[strix_varius]

Agreed. It's demoralizing to have an under-performing colleague stick around for months or years. It's even worse to work with someone who's mastered the art of "talking the talk" to get a job, who makes big promises but always has some excuse for why they can't deliver, and who never actually ships anything.

Most first-level tech managers don't have the courage to fire fast enough. The best feedback I've ever gotten from a member of my team is that I should have fired under-performers faster to preserve the motivation of my top-performers.

It's absurd that someone who has negligible, or oftentimes negative impact, should stick around claiming their $250k participation check every year.

[fleetwoodsnack]

Seems like you have a responsibility to yourself and your team to bring this up with the appropriate party and go farther if need-be. Proactive feedback is more useful than passive resentment.

[strix_varius]

Of course, and that tends to happen, but the alignment of the manager to their team's mission isn't perfect. So you'll see:

"Soft coaching" instead of a PIP.

PIPs that end in "retain," leaving the PIP recipient to revert to their previous level of output afterwards. These are often celebrated as management success stories.

Working out an "exchange" deal with another team that has headcount or backfill so the under-performers float around.

The most common strategy from a manager who knows of a disparity in competency, but is unwilling to address it directly, is to over time expect (and ask) less and less of the under-performer, implicitly putting more workload on the rest of the team. Basically, take the under-performer out of all critical paths. This is especially likely if the direct manager was also the hiring manager, in which case they're reticent for their peers & boss to recognize that they made a hiring mistake. Even moreso if the hire helped the org's D&I numbers.

[fleetwoodsnack]

Seems like I’ve ruffled a few feathers and ended up -2 on my previous comment here, not clear what rule I violated but that’s beside the point.

I have a suggestion: take these findings and send them to your direct report and their direct report too (or whoever the appropriate party is in your organization). You’ve spotted some major issues and I think your organization would benefit from your insights. Include the names of the specific underperformers to establish credibility, and so that the appropriate parties can observe and take action to benefit the team.

These operational insights are too valuable to languish on an anonymous forum.

[strix_varius]

While that's a nice ideal, it's often not practical. As an IC, you'll rarely be rewarded for pointing out inefficiencies like this publicly - especially if it makes your boss look bad. As a manager, it's often better to expend your social/political capital to advocate for your best employees, rather than to address your worst.

Relevant to the top-level topic here, that's why many managers welcome environments in which the barrier drops for cutting their worst employees. It's nice to be able to do that, when the whole company is going through it, without bringing scrutiny down on your team (and you, specifically, as someone who potentially made a bad hire).

[fleetwoodsnack]

Seems like the deficiencies exist throughout the entire organization’s vertical. Under-performing workers and underperforming managers acting in their own self interest and shirking responsibilities that would otherwise benefit the organization.

[strix_varius]

I think you have just described most organizations after they grow beyond their first 1k employees :)

[llbeansandrice]

You do understand that this is entirely different than company leadership laying off entire teams right?

It could be like SNAP that fired the entire company that they acquired because they had to cut costs but the product was meaningful and I'm sure the team worked very hard on it.

[strix_varius]

> You do understand that this is entirely different than company leadership laying off entire teams right?

No, this thread:

> Some of these comments mentioned in the article coming from Meta's leadership about there being people who shouldn't probably be there or to get rid of coasters seems so inhumane and demoralizing.

...is specifically about this quote from the article:

> Separately, the company’s head of engineering issued a call for managers to identify employees who were coasting and place them on remediation plans as a prelude to their termination.

[llbeansandrice]

Ah my mistake. I see the context now. If that's truly what Meta is doing, all the more a garbage company.

It does still feel like a marketing spin on "we're cutting headcount, make it work" to me though. I find it impossible to believe that Meta wasn't already doing this.