I worked for a large US bank that has a 10% biannual attrition target at all levels across the company. Twice a year they PIP 10-15% of staff, most of whom take a substantial buyout. Institutional knowledge is constantly being lost and experienced staff are being replaced with fresh cohorts of new grads, who then get replaced themselves right as they start becoming useful.
replyI knew multiple people there who made more in signing bonus, pay during training, and severance than they made for work actually performed.
The CEO is convinced that this is the path to "top tech talent."
That sounds like Enron. It breeds a culture of short termism, arse covering, and often... bending the numbers a bit
replyIf we called it by the literal term, decimation, you would get a good sense of the effect. "I have a new policy, I'm going to decimate my own company"
I assume management thinks this will lead to better documentation practices and standardized processes so it becomes easier and cheaper to introduce new employees. In practice the opposite happens, employees get scared for their jobs, hire bad new employees so it's the new people that will get PIP-ed.
replyOh, I think I know who is this. The CEO is fantastic (he is very technology oriented) but he is super convinced this is the right way. It has all kinds of perverse consequences. The constant loss of experience shows everywhere. Cliques are formed as means of protection. People focus on being seen, rather than in doing a great job, etc.
replyDoes the approach apply to senior management?
replySenior leaders in large companies I've worked at always had a fairly high turnover just because they all tend to be hyper competitive and engaged in their own Game of Thrones type competitions - which someone has to lose.
replyThere's some level where it stops, but that's after you've got 100+ reports.
replyI don't know that I interacted with anybody senior enough to avoid this process in the time I worked there.
> They assume that employees are just human resources and they can replace a senior engineer with a 100% equivalent one when needed.
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