
About 700 Microsoft employees will be laid off next week, sources say - luu
http://www.businessinsider.com/about-700-microsoft-employees-to-be-laid-off-sources-say-2017-1
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CydeWeys
Why would Microsoft even have layoffs? They're highly profitable and this is a
small percentage of their workforce. Surely they're taking a huge morale loss
and hiring hit when they do something like this? Why would I consider working
for a company that just had layoffs recently?

Why wouldn't they just fire the underperformers and reassign the others? Mass
indiscriminate layoffs are bad.

~~~
mattnewton
> "We understand that Microsoft typically gives laid-off employees 60 days to
> find a new position internally and offers two weeks pay for every 6 months
> of employment, according one employee."

It sounds like this is close to what is happening, except it's less about
underperformer and more about specific skillsets.

~~~
CydeWeys
Interesting. Why announce the total number if a lot of them may just find
another project inside Microsoft? Shouldn't they wait the 60 days to see how
many are actually getting laid off? Or do most people not find another
project?

~~~
Eridrus
I think there are legal reporting requirements.

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jstewartmobile
They file thousands of worker visas because there's a "shortage" of qualified
people, yet they also set a layoff target of 2,850 people back in June 2016...

It's like no one really cares if anything adds up anymore. Perhaps it was
always this way?

~~~
WalterBright
Qualified people are not interchangeable. I'm qualified for some jobs, and
worse than useless for others. (You wouldn't pick me to formulate a new rocket
fuel.)

~~~
tlzrttbttzma
Software Engineers at Microsoft may as well be interchangeable.

I was working there when they laid off 18,000 people. Everyone I knew
personally who lost their job was rehired by the company within three months.
One of them was even rehired to their original team, go figure.

I saw good performers laid off while poor performers kept their jobs. I also
saw poor performers rehired. The rumor at the time was that the list of people
being laid off was chosen at random. That certainly makes sense, as it would
allow the company to say, "We randomly laid off X% of people doing Y work in Z
division." in the event of any discrimination or wrongful termination
lawsuits.

Companies of this size treat people as cogs in a machine. Provided all your
cogs meet a certain minimum standard your machine functions well. If you need
to cut down on the number of moving parts, you don't get too concerned over
which individual cogs you get rid of. It's horrible and impersonal, but I
guess it's somewhat necessary for a company like Microsoft.

~~~
untoreh
aren't layoffs/rehires also generally used to minimize workers benefits ?

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bkjelden
Sad to see Microsoft seeming to fall into this pattern of a recurring trickle
of layoffs, especially when they are still so profitable. These kinds of
layoffs can be incredibly corrosive to morale.

The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a
company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy systems,
like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be fully
integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the people you
already have?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a
> company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy
> systems, like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be
> fully integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the
> people you already have?

I didn't see where it said who they were laying off. What if they were laying
off hardware engineers? If they haven't done software before that ramp up time
to integrate into a software development team may be _years_.

They do a lot more than just software. I agree if they're laying off of
software then there is no reason they can't be retrained in another dev team
but that's not always the case here.

You're also missing the part where Microsoft gives them 60 days to find a new
position within the company. I'm assuming they have to re-interview but
probably no way to avoid that.

~~~
ac29
>I didn't see where it said who they were laying off

"The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread
across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales,
marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more."

Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are
doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> "The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread
> across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales,
> marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more."

I was referring to the type of people, mostly. Like, software engineers,
hardware engineers, designers, HR folks, etc.

> Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and
> are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.

They announced these over 6 months ago so I'm not necessarily convinced that's
why. Though I would love to know for sure.

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Omnipresent
I'm genuinely curious if POTUS will take note of this.

~~~
jusq2
My prediction, based on the fact that POTUS has a mind of a 7 year old kid, is
a tantrum will be thrown. The adults in the room will pacify it with some
superficial meaningless action/distraction and the cycle will repeat for 4
years.

As Daniel Kahnemen has said there is high demand for overconfidence these
days.

And the tech industry has blindly satisfied that demand by creating platforms
that prop up characters like POTUS. Not just in the sphere of politics but you
can see this within your family, friends, teachers, scientists, religious and
biz leaders basically everywhere you look.

If we want solutions that trend has to be reversed.

~~~
rat87
> My prediction, based on the fact that POTUS has a mind of a 7 year old kid,
> is a tantrum will be thrown. The adults in the room will pacify it with some
> superficial meaningless action/distraction and the cycle will repeat for 4
> years.

You assume adults are let into the room and will be making the decision. He is
the POTUS as long as he cares and isn't lazy enough to pawn it off he'll be
the one making decisions.

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sharps_xp
When it seems like companies don't complain enough how scarce it is to find
hirable talent, I wonder what the details are on their engineering layoffs.
Why not just move them to a different team? Why not just keep work on tech
debt efforts? Laying them off seems like a terrible long term decision. I'm
assuming these lay offs are not some guise to hide that they're getting rid of
their low performing engineers.

~~~
WalterBright
The article says they can apply for other positions within Microsoft.

> some guise

I would expect many companies to do this so the employee can save face by
being laid off rather than fired.

~~~
sharps_xp
> The article says they can apply for other positions within Microsoft

I don't know how I would handle that mentally, to have to re-apply to the
company that just laid me off. The message is weird. "We're letting you go,
but if you REALLY want to stay, find a team that wants you. Here, we'll put a
2 month timer on it."

Sorry if that sounds like rambling, but I simply don't understand.

~~~
erinnh
Its more like:

"Your team is going to be no more or is being downsized because its not as
important anymore, we really want to keep you though, so we are going to give
you 2 months to find another place inside the company where you would like to
work at."

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
I was at Microsoft during the "great" mid-2014 layoffs when they eliminated
4/5ths of all SDETs in OSG (the Windows org). My division was one of the least
affected, but not everyone was given the "musical chairs" treatment to find
another job internally - seemingly that privilege was reserved only for those
at the top of the "rank-and-yank" pecking order - presumably to avoid those
perceived as being less-capable from taking an in-company job away from
someone else being laid-off who was more desirable to retain.

(I had a friend in MSFT HR at the time who confirmed that the 2014 layoffs
were conducted by-algorithm and were absolutely not based on job-performance -
hence why management had to resort to creative ways to retain people they
wanted).

Even for those who were granted the "privilege" of applying internally, it was
incredibly stressful for them because now there was rampant competition for a
limited number of places. The QA/SDET roles were hit the hardest because most
of the open positions were exclusively SDE - and SDE hiring managers are
reluctant to engage SDETs.

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fuzzfactor
It is good to see some messages from those who do have inside knowledge about
working within (and being kicked out of) this particular bureaucracy.

The similarities and differences between different bureaucracies in different
"tech" companies, some quite similar and others quite different by design, is
interesting too.

Regardless, it fundamentally looks like the decent companies that have a
system to truly hire employees worth investing in, and are qualified enough
investors to never let that investment in their people lapse (since it always
pays off, short-term or long-term), would be the last ones to lay people off
at all. Certainly not layoffs as part of a non-emergency long-term planned
business strategy, in such a non-astute effort known as "across-the-board", or
even more childishly by algorithm.

As a businessman while trying to maintain or accelerate growth, if you can
also limit the downside to the rate of attrition, you will never need to lay
anybody off.

Depends on how good a businessman you are.

There have always been companies that are not decent, some even have an actual
system to exclude potential employees who would otherwise provide the most
return on resource investment, and there are some that never even leverage a
respectable percentage of their capable people anywhere near their full
potential.

Even for these lesser companies, bold downsizing leaves unmeasurable damage to
the company and remaining employees, just as strongly as it can to those who
are kicked out. Although many who are laid off move on to much better careers
after being separated from companies which didn't seem so poor up until that
point.

When the unmeasured damage exceeds the cost of retaining actual good people,
the direct negative effect on the bottom line can still be completely
obfuscated. This can easily be ignored by the ignorant or malicious, or swept
under the rug by a large variety of bureaucracies, most of which are not
capable of building or maintaing alignment of employee interests with those of
shareholders. In this case it can be a significant notch-down in opportunities
for both employees and shareholders from that point forward, with no
indication whatsoever on any current financial statement. Too bad it's the
future financial statements that will be less impressive or more
disappointing, depending on the situation.

Just like in the 20th Century, 19th Century . . .

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xfour
How exactly is this not just people being fired? I understand they get
severance so that's nice for employees, but what's the goal of doing it this
way from the companies perspective?

~~~
jdavis703
A firing usually means the employee did something wrong, such as harassing a
co-worker, stealing money, or violating critical policies. A layoff means
simply that your services are no longer needed, and that's it.

~~~
dawnerd
In addition being fired looks really bad. Being laid off not so much (if at
all).

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mankash666
While sad, most employment is "at will". The employer can let go for no reason
what so ever with a two week notice, by law

~~~
lukealization
A concept that is utterly foreign and bizarre to most other people in Western
countries, including myself in New Zealand.

~~~
seibelj
If you operated a business, how would you feel being forced by the government
to keep someone on your payroll who was not a good worker?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
It's not like that here (Australian), where you can lay someone off but it's
not as simple as _at will_.

Simplifying a bit, you have to have attempted to help the employee meet
standards, or find a suitable position. Also, if the employee develops
problrns like alcohol abuse you have to attempt to get them to sort it out.

That's my general understanding as an employee.

~~~
chii
> the employee develops problrns like alcohol abuse you have to attempt to get
> them to sort it out.

that seems to be beyond what an employer should have to bear. If an employee
develops problems, it doesn't make sense for an employer to help them (unless
it's from their job - e.g., a wine taster getting addicted to alcohol). They
aint running a charity!

~~~
erinnh
They aint running a charity, but they are running inside the society that
these laws are trying to protect. As such they have to do their part. What
that part is most countries define differently. Australia apparently defines
it as seen above.

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fdsaaf
Microsoft has a _lot_ of deadweight, mostly holdovers from the Ballmer era.

~~~
frik
They lost their most skilled staff from the 1990s era due to early retirement.
They fired all QA staff. Nowadays they have a big piles of legacy codebases.
They outsourced or better say moved development of many products to India.
Nowadays you really feel the lower skilled work force (compared to 1990s
staff) and no QA to speak of everywhere in there products. Their product feel
like designed by people who have little engineering knowledge, a far cry from
1990s software UI. Well it already started with WinXP that contained already
HTML based UI parts like "software" control panel, and many more parts - an
undocumented new UI API where the EU fined them. Plus the 1984 style spyware
features their Nadella CEO introduced and forces upon end consumers like there
is no tomorrow.

~~~
praneshp
> no QA to speak of everywhere in there products

nit: their, not there.

