

Solving turnover (unusual dailywtf) - presidentender
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-Out-Solving-the-IT-Turnover-Crisis.aspx?

======
snprbob86
"A company with a culture of quitting does not have ex-employees; they have
alumni."

That point really hit home with me. You can beat around the bush and say "hit
by a bus". You can put a positive spin on things and say "win the lottery". Or
you can actually embrace a common social phenomenon and reap the benefits.

~~~
huherto
In our consulting company we have noticed that a lot of the ex-employees
become our customers. Somehow, we have built good relationship with them and
when they go and work for somebody else they call us. But I never saw it the
way they put it in the article. It really is a good idea. Embrace turnover and
get the benefits.

~~~
windsurfer
That's certainly an interesting way of getting customers. Employ people, have
them quit, they get hired into a position that has the ability to give their
old company money.

~~~
eru
See Goldman Sachs.

~~~
eru
Or McKinsey et al. I find connections into the private sector ethical OK, but
connections to the government worry me. Just a gut feeling.

------
leelin
How about the talented people who are exceptional at their jobs, content with
their cushy lives, and stick around even though they aren't learning as much
anymore? They enjoy being a trusted go-to person on many matters and stimulate
themselves outside of the workplace (or with the challenges of being a middle
manager).

That doesn't describe my personality, but it certainly fits the personality of
some of my favorite ex-coworkers. Aren't these folks exactly the type a
company wants to hire?

~~~
mrcharles
At that point, those people should be driving the direction of the company.
The self-actualization motivation becomes implicitly linked to the success of
the company. I think that's the only time it really breaks out of what this
article is talking about. But that is effectively "becoming partner" when you
look at it.

~~~
lsc
really? especially in technical jobs, often the best people don't have the
skills /or the desire/ to obtain a management position, but they can still be
extremely valuable. I know at some of the larger server farms I've worked in,
there was often one guy who built a disproportionate amount of our
infrastructure. The rest of us, in many cases, spent most of our time running
scripts written by that guy.

Personally, I think having those sorts around as a script
writer/mentor/troubleshooter is probably vastly more valuable than promoting
another really excellent technical person to become a mediocre manager.

------
tokenadult
This really was an excellent article. I have a law school classmate who
started at the New York City office of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore

<http://www.cravath.com/Cravath.html>

(the original "Cravath firm," of course) right after law school, having
previously done his summer job between second and third year of law school
there. He figured from the beginning that he would be very unlikely to make
partner there. But I really envied the mentoring he received during his summer
associate summer--mine was nothing at all like that. Cravath invests immense
resources in developing talent, even though the firm knows it can't keep all
the talent it develops. It still can keep relationships with many of the best
lawyers who end up in other law firms by making that investment. My law school
classmate has had a great career in another city since leaving Cravath.

------
pmjordan
The problem from the opposite perspective: I found myself outgrowing jobs
faster than would look good on my C.V. (I hear job hoppers aren't popular as
employees).

I ended up going down the contractor/consultant route; for some reason, nobody
seems to have a problem with job hopping as long as you call it consulting. I
guess there are no false pretenses and it avoids the legal baggage that comes
with being an employee (notice periods, arbitrary holiday limits, etc.). It
also makes me more money, at least now, ~2 years later.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Hiring someone costs the company a lot of overhead, whether you work out or
not. A contractor can be fired without incurring a lot of overhead. So if you
job-hop quickly, companies might be a little wary of spending a lot of money
to bring you in only to have you scadaddle off after three months.

~~~
pmjordan
Is it really so much more expensive to hire someone than to find a contractor,
though? In theory, you don't have the risk - if they don't deliver, you don't
pay - but in practice money isn't the only resource you're wasting with a bad
hire, it's time too. Missed deadlines can be extremely costly. So you need to
vet your contractors almost as much as your employees.

OK, depending on where you are, hiring an employee _can_ drag you into a ton
of legal obligation (as I mentioned in my original post) but typically that
burden is reduced if the employee doesn't stay for too long. So as long as the
company knows what they're getting into, I'm not sure why hiring a mediocre
performer for all eternity is preferable to an overachiever who gets bored
after a couple of months but hits the ground running. Sure, _someone_ has to
stay longer term, but that could be a pretty lean team.

I guess it's assumed that people job-hop because they're _not good enough_ to
hold down a job, and it's assumed that contractors know what they're doing.
Why is that? You choose your contractors based on their reputation. You should
be doing the same for your employees anyway.

FWIW, it may sound like it, but I'm not arguing out of some kind of bitterness
here, I quite enjoy contracting because it means I _always_ work on something
that is important to the customer - I'm just genuinely curious why such
different standards are applied, and if that's rational and sensible.

~~~
count
You can sue and possibly recoup some of your sunk cost from a shitty
contractor. You can't really do much more than fire a shitty employee.

~~~
lsc
This is about as realistic as choosing Microsoft over Linux because there is
'someone to sue if something goes wrong' - The chances of successfully suing
your contractor and recovering anything after lawyer fees are almost zero.

The advantage of the contractor is that most companies have policies that make
it more difficult to fire full time people than to fire contractors. Sure, in
an at-will state, if you hire an employee, you can technically fire them the
next day, but most companies don't work that way. Most companies do, however,
have the ability to fire contractors the next day.

The advantage of hiring a contractor is that it's easier to cut your losses if
you are stuck with policies that make it hard to fire your regular employees
at the drop of a hat. We're expecting to get let go when the job is done, or
if you don't like us, so generally we aren't as offended either.

------
smakz
I might be the minority here but I didn't really find this article worthwhile.

On one hand it was a nicely documented theory that 'makes sense' but I have my
doubts about how connected to reality it is. On the other it was written by
someone who has had a series of bad managers and is pointing out the flaws
with them.

From the studies I read, the biggest correlation between leaving a company and
variables is the relationship with your direct manager.

Good managers will take the time to understand an employees ambitions and
goals, and work with them to meet those exceptions in their current role or
provide a path to a new role which will meet the employees goal. Neglecting to
do this due diligence with your employees will leave them feeling isolated and
itching to switch jobs.

That's where I think this guy's theory falls apart. There is no value apex,
software is software everywhere you go, the only variable is how it is
managed. Instead of a value apex I would replace it with a fulfillment meter,
consider is each of your employees fulfilled at their current position and if
not why not? That's the question you should be asking and those are the
problems you should be solving.

~~~
JabavuAdams
There's a good aphorism: "People quit their managers, not their jobs."

OTOH, I don't agree that "software is software everywhere you go". I've worked
in specialties like games / computer graphics, and that kind of work is
inherently more interesting to me than for loops and sql statements style dev.

This isn't to say that less sexy areas can't have really good tech. They just
often don't, and the exceptions are usually the leaders.

------
presidentender
Ordinarily The Daily WTF is good for a chuckle, but this was actually
insightful. I find that it applies to the HN user base, since we're (or we
think we are) the employees most likely to "evaporate" and leave the job
security types behind.

~~~
hackoder
I lost a job in the manner he described - told them I was looking elsewhere,
but I'd be more than happy to train my replacement. I did it without first
finding work and I thought I was doing them a favor by letting them know as
soon as I was sure of leaving so their projects wouldn't be affected. I was
laid off due to 'lack of budget' within the week. That taught me.

This is the first time I've read something which makes complete sense to me
and helps get rid of the "ifs and buts" from my head (I still am looking for
work). My ideas would never have been implemented, the organization was too
resistant to change. The curve makes sense- it was fun for a while, but after
"getting it all", the daily monotony would have killed me. At the same time
other employees came in, did their work, and went home. They felt the whole
system was very rigid, but they were ok with tolerating it. After quitting
I've often found myself wondering if its something in my head that prevented
me from "sticking it out". This post makes some good sense and I hope more
employers read it.

~~~
eru
We are looking to expand our team at the moment. I'll send you an email with
more details. I hope you like it.

------
fseek
Well, our company has a good solution for this.

People leave because they get bored, so they would switch teams from time to
time, give new responsibilities and try to keep everyone motivated. Didn't
always work, but they managed to keep some top guys for very long...

~~~
ordinaryman
I personally believe that "you will be given more challenging work" should be
the reason to be given for documenting stuff, rather than "I know you will
quit one day".

Not wanting to be interrupted, to know how things work, when you are working
on your next interesting stuff, is reason enough to make things better
maintainable.

I personally held that belief and worked through such challenges for over 8
years, until I got bored switching teams and creating new stuff for my
employer. I now do the "creating new stuff" for myself at my startup.

 _If the talent is trying to make itself irreplaceable - like say, only one
person knows how something works and they do not like documenting it or
training others. It shows insecurity of the person who does not want to lose
the job, which is bad for the organization as well as for the person.

Bad for the organization because, if the person either wants to quit or cannot
turn up for work, a crucial piece of work cannot be completed.

Bad for the person because, though the person might think he/she is crucial
for something work and cannot be fired, they are making themselves tied up to
the work and hence cannot be promoted to better opportunities.

A talent should learn and grow. And then to teach others and make them grow.
And keep repeating the process. If there is not much you can learn to grow,
then quit and join some place where you can._

This is from my first link to HN (545 days ago)..
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309262>

------
Tangurena
This was one of the most insightful posts on Daily WTF. Unable to find much
online about the Cravath system - although having seen it pop up in other
references to why the starting salaries of lawyers was so messed up - I
started the wikipedia article on it.

For a privately published 3-volume history of one law firm, I was surprised
that so many libraries had a copy of the history of the Cravath law firm. Not
a lot of them are available on interlibrary loan.

------
DenisM
A less offensive way to think of it:

It's a college - you spend 2-3-4 years, learn all you can and then graduate to
better things in life. The only way you can stay here is by becoming a TA or a
prof, but that'd be an entirely different job, and most people don't want
that.

------
erydo
For some reason this made me think of Google and how they encourage movement
between teams and projects.

It seems to me that's probably a good way to keep highly skilled employees
riding the wave of that 'value apex', rather than just cresting over it and
then leaving.

Does anyone know what Google's turnover rates are compared to other technology
companies? A quick search didn't turn up anything interesting, but I figure
there might be some Googlers here with an idea...

~~~
illumin8
I recently had a telephone interview with Google for a systems engineering
position. I'm not incredibly impressed by their process of finding talent.

Background: I provided the hiring guy with architecture diagrams of some
pretty large scale systems that I had designed: database clusters with 1TB of
RAM and 72TB of disk, 10GbE network, etc. I not only designed, I also
implemented these systems, so I'm a pretty senior architecture engineer with
18 years of solid UNIX/Linux, SAN storage, and networking experience.

Long story short, I missed a very basic question "what does setting the sticky
bit on a directory do?" I blanked because I wasn't expecting to answer basic
sysadmin questions, and hadn't honestly set the sticky bit on a directory for
several years.

So, they sent me a nicely worded email that after careful consideration, we
don't have a position that matches you, etc.

The hiring process at Google is really messed up. I gather that the only
qualifications they are really looking for are:

1\. Fresh college graduates that memorized man pages. 2\. Willing to work 80
hour weeks. 3\. Don't care about salary because we're not going to pay much.

I mean seriously, you don't turn down a senior architecture engineer with 18+
years of experience because he blanked on a stupid memorization question that
can be googled in 10 seconds.

~~~
btilly
Within Google we've noticed that the people who complain about the process are
most often the ones who don't get in.

How do you know that the basic question is what sank you? Is it possible that
the interviewer didn't like the architectures that you came up with? Or
perhaps you left the impression that you would not like to find yourself in a
hands on position where you have to do things like set the sticky bit? (Based
on this post I'd get that impression myself. But everyone here is hands on.
"Architecture Astronaut" is not a job type we want to encourage.)

But whatever the cause, I absolutely guarantee that all three of the
qualifications that you think we have are wrong. Because I am none of the
three and managed to get hired.

~~~
privacy_token
I'll disagree on the notion that Google's hiring practices don't allow a small
error to derail the entire process. Basically, within Google we haven't
noticed any of the problems around our hiring practices enough to solve them.

The problems are clear; unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback,
much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV, a
focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at engineering
(hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores), and ignoring
experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below candidate's
current levels in the industry.

We end up being a place which is great for college hires and those getting
their first chance, e.g. moving from test to dev, but not for experienced
hires. And the effect is larger in some groups than others, but the senior
engineers on my floor are mainly those without motivation to advance their
careers and move on, even to internal projects.

~~~
btilly
Let's walk through the criticisms you make.

 _unfocused interview loops leading to poor feedback_

Yes, and it sounds like that is an issue they are trying to address that.

 _much too long process between phone screen and receiving approval from MTV_

Absolutely. I am an outlier there. I took over a year from initial interview
to hire thanks to the hiring freeze. I'd like to see us A/B test different
interview formats to figure out how much of the process we can remove without
hurting the performance of the people we hire.

 _a focus on hiring those good at interviewing and not those good at
engineering (hiring scores do not correlate with performance scores)_

This is not so simple. There is a skill to impressing people, and everyone has
trouble limiting its impact on interviews. My impression is that Google does
much better than most. For instance how many times have you heard someone say
that their impression was really good, but when they went through the notes
the person wasn't as good as they seemed. That is a case where someone's
interview skills didn't have its usual impact.

The best anyone has managed do with any hiring process is to filter out the
vast majority of bad people. Successfully ranking the best is pretty much
impossible. The toy model I offer at
[http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-
intelligence.ht...](http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-
intelligence.html) is a pretty good explanation of why. Just replace TST with
"interview skills", INT with "actual performance" and IQ with "hiring scores".
Since both actual performance and ability to interview affect your interview
results, being really selective winds up with people who are good at both, and
not those whose performance is truly exceptional.

 _ignoring experience by offering salaries or positions significantly below
candidate's current levels in the industry._

This I'll actively disagree with. Google is in a strong negotiating position.
They would be amiss to their shareholders to not negotiate well.
_Particularly_ since the ability difference between "got in solidly" and "just
missed the cut" is rather small. But even so, if you're good at negotiating,
the salary drop is much less. And there are various kinds of incentives that
make your overall compensation significantly more than just your salary.

Besides, whenever you put people into a different kind of job than they have
had before, you run a real risk that they will prove not to be a good fit. A
drop in compensation is only appropriate in that situation. And Google's
environment is different enough that lots of people wind up in that situation.
(For instance I'm an SRE. That's a Google role that you don't find elsewhere.)

~~~
privacy_token
_This I'll actively disagree with. Google is in a strong negotiating position.
They would be amiss to their shareholders to not negotiate well._

For someone with a short tenure at Google, I'm worried that you haven't seen
the larger picture yet.

The corporate policy is to hire the best and treat them well. But we are not
hiring the best with consistency, instead often weighing cost and patience
higher than talent and experience.

Ask around about your colleague's referrals. For the very few that get through
HC, many of those engineers pass up the opportunity to work at Google
precisely because our offers were to drop them a level or two and 10-15%
salary. Make no mistake, that this hurts Google. We would be much stronger to
have the talent from Cisco, Amazon, and Microsoft that I've seen turn away
Google.

~~~
btilly
If you only look at the people who would have been better than average here
and get lost for that reason, sure.

What happens if you include the people who would have been worse here and get
lost for that reason?

Unless you can make the case that the ones who are unwilling to come really
are better than the ones who do come, then there is no net difference. Given
the difficulties with measuring relative talent at that level, this is a
really hard case to make. (You could try to do it by A/B testing two different
hiring processes...)

In fact my inclination is to believe the opposite. People who are more excited
by the culture, co-workers, and problems that Google has are generally willing
to take that drop. Which is a sign that they will fit in better here in the
long run.

------
mattmcknight
Maybe the good people are leaving because you are letting too many bad ones
in, aren't getting rid of the bad ones fast enough, or at least getting them
out of programming jobs, and generally aren't giving the good ones any
differentiated treatment?

~~~
sophacles
I think the point of the article is this thinking. Really it's not them, its
not the crap people being treated with respect (altho that does in fact
chafe), its that I get bored. Seriously after a while it stops being a puzzle,
its just work. Once I've "solved" it, I lose interest and start getting
resentful of being forced to deal with it even more. This is what "its just
that time to move again" is about.

If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick
around, but a lot of places that have good environments are small, and
therefore one product shops.

~~~
notaname
>If a place could provide me with a new challenge, puzzle whatever, I'd stick
around

It's this kind of thinking that I fear is far more prevalent among new hires,
and in my opinion is far more damaging. The company shouldn't need to
"provide" you with a new challenge -- you should be seeking them out and
creating your own challenges.

~~~
enjo
Exactly. In my experience there is plenty of challenge in virtually every
facet of building a product. I've held a job(at single product shop) for more
than 5 years. It wasn't like I went to work one day and went 'welp..
everythings done. Lets pack it in!'

There was ALWAYS things to do. I guess I get my rocks off by actually
accomplishing things. That means doing a really good job no matter what
challenge I'm dealing with. There are a lot of challenges in software
development. I think too often folks are looking for glamorous problems to
solve. It's more about ego than anything else.

------
redorb
I see too many of the 'entrenched' at my work.. We have a secretary that
refuses to be called anything but 'office administrator' and has been here 10
years (Down to 3-4 hour days now) ~ of course the owner thinks 'she runs this
company' .... it's really sad.

~~~
barnaby
Quit, you don't want to be part of the salt that gets left behind in the dead
sea effect.

------
JabavuAdams
This system is a very bad idea, because it fails to address (or even mention!)
the Peter principle: "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level
of Incompetence."

You could have someone who is just great in job description X, but you promote
them to Y and they suck at it. I see this all the time.

Not everyone's goals are the same as your goals. It's crucial that a manager
try to understand his employee's goals and motivations, without imposing his
own.

There's also an implicit assumption that we _should_ derive most of our
satisfaction from our jobs. It's okay to have a job that's "just a job", while
doing interesting hobbies or side projects.

------
adamc
The problem with the Cravath system is that the rewards have to be significant
for making it. Partners in law firms earn a LOT more than mere associates.
Most established businesses aren't going to offer enough to make it worth
putting up with this.

The result of such a system would be constant job shopping to get a better
wage, and low satisfaction for many workers. I think this would have
destructive effects on most organizations, although if you managed to survive
that initial change, it might be self-sustaining.

~~~
Tangurena
I would rephrase that as _the problem with the Cravath system is that
companies that claim to follow it, don't_. The system, as developed at
Cravath, involved extensive training and mentoring. The advantage of the
system for other companies was that they got very experienced and well trained
employees by hiring "alumni" of Cravath.

The _Up or Out_ promotion system used by most companies (and for officers in
the US military), the advantages of the cravath system were removed and only
the _up or out_ was retained. The most prominent example of how this perverted
version of the cravath system came to permeate US industry was Jack Welch's
GE. Welch is seen as a hero by business majors and every stupid thing he said
or did is worshipped as gospel.

The quintessential example of Welch's stupidity came during a discussion with
employees, where an employee asked about loyalty and Welch responded: "it's
Friday, you got paid, we're even."

------
xsmasher
"most talented software developers tend to not stick around at one place for
too long. The least talented folks, on the other hand, entrench themselves
deep within the organization"

Is this true for all organizations, or just bad ones? It feels like the best
devs are not on the market long, and tend to "nest" too once they find a good
situation.

~~~
j_baker
I think the best organizations are the ones that can extend the curve as long
as possible without "rolling out the red carpet on the way out". So when a
talented developer gets to one of those places, they'll stay much longer than
they would elsewhere.

------
bajsejohannes
I can easily motivate myself to write documentation without thinking about
getting run over by the bus or quitting: I know that my successor will most
probably be myself in half a year, and by that time, I have forgotten why I
did what I did.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
OTOH, some very good engineers are more interested in the domain than the
technology. I work with some really smart people, one of which has been at the
company for about 15 years. When you have the opportunity to work in a field
that fascinates you, the actual technology you use to implement products
becomes a lot less interesting, the business retains the "corporate knowledge"
that only exists in people's heads, and the less committed quit.

I wonder if the attitude here is a product of short product lifecycles and
rapid gratification. In my industry, a short project is 2-3 years. An average
one is 5-7 years from concept to first release.

------
jcl
_But perhaps the most important benefit to a culture of quitting is that it
effectively flushes out the residue of unskilled employees._

Of course, that only works if there are other companies who are content to
accumulate them. If _everyone_ is constantly swapping jobs and never reaching
partner, it's hard to distinguish the good employees from the bad ones.

------
greenlblue
This exactly describes my graduate school experience in a certain mathematics
department.

------
eru
Is this a repost? I have a feeling that a very similar article was on reddit
back in the days when it was still bearable--i.e. even before HN existed.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
I wouldn't call it a repost if it was on Reddit, but I had seen it before. I'd
even bookmarked it in delicious, June 19, 2008--so it's a good bet it was on
reddit that week. :)

~~~
eru
The layout of the original post was different, and it was probably not an the
daily wtf. (As far as I can remember.)

But 2008 does sound about right.

~~~
Maktab
The date on the article is 2008-04-29, so it's likely you came across it soon
after it was first posted.

~~~
eru
Yes, probably.

------
carussell
"This growth continues exponentially… [a graph follows]"

That curve there doesn't look exponential, buck-o.

~~~
dalore
It was on a logarithmic scale.

------
whamo
Yeah, maybe the good ones are leaving.

Or maybe, you're attracted to flash and arrogance. Maybe you only think they
were good because they told you they were and then left. Maybe you're like a
pathetic person who fawns over a lover who treats them poorly.

Maybe, since you're still in business, the good ones stayed behind. Maybe you
need redefine your definition of 'good'.

~~~
prospero
Continued existence is usually not the limit of a business owner's ambition.
By that same token, the people who can keep it running are not necessarily the
same people who can continually grow it.

"Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely
correlated either.

~~~
docgnome
'"Flash and arrogance" are not the same as skill, but they're not inversely
correlated either.'

No kidding. I don't think anyone could argue that Linus, for just one example,
is unskilled... It's a pretty well established fact that he can also be
arrogant.

------
pw0ncakes
I agree that companies should be more aware of the fact that people leave
jobs, and that it's an essential part of the economy. However, using biglaw
(Cravath system) as a model for workplace culture is a really bad idea. Go
here-- <http://www.xoxohth.com/> \-- if you want to see the personality traits
that this work culture attracts and encourages.

~~~
pingswept
That link appears to be a list of discussions of law school admissions, not
personality traits.

~~~
pw0ncakes
Read it. These people are representative of the way professionals in Wall
Street's "up-or-out" jungle think. Some of the things you'll read on that site
will appall you.

This is what the biglaw partners produced by creating a professional
environment in which only a few percent have a chance at making partner, and
the rest have essentially wasted years of their life for nothing.

~~~
pingswept
I'm willing to take you at your word that the site is filled with appalling
things. It certainly looks appalling, and the few discussions I read appeared
to be irritating people being irritated with the world.

But what evidence is there that the structure of the hiring practices is what
attracted these people? My unsubstantiated hunch is that Wall Street
professionals might be there because they're after money or prestige, not
because they're inevitably attracted by the hiring methods.

------
dalore
Good article but the date it was published: 2008-04-29

