
Ask HN: Should I tell my colleagues there's a plan to make them redundant? - CotswoldsScared
Hi HN,<p>I recently found documents on a shared drive for a bid to offshore our team and make everyone redundant. (We&#x27;re a small team supporting a legacy system). From the documents it looks like our team&#x27;s (only) client has indicated there will be very little work for us after this year, and there would likely be redundancies whatever happens, but the plan appears to be to offshore the roles to our parent company&#x27;s Indian offices as soon as possible.<p>I don&#x27;t know if the bid has been accepted by our client, but if it happens it would start in April with 2 Indian developers visiting our office.<p>Some context:<p>* We&#x27;re a team of 9 in a small office some hours drive from head office where the rest of the ~1000 people in the company work.<p>* Our UK company was bought by a large Indian tech company. Their MO seems to be to acquire companies to prop-up their profits and offshore roles back to India. There have already been redundancies for technical roles at head office.<p>* I&#x27;m over 40, wife and 2 kids.<p>Questions:<p>* When &#x2F; how should I tell my colleagues?<p><i>My wife doesn&#x27;t want me to tell them yet, and (although I feel terrible about it and know this sounds callous) I&#x27;m thinking it&#x27;s probably in my best interests not to say anything until I&#x27;ve found another job. If the others knew I think they would be able to find work easier than I can (I&#x27;ve been trying for 4 years!) and I could find myself out of work sooner.</i><p>* Is there any advantage to telling them now?<p><i>If the client accepts the bid I think there&#x27;s very little we could do to change their mind. We&#x27;re perceived as being very expensive by the client. Both my employer and our client stand to save several hundred £K by doing this.</i><p>* Should I ever tell them? How would you feel if you found out someone knew about something like this ahead of time and didn&#x27;t tell you?<p>Any advice on how to handle this, or stories of similar situations would be greatly appreciated.<p>- Scared in the Cotswolds
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gingerlime
I understand your fear, but I think you should tell them.

Regarding your colleagues and your fear of (not) finding a job. I understand
it, but I think it's a bit short sighted. And if anything, if you do the right
thing, these guys can help you find your next job or bring you along with
them. If they find out you were hiding this from them, you're burning this
bridge and potentially lowering your chances of finding a job.

Just some 2 cents guy-from-the-internet advice. I was never in a similar
situation, but lost my job a few times (and it was always for the best, in
hindsight).

The only thing I would potentially worry about though is whether you did
something illegal by accessing this document... Or if you can get into trouble
with your employer. If the plan is to make you redundant, you don't want to
give them an even more appealing option to fire you, do you?

~~~
tonyarkles
> And if anything, if you do the right thing, these guys can help you find
> your next job or bring you along with them.

There's a group of people that I worked with early on my career that I love
working with, and we've kind of travelled in "packs" over the years. I
definitely agree that, in a situation where your employer is screwing over
your co-workers, I would side with keeping the relationship with my co-workers
intact.

------
new_guy
I was in a similiar-ish situation.

I was a manager and told to make redundancies, because we were 'overstaffed'
(which we weren't) I couldn't do it. They were my friends. Who do you choose?
The young guys who can walk into another job straight away but are the best
workers? The guy with a wife and kids who was pretty lazy and would have
struggled to get another job? The guy who just remortgaged his house to pay
for his divorce? etc.

So, I told them. They went to the directors, and the directors denied it. Then
everyone thought I was a complete a __hole for 'making things up' and the
directors were furious with me for telling them.

So, my advice, for whatever it's worth is _take care of yourself first_. Run,
don't walk, run. Get yourself another job, soon as you've done that, then you
can tell them if you want.

But telling them before you've taken care of yourself is trouble, your bosses
will be mad and that could get you axed a whole lot faster than you planned
for, and your co-workers may not believe you and if they do, you'll all be
applying for the same jobs so you lose out.

Edit: An afterthought though, is don't quit too soon, you don't want to miss
out on potential redundancy pay!

------
kklimonda
I can't tell you how to handle this, and I have never been in a similar
situation before (closest being having to disable accounts for the other
person on my team) but here are two thoughts:

Firstly, You don't know for sure what will the client do - with a high
probability they will do just like you've said, but I'm not sure it is your
obligation to force their hand so to speak, by making that possibility public.
Also, if you decide to proceed with telling your coworkers I'd first think
whether your employer can accuse you of disclosing what, in their mind, may be
confidential information - you're part of the organisation, and "I found it by
accident" may not be a strong enough argument to protect yourself from getting
reprimended or even fired.

However, I think what's more important in your case is your wife's insistence
on you not telling anyone. If I were in your shoes I'd probably try talking to
her some more, explaining how not telling your coworkers is affecting your
wellbeing, and that will probably become a bigger issue the closer to the
April deadline it gets, as your uncertainty grows. I’d even suggest that you
together talk with some close and trusted friends, or even a professional, to
try and make some sense out of the situation. If you can't reach an agreement,
I'd probably suggest siding with your wife - the knowledge you've acquired,
while somewhat heavy, is nowhere heavy enough to put it over your own family.

In the end, I can only share my sympathy - It's not an enviable place to find
oneself in. I just hope that, whatever you decide, you’ll be able to make
peace with that and move on.

------
PeterBarrett
If any of them read hacker news they will probably know soon enough. How many
tech teams of 9 are there in the Cotswolds that have an Indian parent company?

~~~
personlurking
It's possible this could be the 'Ask HN' version of an 'accidental text on
purpose' [1], via Curb Your Enthusiasm.

1 - Sending a text to someone on accident that was 'meant' for a different
person, but that contains information you want the person receiving the text
to see.

------
shoo
Alison's "Ask a Manager" blog usually has sound advice

for example: [https://www.askamanager.org/2017/11/should-i-tip-off-my-
cowo...](https://www.askamanager.org/2017/11/should-i-tip-off-my-coworker-
that-hes-getting-laid-off.html)

maybe some other relevant discussion here:
[https://www.askamanager.org/category/layoffs](https://www.askamanager.org/category/layoffs)

~~~
fuzz4lyfe
The ask the manager answer is actually located here:
[https://www.inc.com/alison-green/i-found-out-my-coworker-
is-...](https://www.inc.com/alison-green/i-found-out-my-coworker-is-getting-
laid-off-can-i-tip-him-off.html)

It looks like that link is just a stub for it

------
EnderMB
I've been in a similar position in the past, where I had already been made
redundant, but had been brought in to another team on a trial basis with a few
other devs.

While getting my machine set up in their office, I had been given elevated
Dropbox privileges, and I noticed a file with a name like "temp-dev-interview-
approach". It was a document saying they were only going to hire one dev, and
that it would be me.

I went through a similar dilemma, and I didn't tell them. I hinted heavily at
it being an option, and pointed out the reasons why I might be the person to
stay on (most experienced, worked on the larger client that was coming over),
but no one caught on. I literally dragged them to a user group one day and
mentioned redundancies to a mate of mine that was hiring, and despite him
offering an interview to all of them, only one took it. To make things worse,
I was told this by the MD a few months later. He also told me to not say
anything until he had told the others, which he'd do soon. A day passed, and I
kept shut around my co-workers, until they were all told that they wouldn't be
there past the end of the month - and that I had been told yesterday.

Despite the fact that I was sworn to secrecy, I felt like shit about it, and I
think my co-workers lost a bit of respect for me for essentially sitting with
them at lunch "worrying" about whether we were all staying when I already
knew. I didn't really talk to many of them after they left. All but one moved
into different careers, and the one that took my mate up on his job offer left
quickly to become a creative lead.

Having experienced what I've experienced, which I'd consider a fairly shitty
situation, I would 100% tell my co-workers if I could be sure that they
wouldn't rat me out for it. Since a clients work is drying up, it sounds like
you'll all have a fairly iron-clad reason to look for another job anyway,
since experienced devs tend to have a feeling when a contract is about to wind
down.

~~~
mattmanser
You can never be sure how people are going to react. You tell them and one of
them gets pissed and storms into the manager's office and you're suddenly out
of a job.

~~~
EnderMB
True. At the time, that was one of the things that worried me, as we were all
fairly new (less than a year) to the company in question, and some of us had
only been working together for a few months at most.

This situation was quite unique, in that our last companies contracts were
being handed over to a new company. The new company had no need to take any of
us on, and could've probably coped without hiring any of us, but we were at
least given a chance. There was anger at the old company for the way the
redundancies were handled, but ultimately I think the others would've handled
the rejection fine, and while I still feel that way it'll always be a regret
for me.

------
saluki
Don't disclose anything, this could affect any severance/redundancy you will
receive, invite legal problems.

Will you receive X weeks of pay from your current company if they let you go?

I would start interviewing and try to get a start date setup that is a month
out so you can possibly receive your exit package from your current company
and then start your new job.

You said you've been looking for 4 years, reach out to your network, almost
every development job I have found is by knowing someone at the company to
give you an intro. So comb your network to find someone who works at a company
with an opening you can fill.

If it's the company who purchased you's MO to acquire then off shore everyone
knows this is a possibility.

If you need to tell someone, keep talking to your wife or another developer
who doesn't know your team.

Your team is just a cog in a wheel to the company, they will swap you out for
a less expensive cog, so you're going to need to find a new company.

They might offer part of your team to stick around during a transition period,
that might give you a buffer/extra time to find a new job. Even if it's 2
weeks or 2 months that could help.

Good luck with the job hunt.

------
Nexxxeh
If you get fired for doing so, how will that impact on your redundancy?

Are your team good people? Could you trust them to keep it quiet, word in
their shell-like, especially if there's an extremely stressful situation?

Can you afford the potential fallout of you disclosing confidential
information?

If you were them, how would you feel if the roles were reversed, which is the
question from your OP, and are you likely to end up working with them in
future?

------
thiago_fm
I wouldn't. When the layoffs happen, be there for them, give them
recommendations letters and whatnot and do what you are able to in order to
help them.

Telling them will only make them anxious and displeased with the work,
possibly having negative consequences for you as well. They are all adults and
ready to hear bad news when they do happen, I think you are overestimating the
issue as well, those things always happen in the dynamic economy we live
Today.

Now, if you ask me if I would enjoy not telling them and keeping it for
myself, probably not, but sometimes we must be strong to not make the
situation worse than it is. It is an unconformable situation to be in, you
need to remind yourself that. Also, it is only internet advice from me, you
can take it if you want.

------
injb
I would tell them what they need to know, but no more than that, in case you
broke any rules by reading the document.

They don't need to know _how_ you know, and in fact no more than one person
even needs to know that it came from you. Additionally, they don't need to
know exactly when you found out.

Getting a head start on finding a job first is not unfair in this case -
anyone looking for a job is competing with other people, and there's nothing
wrong with using your good luck to your advantage in that competition. Just be
reasonable.

Really, everyone in the tech industry should have a plan for this though, imo.

------
fuzz4lyfe
In my life I have modified the golden rule like so: "do unto others as they
would do unto you"

I have found that my modification allows the golden rule to work in cases
where the person you are interacting with is less moral or honorable than you
are. In this case I would consider if one of your coworkers had this knowledge
how likely do you predict that they would share it with you? If you come to
the conclusion that they would I personally would feel honor bound to do the
same. On the other hand if it is more likely that they would use it to their
advantage you have no moral responsibility to do otherwise though you may hold
yourself to a higher standard and decide to do so just the same. Your family
comes first, but knowing my family they would prefer to live with a father who
is honorable and kind in a refrigerator box than a father who takes the most
expedient route at the expense of his character in return for material
rewards.

I'll leave you with a few quotes from Aristotle on such matters that have
helped me in that past so that they may help you find the best course of
action for yourself. Good luck.

"All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is
established."

"Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion."

"Man is by nature a political animal."

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which
guarantees the others."

------
mchannon
There's a Twilight Zone episode (Season 2, Episode 16) where a bank clerk can
suddenly hear his every coworker's thoughts.

After he causes a $200k loan to get denied because he realizes the recipient
would gamble it, he reads the mind of his old reliable co-worker Smithers, who
is thinking about how he'll steal cash from the bank and escape to Bermuda.

The fact was that Smithers did have the thoughts, but they were fantasy, and
not actual planning. By lowering the boom on him, the clerk gets himself
fired.

In your instant case, maybe you were meant to find these documents. Maybe your
employer got the quote but will end up deciding that the intangibles from
outsourcing don't make up for the reduced expenses.

I wouldn't advise anything unethical, but the mindreader in the episode ends
up blackmailing his adulterous boss, getting promoted, and getting the girl he
was always too shy to get. Perhaps the question you should be asking is "how
can I selectively divulge this information to get what I want?"

------
anotheryou
I'd edit out the personal identifiable info (the bullet point with your age in
it) in case your post gets up-voted further.

------
Canada
It sure sounds like one way or the other your job at this company will be
offshored.

There's no generic answer. It really depends on your role in your team, how
marketable the others on your team are, and how trustworthy they are. Who they
are and how solid your relationships are matter.

First consideration is trust. You can't tell anyone who can't be trusted not
to rat you out. How much that matters depends on whether or not your accessing
of that document was appropriate. Did you know any of them prior to this
company? You don't have to tell _everyone_

Second consideration is how likely it is your colleagues are to be willing and
able to help you find another position. Are any of them likely to be in demand
and with potential to help you? Again, you don't necessarily have to tell
everyone.

Your role on the team factors in too. Are you the lead who hired the other
guys or are you a mid level guy who joined late?

------
machinecoffee
Would it be possible to think of a way to keep your satellite office open?
Think of some plan so that you can support new customers, or somehow widen
your scope to get fresh work. Is there some geographical advantage to where
you are so that possibly they would like to keep the office open?

It seems now like if you do nothing, the office will close for sure. But maybe
there's a way to convince the parent company to keep you open and thus avert
what seems like the inevitable.

Or maybe you could all group together and open a new consultancy for
yourselves (then you have to let your colleagues know).

\- just thinking a bit outside the box, as it's pretty clear the writing is on
the wall - and if you've been looking for something new for 4 years already,
it will be even harder once you're out of work.

------
Someone
_”I recently found documents on a shared drive”_

I guess you aren’t supposed to have access to those documents. That, I think,
makes this scary from a legal perspective. If it came to it, could you
convince a judge that you weren’t looking for stuff you weren’t supposed to
know? And could you convince a judge that you had to read the files to find
out you weren’t supposed to have access to them, and couldn’t have concluded
it from, say, the names of the files?

If not, maybe you should forget about this as much as possible or even report
this to management, and certainly don’t tell your colleagues.

------
tluyben2
It depends on how it is handled: are you currently crucial to maintenance; can
the Indian team and the company run without you all? I for one would refuse to
train my forced replacement; that is not my job description so that would need
to incur a hefty redundancy sum. And yes, I would tell my colleagues. Maybe
now there is still leverage: in a few months there is none and the more that
demand a fixed and immediate sum to train replacements, the better. Unless you
say anyone can easily take over; then I would still feel obligated to tell but
it would have mostly downsides.

------
kazinator
Any time you know something that others don't, you should _act_ on it instead
of blabbing it out.

In this case, this goes triple, because maybe you weren't supposed to be
looking at the contents of that hard drive.

If you act on it (e.g. move on to a different job before the layoffs) nobody
can suspect anything; maybe it was just your intuition (you deciphered the
proverbial "writing on the wall"), or a better opportunity really did come
along.

------
paulcole
Absolutely do not tell anyone. If you're confident the information is true,
start looking for a new job for yourself.

If you tell anyone now and are wrong, you're going to either get fired or
forced out. If you tell anyone and you're right, you're just going to be the
bearer of bad news.

Keep your mouth shut.

------
AnimalMuppet
If roles were reversed, would you want to be told? I suspect you would.

But you need to weigh that against potential legal liability, and the
possibility of you being terminated early if anyone finds out.

------
quickthrower2
Don’t tell. Redundancy is par for the course in IT, so I wouldn’t even feel
morally obligated.

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natalyarostova
One thing that jumped out to me is you've been trying to find another job for
4 years. That suggests to me you may be doing something wrong (I'd say you're
certainly doing something wrong if you were on the US West coast, but I don't
know what the sector is like in the Cotswolds, so I don't want to speak too
strongly).

------
davidgrenier
Read Lying from Sam Harris. It's a short read, you'll then know what to do.

The digital honor code in the pdf invites me to share it with others as long
as I've bought it (which I've done twice). Send me a pm if you want it.

~~~
10dpd
How do you propose we send you a pm on HN?

~~~
woofcat
hnchat.com?

------
vkaku
Let them know.

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happppy
Are Indian developers good?

~~~
tonyarkles
You're being downvoted, and I'm going to offer a suggestion why: you've asked
a question about 1.339 billion people. Some of them will be good, some of them
will not. Just like in the US, or Canada, or the UK, or China, or wherever.

