[berg117]

There's a 95% chance that this is a disguised RIF.

People they want to keep will be able to continue WFH if they want. People who are on the margins or destined for the Performance Improvement Camps will have to come in and warm seats if they want to eke out a year or two more of existence.

[UncleMeat]

You can just fire people. If I had a report that was not meeting expectations I sure as hell wouldn't make "deny their remote work application, hope they are dissatisfied with the office, and wait for them to quit" be my plan.

[berg117]

In big tech companies, who gets fired has very low correlation to performance. Instead, it usually comes down to:

(1) people who make their bosses look bad are first to go.

(2) next are people who are perceived to cost their bosses time, regardless of whether it's their fault.

(3) after that, it's usually the infanticide cases: i.e., the people who did nothing wrong but haven't been there long enough to establish themselves.

The infanticide is especially ugly, because (a) it means the company is firing people basically at random, and (b) it rapes the shit out of the resumes of the people affected, because they now have <1 year jobs to explain. The reason it happens is that, empirically, most of the people cut in mass stack-rank purges are new members of underperforming teams... who, by inspection, have had the least to do with the team's underperformance.

Underperformance does get people fired, but rarely. It's at least as likely to get someone promoted, because underperformers usually have a career's worth of experience of being shitty, and therefore have developed such political skills they can easily fail up every time.

[lodovic]

Exactly my experience as well

[_j5l3]

> You can just fire people.

Not at Google, you can't. Firing someone who's performing abysmally still takes up to 6 months, between all the process and PIPs and paperwork and shit.

[UncleMeat]

Sure, but that is way faster than "wait for them to quit."

[berg117]

Google's preferred method to "fire" a lousy programmer is to make him a PM.

[UncleMeat]

In my experience, SWE -> PM ladder transfers are very unusual.

[berg117]

I'm sure they are. Most SWEs hired at Google are pretty good at programming and don't need to be tucked away in PM.

[dvirsky]

Xoogler here, from what I've seen, SWEs converting to PMs did it because it was what they were interested in it, unrelated to their skill, and it's not trivial at all. IIRC (never done it myself but seen a couple of people who did) there is a trial period and if you don't perform well enough as a PM you either go back to being a SWE or need to resign.

[geodel]

This is quite sensible comment. I am sure not much liked here.

At my work at very anti-remote employer, there are so many people who have obtained permanent remote. So I wouldn't be surprised people who Google thinks valuable would get individual arrangements and other who just themselves think they are valuable are in for rude surprise.

[Wiseacre]

What is an RIF?

[dekhn]

Reduction in Force. It's a term commonly used when companies are undergoing a large scale employee trimming. I don't think that google would do call it that. Probably just managers encouraged to increase the % of people who go on PIPs.

[berg117]

Probably just managers encouraged to increase the % of people who go on PIPs.

That's how tech companies usually do layoffs. Rather than admit they overexpanded and have to cut people (or that they are cannibalizing their own people to boost executive compensation) they blame it on departing workers by increasing the PIP-rape cutoff.

[bigbluedots]

A different way to do it is to bring on contingent labor instead of hiring people as permanent employees. I don't know if that is better but at least people know what they're getting.

[dwighttk]

What are PIPs?

[to-lose-letrec]

Performance Improvement Plans.

Basically a company's last effort to cover their butts before firing you. If you contest the termination, they can claim they gave you fair warning and a chance to improve.

If you're ever on one, the sensible course of action is to look for another job. You're next on the chopping block.

[mikebonnell]

Reduction in Force - way to lower overall employee headcount.

[innocentoldguy]

Reduction in Force.

[tartoran]

Reduction In Force

[dboreham]

Parent asked what it is, not what the acronym stands for. It's a modern euphemism for layoffs, redundancies or mass firings, sackings, depending on your flavo[u]r of English.