that it actually encourages that kind of behaviour. If you are a member of some kind of protected minority group, you seem to have the right to demand interacting with only those of similarly protected minority groups.
Then there is multiculturalism and the cultural groups that ban females from interacting with males, or younger people from instructing/commanding their elders (as well as younger people not living above their elders in apartment buildings, and so on). Multiculturalism says that these cultural norms must be respected .. but is it really any different than saying it is okay for someone to refuse to follow any instruction from a female?
I see this as horribly damaging to the slow progress we've made in treating every individual as equals, with their social, racial, and cultural backgrounds just being their own personal flavour/spice, and irrelevant regarding rules of interaction; only meaningful (and positive!) when diversity is applicable.
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