Layoffs are unfortunately, sometimes, necessary. But when they happen, it's important that the right people are chosen, for the right reasons (whether that's performance based, voluntary, protecting certain groups, ensuring fairness, etc). That requires collective bargaining by representatives who are able to assess and change the criteria, and who are able to negotiate for better outcomes for those impacted.
The person in this TikTok admits to having closed zero sales. They're also one of the most junior people on the team (4.5 months).
They would be among the first to go under union rules, too.
Unions are often worse at prioritizing things like tenure over performance, if anything. But even under those rules she was one of the most junior people.
There is basically no situation where a union would have prioritized this any differently.
Outcome, perhaps. But a union would have likely a) given a better timeline than a 15 min call with notice sent informally around colleagues, and b) a concrete mechanism for prioritising roles for elimination that should feel fair in some way, rather than an opaque "bad performance" reason that does not correlate with the employee's experience.
They had no signed contracts, but with onboarding, the ramp up, and holidays, it sounds like this was explicitly not an issue for their manager.
You're right that tenure is a common way of deciding who is going, but if HR had come in and said "we're really sorry but we're letting go the most recent joiners, no reflection on you other than your start date, you'll get a good reference based on your ramp up performance", that would have gone over much better.
People don't like things that don't make sense. In my experience, between individual advice and collective bargaining, unions do make things make more sense in this way.
> and b) a concrete mechanism for prioritising roles for elimination that should feel fair in some way, rather than an opaque "bad performance" reason that does not correlate with the employee's experience.
The employee admits having closed zero sales. It doesn't get much more objective than that.
They're also relatively new to the company. Unions tend to prioritize tenure over performance anyway, so their relative newness might have put them at an even higher disadvantage under a union.
> You're right that tenure is a common way of deciding who is going, but if HR had come in and said "we're really sorry but we're letting go the most recent joiners, no reflection on you other than your start date, you'll get a good reference based on your ramp up performance", that would have gone over much better.
I don't believe this at all. If this had been a TikTok where HR said "We're letting you go because you started recently" everyone would be outraged about them firing people for arbitrary, non-performance reasons.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Being given a 3-month ramp up starting in August _then_ being tasked with accounts to manage in the last month and a half of a calendar year is one of the worst places to be in. The only deals getting closed are those with accounts set for a renewal that won't be questioned. That time period can not be reasonably used for performance metrics of a new hire. It's utterly irresponsible.
/me -> former Red Hat Solution Architect that was given 6 months to go from hired to field ready in assisting two account managers. My RH and technical knowledge was fine, but sales is a completely different beast. I was lucky with my timeline as it gave me a lot of time to breathe, shadow my mentor, and get the two required certs. If it was three instead I would have been in over my head by the end of those 90 days. Every day was effectively being sprayed by a fire hose of information.
And she honestly may have had absolutely horrible luck. I've worked with great accounts, terrible accounts, and then some *poof* accounts. I had more deals than I would have liked get suspended right as ink was about to meet paper due to internal events at the customer.
Unless you're egregiously bad at your job, getting fired for performance should never be a surprise. She says she'd had nothing but positive performance reviews until the day she was fired, so unless you think she's lying I see two possibilities:
1. Her performance was subpar but Cloudflare told her to keep doing what she was doing.
2. Her performance was fine but the Cloudflare are full of shit.
Pretty much. Not for anything short of total malfeasance or horrible misbehavior.
Layoffs happen. Welcome to tech. Just say it's a layoff, and everybody will get on with life.
However, trying to fire someone for performance short of 12 months smells like somebody was told to try to claw back or limit signing bonuses, relocation allowances, stock grants, and promissory estoppel claims.
It's a VERY, VERY bad look for Cloudflare who, up to this point, I had decent vibes about from dealing with various employees.
> The person in this TikTok admits to having closed zero sales. They're also one of the most junior people on the team (4.5 months).
You didn't listen to what they said:
* One month at speed
* Three months of ramp
Generally, ramp time in roles like this persons would involve tailing and listening to active areas, training for the specifics of the product that you're selling, etc.
We then hit December, wherein
* Nobody makes big spend choices in December. It's a dead month for sales unless you're in Retail selling toys and gadgets. Sales closing in December are fucking golden geese.
* They had one possible account land pull out at the last moment. Why? Unsure.
* Assuming this person is telling the truth, their management indicated they were a high performer overall.
Just like very few companies hire in December, very few companies make big spending choices at the end of the calendar year.
Unions can do things like
* Argue that the state of the dismissal is contrived ("you didn't sell anything in the week nobody buys things")
* Create mandatory minimum times of employment (e.g. "you can't lay off someone who has only recently joined" or "you can't lay off someone who moved > 100mi for the job until they have had at least one primary performance review")
Unions fight the nebulous "performance metrics" that HR is citing here.
They would've ensured she had support and representation, someone in that call who was on her side. Even if that doesn't change the numerical outcome, it can make a big emotional difference.
> There is basically no situation where a union would have prioritized this any differently.
A union would have had significantly more notice because they're in tune with the company and prioritize the workers. Extra notice means greater better planning.
Stop sticking up for this garbage please. Have some empathy?
• Third quarter revenue totaled $335.6 million, representing an increase of 32% year-over-year
Do we need to feel sorry for cloudflare or something?
She says on the call, or her feedback has been positive, so why should she expect a negative outcome like this?
As a junior, she should be given the appropriate and valid feedback so she can learn and improve for her future. Not this dystopian, cold bullshit. Do you have any idea what this kind of thing does to a junior employees confidence? Wow.
Adding a union often does because it changes the power dynamics. In this conversation, Cloudflare holds all of the cards and most people will accept their terms because they don’t want to lose healthcare or severance pay, and they probably say things confident that they will not be challenged to back those claims up.
A union won’t make the managers setting policies better human beings but it puts them in a context where there’s a party who has more power to push back, and can afford things like lawyers. It also means that they have things like union contracts saying that, for example, you can’t fire someone for performance without proof and warning such as a negative review and time to improve. Simply knowing they’ll have to follow the process is often enough to rein in the worst abuses.
I mean, not sticking to anything, but if I would hire a sales-person and in 5 months (just before the perm-contract @ 6 months) and they made 0 sales - I would fire that person as well. It's called probation-period for a reason.
The difference is that with union you cant pretend you are just firing few randos because they were terrible at their job and you have to come to the union and say „we need to fire 40 people” and union can say „CloudFlare is doing layoffs” and both investors and people on the job market know its propably not a good time for tge CF, despite the CEO boasting about bazzilions made and best year ever.
The right reasons in a union are how long have you been part of the union. I don't support protecting certain groups. I don't agree with forcing fairness which is a personal judgement anyways. I don't even agree layoffs are necessary here. They are easy.
A union doesn't stop layoffs it just costs everyone more. Your best representative in a layoff is a lawyer and a place with better employment notice pay.
I have several friends who work in construction and trades and their opinion of unions is very negative. This is a blue state and blue city. A lot of HN loves unions but the blue collar opinion of them is negative, from what I’ve seen.
I think there's a huge difference between the ideals of what a union can offer, and the practice of entrenched unions in some specific industries, particularly in the US.
As a well paid software engineer who wants to work with high performing colleagues, nothing my union has said has suggested they aren't supportive of this. They are about holding companies to account, not entrenching poor performers or normalising salaries around some middle ground.
Bear in mind also that there has been a near century long war of propaganda against the idea of unions. There's a lot of negative connotation built up in media, discourse, expectations, etc.
The specific criticism I heard my friend rant about was a colleague who did very little because they felt slighted, and they could never be fired for anything really, so because he wanted to move on with his life he just did all that other guys’ work.
I have heard this criticism. I've also heard from my union that they know there is that image, and that's not a culture they support or want to create, and that they want to promote an effective and fair performance-based team environment.
Fundamentally, a union for software engineers is just not going to work the same as a union for, say, manufacturing. There's a lot that mostly doesn't apply to us like physical safety, but a lot more that does like whistleblowing.
I live in a country where unions are a de-facto standard. They actually negotiate with the government for stuff.
Firing "lazy non-performers" is easy, you just follow the steps.
1) warning about performance, in written form with someone present
2) second warning
3) fired.
The American way where a boss can just come in and say "you're fired, gather your things and security will escort you out" will never fly here.
The process is there to make sure the reason for firing is explicitly stated and understood by both sides. It also gives some safeguards that just a personality conflict between people can't be used to fire someone, there has to be a proper reason beyond "I don't like your face"
Companies can also fire people when they hit a downturn, but there's a catch. If they claim it's for "economic reasons" (there's a specific turn of phrase they need to use here that doesn't translate) they then need to primarily re-hire the people who they fired if they start hiring for the same positions again.
If my choice is between being let go for any reason under the sun, including the reasons that aren't real and also being told I'm bad or having a lazy coworker I know what I'll take.
Different union structures for different types of careers. Some people don’t like paying taxes and dues.
Factory unions protect the collective uniformly because each person is interchangeable. This is a “raise the minimum” type environment. They make it hard to fire because they need to hold the line.
Some unions are structured to support highly skilled and differentiated labor. Like in Hollywood. They protect workers like camera-men but still allow skilled actors to be well paid and properly audition for roles.
I worked a unionized job in my first position with CUPE and we ended up going on strike after an open vote (2 against, my coworker and I, everyone else for) which is illegal. After 3 weeks out we went back to work for 1% more in the first year and 1% less in the second. Our union attempted to ruin the reputation of folks in my union who I personally knew crossed the picked line to teach so as not to violate the terms of their contract teaching positions (along with their union position). The union was stupid, corrupt and ultimately everyone who went on strike lost money.
I think what the OP probably really wants is something like Germany’s workers council which is given a chance to weigh in on layoff decisions like this to make sure they make sense
Yep that would also be a positive step. I think unions, when implemented well, might be a bit better, but it seems like Germany gets many of the same benefits I'm thinking of from their workers council mechanism.
Layoffs are unfortunately, sometimes, necessary. But when they happen, it's important that the right people are chosen, for the right reasons (whether that's performance based, voluntary, protecting certain groups, ensuring fairness, etc). That requires collective bargaining by representatives who are able to assess and change the criteria, and who are able to negotiate for better outcomes for those impacted.