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It seems like many companies have recently become more willing to take actions that I view as extremely trust breaking: - Forcing employees who were hired as r

It seems like many companies have recently become more willing to take actions that I view as extremely trust breaking: - Forcing employees who were hired as remote employees to relocate for RTO - Rescinding offers - Layoffs with seemingly little connection to performance What I'm trying to understand is do companies not think these actions will limit their ability to hire in the future? Are they: - Hoping that future candidates have short memories or they can hire new grads who don't have other options? - Calculating that the job market will stay slack for a long time? - The C-suite has short time horizons and thus see these problems as someone else's future problems? - Something else? Obviously companies will do these sorts of things if faced with existential threats, but the recent trend seems far more widespread than this.

lsmeducation 3y ago
I would look at it more like both sides are players. Playas gonna play. The girl plays, the guy plays. Omar: All in the game It's not like devs aren't gonna jump ship when the cycle shifts back in the other direction. Edit: RTO is a hill I think devs should be prepared to die on. If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote, don't be shocked when it's not even an option as the years go by. Covid gave us a gift, and it's precious. We have to fight to keep it. Remote or Die.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote...We have to fight to keep it...Remote or Die. I had devs quit because we went remote. I have other devs still here but expressing a clear preference for more of an in-office experience. Not everyone has the same preferences and not every dev wants to work remotely. We shouldn't be surprised when those differences of opinion play out in the remote vs hybrid vs in-office spectrum.
  - lsmeducation 3y ago
    The Remote contingent needs to fight harder than the office contingent because the office paradigm has been the dominant paradigm up until now. In-office work will realistically be seen as a niche when it's all said and done imho. Similar to LAN parties. It's not the way most people want to do things. Time will tell I guess. But thanks for your anecdote, I hope as time goes on, we begin to see what a niche anecdote it will become.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      I’ve just recently encountered a company with a culture that doesn’t interact so well with remote work, and it’s been eye opening. Lots of preference for talking (in person, or call) as soon as a message exchange goes past about two messages, when often what needs to happen is one party needs to go figure out WTF they actually want or are concerned about so they can describe it clearly—the talking doesn’t help, either, just wastes more time. Awful weirdly-restrictive chat room organization, which is shocking considering nearly-leaderless online communities manage to arrange those kinds of things better. Everything important gets posted to one-on-one chats or ephemeral and invisible-to-outsiders small group direct messages. The effect is they’ve accidentally made a bunch of stuff opaque and secret that really, really should not be. It’s poison for collaboration. I also get the impression some folks here just kinda… aren’t comfortable with written language. Reading or writing it. It’s so weird to see, but some of the folks who’ve been living this kind of job-life 10+ years, now I get how they think remote can’t possibly be as productive as in-person—but it’s mostly due to dumb mistakes that are also harming collaboration in the office. Most of them have no idea the place is doing things so entirely wrong, or how much better it can be with some simple tweaks.
      - lsmeducation 3y ago
        Okay, so why do you think that will get better in person? Just curious. Why is "lets meet in person" the go to solution? Look, the RTO people are LOUDER. Period. They will win this fight if the Remote or Die crew doesn't get loud.
        hotnfresh 3y ago
        I think in-person talking papers over a bunch of dysfunction, in this case, at enormous cost in still-much-worse-than-ideal productivity (plus the overhead of offices). But does let things get done more efficiently than if they tried to take that dysfunction into a heavily-remote environment. It also, separately, masks it—people working in-person, but hobbled by bad communication patterns, at least look productive. I’m not claiming this is good, mind you, but that it’s made me understand at least one (I suspect large) segment of the “remote can’t be as good as in-person” side of the argument. If this is how they think “serious business” should or must function, no wonder they’re skeptical of remote work. Meanwhile they’re actually just organizationally bad at communication, in general.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us
    - lsmeducation 3y ago
      It's because they are straight up lying. Like c'mon, you get your OWN PRIVATE BATHROOM when you work from home. The benefits are so obvious, I wonder if the in-office people are legitimate trolls at times.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
        But but the free coffee! Sometimes there are even doughnuts.
      - jcranmer 3y ago
        One reason people like me might prefer working in the office: I don't have a room in my apartment that I can turn into a home office. (Also, in the home I grew up in, I never had a private bathroom, nor did my parents. What kind of luxurious abode do you live in, and why do you assume that everyone has the same living conditions as you?)
        lsmeducation 3y ago
        Okay, you're on team office, got it. This cardboard box living individual here has such terrible living conditions he longs to breath the air of commercial real estate. Does your bathroom have a stall? No right? If you rent, your apartment comes with a private bathroom. If you have a roommate, at most one other person shares it with you. That's a pretty private bathroom. You ever been on line to use the bathroom before in the office? Do you think its fun to take a shit with 10 other people in the bathroom with you? lol Stick a desk in the corner of your apartment and voila, home office.
  - vsareto 3y ago
    Higher costs of living make relocation and in-office work more restrictive, but that isn't a big concern for remote. Same for the travel burden. It would be very natural to see remote salaries become lower than in-office salaries on convenience, while in-office salaries go up because of that, but that's not really happening. So while you should choose work for your preferences when you can, you shouldn't let companies gain advantages like under compensating in-office workers. After all, they've already mostly taken away actual offices for individuals. This fight could be fought on that principle alone.
  - mmmm2 3y ago
    Sure, not everyone wants to go remote, but many people do. Those of us who like remote work want to preserve it as an option. There's already resistance from companies with leases and cities with "empty" downtowns. I'm hopefully the change will stick despite that.
moonchrome 3y ago
I think at this point employer trust/employee loyalty has disappeared and companies/employees are acting accordingly.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Yeah I'm curious how it shakes out with these kinds of moves. I don't know anything about Flexport, but to me it's just more signs of a broader phenomenon of copious investment money drying up. It's been "easy" for a long time, and lots of cultural practices built up around hiring and managing staff that look "normal" to people who got into the industry in the last 10 years but more of an aberration for those of us who have been around longer. We've had a lot of bargaining power as a profession. We still do, but we'll have less. So I think you'll find that, yes, future candidates will have short memories. But more than likely, they won't need them, because a lot of these companies will simply cease to exist.
whatever1 3y ago
People who did not experience this will not remember. All the new grads of 2030 who will want to build their resume will apply to the same companies. Just check the consulting, the finance, the O&G businesses. Similar hostile practices, no problems with hiring.
NeverFade 3y ago
Without presenting a full argument, just based on your own post, if everyone is starting to do this almost in unison, in cartel-like fashion, then each individual company has no consequences to worry about.
nfriedly 3y ago
I agree with you in general, but wanted to point out that layoffs are often related to the companies overall performance and direction. So it's not uncommon for layoffs to have very little correlation with the performance of any individual affected employee.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Furthermore, they are usually top down directives: you need to cut X% of your staff across all groups. The axe needs to swing somewhere. As layoffs have usually been preceded by hiring freezes, managers have to make some calls. Alice is great, but not a unique skill set. Bob is not that good, but he is the only person who can maintain the FooBar system.
nerdponx 3y ago
Lack of market disincentives to carry out abusive behavior. > - Hoping that future candidates have short memories or they can hire new grads who don't have other options? Yes. Need for $$ outweighs desire for individual dignity. There's always someone out there willing to take your shitty job, as long as you're willing to wait. And why hurry? Just keep squeezing your current employees in the meantime. > - Calculating that the job market will stay slack for a long time? Repeated prisoner's dilemma. There's no reason to start hiring aggressively if nobody else is. > - The C-suite has short time horizons and thus see these problems as someone else's future problems? What problem? How does it actually affect their performance or their company's performance? > existential threats On the other hand, they won't stop doing something that's perfectly profitable and effective unless there's an existential threat.
CityOfThrowaway 3y ago
They are just doing what they need to do. Additional investment dollars are not guaranteed and companies need to get profitable. When money was easy to find and nobody cared about profits, companies could afford generous operating policies that inspired confidence. Now they can't. This may impact their ability to hire in the future. On the other hand, they will remain in business.
ArchD 3y ago
But there is no database keeping score reliably on all the nefarious actions. If a lot of companies already behave this way, then the behavior becomes normalized. None of these companies get ostracized. At worse, they just make a better offer to future candidates to attract them. In the current capitalism, everything has a price, even honor.
o10449366 3y ago
Yeah, I just went through two onsites with Kensho (for two different teams). After the first onsite, I asked them if their compensation range would be competitive with another offer I already received and the recruiter told me "they are very similar." I spent another 6 hours doing the second onsite only to be told that their best offer is 35% lower due to "budget cuts." Needless to say I'll never be interviewing with them again because they've shown they don't respect my (or their interviewer's) time.
- malermeister 3y ago
  I don't understand the motivation behind lying to you in cases like this. Did they honestly expect you to accept their low-ball offer? They most know they're wasting everyone's time.
  - H8crilA 3y ago
    It may look good in recruiter's papers. I.e. it looks like he did his job just right, but the candidate was dissatisfied with the package at the end. What can he do about it?
  - cj 3y ago
    In the current market, there are a lot of people starting out their search looking to make X, and 1-2 months into the search they realize the only immediately available opportunities are "X - 25%". In those situations, it's not always a waste of everyone's time. Some candidates (not all, to be clear) start out the job search process with salary expectations that are very unlikely to be easily met compared to 2-3 years ago. The recruiter in the scenario above was probably hoping the candidate's salary expectations would settle down toward the lower end of the spectrum (which clearly didn't work out for anyone in the specific example above, but it works often enough for it to be a not uncommon practice) Edit: To be clear, I think it's pretty lame to mislead candidates and I don't advocate for this strategy. But it happens. When I personally interview someone who has salary expectations higher than we're willing to pay, I tell them upfront on the first 30 minute screen call and simply tell them to reach out again if their circumstances change. (They often end up reaching out a month later)
evantbyrne 3y ago
I recently got ghosted by the management of a multi-national corporation after they made me an offer. Lower level staff trying to bring me in were told by the same people who made the offer that they didn't have the budget. Definitely won't forget that. They are also doing RTO. I don't think this behavior will last. The US economy is overall in very good shape and developers are still money making machines. Right now I'm being contacted by multiple recruiters every day. Other contractors I know are noticing a speedup as well. There are signs of life.
- Roark66 3y ago
  Man, that is tough. (IANAL) Here in Eu(and UK) if you're made an offer and they cancel later after you accepted you would have a good shot at suing them. Especially if you quit your current job or decide not to pursue another offer and you have paperwork to prove it. However, ability to sue doesn't mean one will. Considering the inconvenience of it all. That's why I simply do not believe a single word until pen is put to paper(or a digital certificate signs the contract) and I act accordingly. I had a situation before I was made 2 offers. I wanted to accept the second, but I dragged on telling the other guys until I had the contract signed. It feels "wrong" to do this, but I recommend this to everyone. It is in your best interest to do that just in case your preferred company tries to screw you over on some clause in the contract(that's exactly what happened BTW, I could negotiate from a position of power precisely because I had the other offer). Large companies will not blink before screwing you over so why should you afford them the courtesy of politeness a person should get? Large companies are not people. Yes, people work there, but most of these people if you knew them privately would probably give you the same advice.
sokoloff 3y ago
> What I'm trying to understand is do companies not think these actions will limit their ability to hire in the future? Running out of money or going out of business also limits your ability to hire in the future. First responders sometimes apply tourniquets and emergency trauma surgeons sometimes amputate critically injured limbs, even knowing that those have potential or certain downsides for the future of the patient, but aid in survival. Companies in critical condition or facing threats to their survival may logically do the same thing. If you agree with that, it seems not too far a leap to conclude that taking these same actions while merely under a more moderate threat and wishing to avoid entering a critical condition may also make sense.
- malfist 3y ago
  Sure. But how is RTO a tourniquet?
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Two out of three of the things listed are akin to the analogy used. RTO isn't (except to the extent that it's being used a shitty way to drive voluntary attrition, but I think those cases are far more rare than merely being accepted as a negative side-effect).
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  But we're not even close to those conditions, are we? The economy is growing more slowly than in the past, but it's still growing, companies everywhere are issuing stock buybacks and acquiring other companies, regulators are rushing to get out of the way, new tech on the horizon shows incredible promise, consumers are - for the most part - continuing to buy/lease/rent new products regardless of EULAs and subscriptions that are enormously profitable, P/E ratios are stratospheric...it would seem like outlooks have scarcely ever been better for employers. Why, then, would they be in survival mode?
Roark66 3y ago
>- Forcing employees who were hired as remote employees to relocate for RTO And that is why when I was recently looking for (contract) work I insisted to have "work from home" out in my contract. Despite looking for wfh from the beginning and multiple verbal and email assurances when it came to sign the contract I got one that said "office based". Of course I said I'm not signing. A week of "but we have a standard contract", "but we can't change it" ensued. Eventually they did change it. I recommend persevering to anyone else in similar situation (if you have other offers of course).
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  Any company that claims they can’t amend a contract is full of shit. That’s literally how business operates - they negotiate and change contracts all day long.
  - boringg 3y ago
    Can't = don't want to.
  - ballenf 3y ago
    There are caveats, however. Making exceptions for employees can raise alarms in HR compliance. If an employee in a protected class has asked for the same, but perhaps cannot be granted the same terms, it could create liability. Larger companies really, really don't like having terms vary across their non-executive level employees. And, arguably, for good reason.
    - deleted 3y ago
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- nucleardog 3y ago
  Switched jobs for the same reason. Employer went remote. After a while they decided we’d stay that way. At contract negotiation time I told them I wanted my contract amended to specify that the role was remote with no expectation of any time in the office. They wouldn’t because who knows what the future holds. Well, I knew what I wanted my future to hold and it wasn’t compatible with anything but full remote. Found a remote role with a company that already had its employees spread across like 6 states and three countries. My contract, without asking, said the role was remote with no time in office. Regardless, I wouldn’t see them demanding RTO any time soon—whatever location they picked they’d be losing probably 2/3 of their staff, or paying to open tiny one-person offices all over the place. In hiring others, so many people I talk to spend a lot of time in the initial call asking about the remote thing. They’ve clearly had the rug pulled out from under them before. I’ve had a few people now bail partway through the process because they got a great offer from some other company only to come back a week later asking if we can pick back up because it was a bait-and-switch and the final contract specified hybrid or fully in-office. I just don’t even understand the thought process behind that from the employers… like, do you really think you’ll get to the offer stage and the person will go “Well, I really wanted remote and they lied to my face, but hey one in the hand I guess I’ll start planning a move halfway across the country. shrug”.
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antisthenes 3y ago
What I find surprising is that employees are still reluctant to name and shame such behavior. Any time any company does any one of the 3 actions you mentioned in your post, it should be an automatic name and shame and a large ding to their reputation. I don't think it will be sufficient to curb such behavior entirely, but shining light on it is a good first step.
losvedir 3y ago
I see rescinding offers as a whole separate level because it has a big impact on the logistics of taking that job if you’re already employed somewhere else. If you can’t rely on the offer in hand there’s no way to gracefully wind down your work at the other place. I feel like this will result in employees stopping giving two weeks notice.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  It seems like we need significantly stronger guarantees on contract signing. If company signs this employment offer, and I sign this employment offer, I am hired and getting paid. Anything else constitutes firing me. It is more surprising there is not a longer history of companies breaking these pinkie promises.
- reaperman 3y ago
  > if you’re already employed somewhere else This is already covered by promissory estoppel[0]. Anyone affected by this, who can show that they quit an existing job or turned down a different offer, should have access to civil remedies - Flexport would be responsible for making them whole for any damages they suffered as a result of relying on Flexport's promise of employment. I'm not a lawyer. There may be some caveats for these particular people. But it is a well-recognized remedy for this type of thing[1]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel 1: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-law/job-hunting/promises-and-rescinded-job-offers.html https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-law/job-...
MagaMuffin 3y ago
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ksec 3y ago
>Obviously companies will do these sorts of things if faced with existential threats, but the recent trend seems far more widespread than this. For majority of startup, not getting another round of funding, or the rounds are much smaller is an existential threat. I guess most people still dont understand what high interest rate is doing to VC or in fact to the economy.
jitix 3y ago
This seems like short term reactive thinking but I'm sure every programmer worth their salt will research "<company x> layoffs/rescind/return to office" before accepting an offer. I recently went through the interview gauntlet and past layoffs and policy changes were a key deciding factor for me. I could imagine that in a bull market candidates would ask for offer acceptance bonuses before quitting their current jobs as a form of assurance. And this issue is even more severe in countries where 2-3 month notice is the norm.
princevegeta89 3y ago
"I hope you will forgive us someday and even consider coming to work here again once we get our house in order" Lol at that shamelessness in asking. What sort of drugs is this guy on? You seriously screw and fuck someone over once and still expect them to come and help you on a different day? Insane greed right there.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  The only way it could be worse is if someone tries that, and then gets told they don't meet requirements!
juancn 3y ago
They balance the existential financial risk vs the trust and consider it's worth to sacrifice some trust. They may or may not be right, time will tell.
borroka 3y ago
"What I'm trying to understand is do companies not think these actions will limit their ability to hire in the future? As I see it: - there is higher supply of talent than demand for talent - offer enough money next time and see all the doubts disappear (come on, there are companies with a terrible reputation that have been around forever and employ tens or even hundreds of thousands of people) - companies need to survive now before thinking about tomorrow, especially a company like Flexport, which appears to be quite fragile from a financial standpoint. The relationship between employees and employers, especially when the latter are big companies, has always been more adversarial than cooperative. In this context, I don't expect my employer's best, and in return I certainly do not give my best. A lesson I learned after having been let go. It has worked fine for me since then.
- StressedDev 3y ago
  Another thing to consider is the employee might be coming from a worse employer or may take a job because they are really interested in it. Flexport's behavior was not good in this case but I suspect a lot of future employees will still choose to work there if they make attractive offers.

lsmeducation 3y ago

I would look at it more like both sides are players. Playas gonna play. The girl plays, the guy plays. Omar: All in the game It's not like devs aren't gonna jump ship when the cycle shifts back in the other direction. Edit: RTO is a hill I think devs should be prepared to die on. If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote, don't be shocked when it's not even an option as the years go by. Covid gave us a gift, and it's precious. We have to fight to keep it. Remote or Die.

sokoloff 3y ago
> If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote...We have to fight to keep it...Remote or Die. I had devs quit because we went remote. I have other devs still here but expressing a clear preference for more of an in-office experience. Not everyone has the same preferences and not every dev wants to work remotely. We shouldn't be surprised when those differences of opinion play out in the remote vs hybrid vs in-office spectrum.
- lsmeducation 3y ago
  The Remote contingent needs to fight harder than the office contingent because the office paradigm has been the dominant paradigm up until now. In-office work will realistically be seen as a niche when it's all said and done imho. Similar to LAN parties. It's not the way most people want to do things. Time will tell I guess. But thanks for your anecdote, I hope as time goes on, we begin to see what a niche anecdote it will become.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    I’ve just recently encountered a company with a culture that doesn’t interact so well with remote work, and it’s been eye opening. Lots of preference for talking (in person, or call) as soon as a message exchange goes past about two messages, when often what needs to happen is one party needs to go figure out WTF they actually want or are concerned about so they can describe it clearly—the talking doesn’t help, either, just wastes more time. Awful weirdly-restrictive chat room organization, which is shocking considering nearly-leaderless online communities manage to arrange those kinds of things better. Everything important gets posted to one-on-one chats or ephemeral and invisible-to-outsiders small group direct messages. The effect is they’ve accidentally made a bunch of stuff opaque and secret that really, really should not be. It’s poison for collaboration. I also get the impression some folks here just kinda… aren’t comfortable with written language. Reading or writing it. It’s so weird to see, but some of the folks who’ve been living this kind of job-life 10+ years, now I get how they think remote can’t possibly be as productive as in-person—but it’s mostly due to dumb mistakes that are also harming collaboration in the office. Most of them have no idea the place is doing things so entirely wrong, or how much better it can be with some simple tweaks.
    - lsmeducation 3y ago
      Okay, so why do you think that will get better in person? Just curious. Why is "lets meet in person" the go to solution? Look, the RTO people are LOUDER. Period. They will win this fight if the Remote or Die crew doesn't get loud.
      - hotnfresh 3y ago
        I think in-person talking papers over a bunch of dysfunction, in this case, at enormous cost in still-much-worse-than-ideal productivity (plus the overhead of offices). But does let things get done more efficiently than if they tried to take that dysfunction into a heavily-remote environment. It also, separately, masks it—people working in-person, but hobbled by bad communication patterns, at least look productive. I’m not claiming this is good, mind you, but that it’s made me understand at least one (I suspect large) segment of the “remote can’t be as good as in-person” side of the argument. If this is how they think “serious business” should or must function, no wonder they’re skeptical of remote work. Meanwhile they’re actually just organizationally bad at communication, in general.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us
  - lsmeducation 3y ago
    It's because they are straight up lying. Like c'mon, you get your OWN PRIVATE BATHROOM when you work from home. The benefits are so obvious, I wonder if the in-office people are legitimate trolls at times.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
      But but the free coffee! Sometimes there are even doughnuts.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      One reason people like me might prefer working in the office: I don't have a room in my apartment that I can turn into a home office. (Also, in the home I grew up in, I never had a private bathroom, nor did my parents. What kind of luxurious abode do you live in, and why do you assume that everyone has the same living conditions as you?)
      - lsmeducation 3y ago
        Okay, you're on team office, got it. This cardboard box living individual here has such terrible living conditions he longs to breath the air of commercial real estate. Does your bathroom have a stall? No right? If you rent, your apartment comes with a private bathroom. If you have a roommate, at most one other person shares it with you. That's a pretty private bathroom. You ever been on line to use the bathroom before in the office? Do you think its fun to take a shit with 10 other people in the bathroom with you? lol Stick a desk in the corner of your apartment and voila, home office.
- vsareto 3y ago
  Higher costs of living make relocation and in-office work more restrictive, but that isn't a big concern for remote. Same for the travel burden. It would be very natural to see remote salaries become lower than in-office salaries on convenience, while in-office salaries go up because of that, but that's not really happening. So while you should choose work for your preferences when you can, you shouldn't let companies gain advantages like under compensating in-office workers. After all, they've already mostly taken away actual offices for individuals. This fight could be fought on that principle alone.
- mmmm2 3y ago
  Sure, not everyone wants to go remote, but many people do. Those of us who like remote work want to preserve it as an option. There's already resistance from companies with leases and cities with "empty" downtowns. I'm hopefully the change will stick despite that.

moonchrome 3y ago

I think at this point employer trust/employee loyalty has disappeared and companies/employees are acting accordingly.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

Yeah I'm curious how it shakes out with these kinds of moves. I don't know anything about Flexport, but to me it's just more signs of a broader phenomenon of copious investment money drying up. It's been "easy" for a long time, and lots of cultural practices built up around hiring and managing staff that look "normal" to people who got into the industry in the last 10 years but more of an aberration for those of us who have been around longer. We've had a lot of bargaining power as a profession. We still do, but we'll have less. So I think you'll find that, yes, future candidates will have short memories. But more than likely, they won't need them, because a lot of these companies will simply cease to exist.

whatever1 3y ago

People who did not experience this will not remember. All the new grads of 2030 who will want to build their resume will apply to the same companies. Just check the consulting, the finance, the O&G businesses. Similar hostile practices, no problems with hiring.

NeverFade 3y ago

Without presenting a full argument, just based on your own post, if everyone is starting to do this almost in unison, in cartel-like fashion, then each individual company has no consequences to worry about.

nfriedly 3y ago

I agree with you in general, but wanted to point out that layoffs are often related to the companies overall performance and direction. So it's not uncommon for layoffs to have very little correlation with the performance of any individual affected employee.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
Furthermore, they are usually top down directives: you need to cut X% of your staff across all groups. The axe needs to swing somewhere. As layoffs have usually been preceded by hiring freezes, managers have to make some calls. Alice is great, but not a unique skill set. Bob is not that good, but he is the only person who can maintain the FooBar system.

nerdponx 3y ago

Lack of market disincentives to carry out abusive behavior. > - Hoping that future candidates have short memories or they can hire new grads who don't have other options? Yes. Need for $$ outweighs desire for individual dignity. There's always someone out there willing to take your shitty job, as long as you're willing to wait. And why hurry? Just keep squeezing your current employees in the meantime. > - Calculating that the job market will stay slack for a long time? Repeated prisoner's dilemma. There's no reason to start hiring aggressively if nobody else is. > - The C-suite has short time horizons and thus see these problems as someone else's future problems? What problem? How does it actually affect their performance or their company's performance? > existential threats On the other hand, they won't stop doing something that's perfectly profitable and effective unless there's an existential threat.

CityOfThrowaway 3y ago

They are just doing what they need to do. Additional investment dollars are not guaranteed and companies need to get profitable. When money was easy to find and nobody cared about profits, companies could afford generous operating policies that inspired confidence. Now they can't. This may impact their ability to hire in the future. On the other hand, they will remain in business.

ArchD 3y ago

But there is no database keeping score reliably on all the nefarious actions. If a lot of companies already behave this way, then the behavior becomes normalized. None of these companies get ostracized. At worse, they just make a better offer to future candidates to attract them. In the current capitalism, everything has a price, even honor.

o10449366 3y ago

Yeah, I just went through two onsites with Kensho (for two different teams). After the first onsite, I asked them if their compensation range would be competitive with another offer I already received and the recruiter told me "they are very similar." I spent another 6 hours doing the second onsite only to be told that their best offer is 35% lower due to "budget cuts." Needless to say I'll never be interviewing with them again because they've shown they don't respect my (or their interviewer's) time.

malermeister 3y ago
I don't understand the motivation behind lying to you in cases like this. Did they honestly expect you to accept their low-ball offer? They most know they're wasting everyone's time.
- H8crilA 3y ago
  It may look good in recruiter's papers. I.e. it looks like he did his job just right, but the candidate was dissatisfied with the package at the end. What can he do about it?
- cj 3y ago
  In the current market, there are a lot of people starting out their search looking to make X, and 1-2 months into the search they realize the only immediately available opportunities are "X - 25%". In those situations, it's not always a waste of everyone's time. Some candidates (not all, to be clear) start out the job search process with salary expectations that are very unlikely to be easily met compared to 2-3 years ago. The recruiter in the scenario above was probably hoping the candidate's salary expectations would settle down toward the lower end of the spectrum (which clearly didn't work out for anyone in the specific example above, but it works often enough for it to be a not uncommon practice) Edit: To be clear, I think it's pretty lame to mislead candidates and I don't advocate for this strategy. But it happens. When I personally interview someone who has salary expectations higher than we're willing to pay, I tell them upfront on the first 30 minute screen call and simply tell them to reach out again if their circumstances change. (They often end up reaching out a month later)

evantbyrne 3y ago

I recently got ghosted by the management of a multi-national corporation after they made me an offer. Lower level staff trying to bring me in were told by the same people who made the offer that they didn't have the budget. Definitely won't forget that. They are also doing RTO. I don't think this behavior will last. The US economy is overall in very good shape and developers are still money making machines. Right now I'm being contacted by multiple recruiters every day. Other contractors I know are noticing a speedup as well. There are signs of life.

Roark66 3y ago
Man, that is tough. (IANAL) Here in Eu(and UK) if you're made an offer and they cancel later after you accepted you would have a good shot at suing them. Especially if you quit your current job or decide not to pursue another offer and you have paperwork to prove it. However, ability to sue doesn't mean one will. Considering the inconvenience of it all. That's why I simply do not believe a single word until pen is put to paper(or a digital certificate signs the contract) and I act accordingly. I had a situation before I was made 2 offers. I wanted to accept the second, but I dragged on telling the other guys until I had the contract signed. It feels "wrong" to do this, but I recommend this to everyone. It is in your best interest to do that just in case your preferred company tries to screw you over on some clause in the contract(that's exactly what happened BTW, I could negotiate from a position of power precisely because I had the other offer). Large companies will not blink before screwing you over so why should you afford them the courtesy of politeness a person should get? Large companies are not people. Yes, people work there, but most of these people if you knew them privately would probably give you the same advice.

sokoloff 3y ago

> What I'm trying to understand is do companies not think these actions will limit their ability to hire in the future? Running out of money or going out of business also limits your ability to hire in the future. First responders sometimes apply tourniquets and emergency trauma surgeons sometimes amputate critically injured limbs, even knowing that those have potential or certain downsides for the future of the patient, but aid in survival. Companies in critical condition or facing threats to their survival may logically do the same thing. If you agree with that, it seems not too far a leap to conclude that taking these same actions while merely under a more moderate threat and wishing to avoid entering a critical condition may also make sense.

malfist 3y ago
Sure. But how is RTO a tourniquet?
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- sokoloff 3y ago
  Two out of three of the things listed are akin to the analogy used. RTO isn't (except to the extent that it's being used a shitty way to drive voluntary attrition, but I think those cases are far more rare than merely being accepted as a negative side-effect).
LeifCarrotson 3y ago
But we're not even close to those conditions, are we? The economy is growing more slowly than in the past, but it's still growing, companies everywhere are issuing stock buybacks and acquiring other companies, regulators are rushing to get out of the way, new tech on the horizon shows incredible promise, consumers are - for the most part - continuing to buy/lease/rent new products regardless of EULAs and subscriptions that are enormously profitable, P/E ratios are stratospheric...it would seem like outlooks have scarcely ever been better for employers. Why, then, would they be in survival mode?

Roark66 3y ago

>- Forcing employees who were hired as remote employees to relocate for RTO And that is why when I was recently looking for (contract) work I insisted to have "work from home" out in my contract. Despite looking for wfh from the beginning and multiple verbal and email assurances when it came to sign the contract I got one that said "office based". Of course I said I'm not signing. A week of "but we have a standard contract", "but we can't change it" ensued. Eventually they did change it. I recommend persevering to anyone else in similar situation (if you have other offers of course).

monero-xmr 3y ago
Any company that claims they can’t amend a contract is full of shit. That’s literally how business operates - they negotiate and change contracts all day long.
- boringg 3y ago
  Can't = don't want to.
- ballenf 3y ago
  There are caveats, however. Making exceptions for employees can raise alarms in HR compliance. If an employee in a protected class has asked for the same, but perhaps cannot be granted the same terms, it could create liability. Larger companies really, really don't like having terms vary across their non-executive level employees. And, arguably, for good reason.
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nucleardog 3y ago
Switched jobs for the same reason. Employer went remote. After a while they decided we’d stay that way. At contract negotiation time I told them I wanted my contract amended to specify that the role was remote with no expectation of any time in the office. They wouldn’t because who knows what the future holds. Well, I knew what I wanted my future to hold and it wasn’t compatible with anything but full remote. Found a remote role with a company that already had its employees spread across like 6 states and three countries. My contract, without asking, said the role was remote with no time in office. Regardless, I wouldn’t see them demanding RTO any time soon—whatever location they picked they’d be losing probably 2/3 of their staff, or paying to open tiny one-person offices all over the place. In hiring others, so many people I talk to spend a lot of time in the initial call asking about the remote thing. They’ve clearly had the rug pulled out from under them before. I’ve had a few people now bail partway through the process because they got a great offer from some other company only to come back a week later asking if we can pick back up because it was a bait-and-switch and the final contract specified hybrid or fully in-office. I just don’t even understand the thought process behind that from the employers… like, do you really think you’ll get to the offer stage and the person will go “Well, I really wanted remote and they lied to my face, but hey one in the hand I guess I’ll start planning a move halfway across the country. shrug”.

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antisthenes 3y ago

What I find surprising is that employees are still reluctant to name and shame such behavior. Any time any company does any one of the 3 actions you mentioned in your post, it should be an automatic name and shame and a large ding to their reputation. I don't think it will be sufficient to curb such behavior entirely, but shining light on it is a good first step.

losvedir 3y ago

I see rescinding offers as a whole separate level because it has a big impact on the logistics of taking that job if you’re already employed somewhere else. If you can’t rely on the offer in hand there’s no way to gracefully wind down your work at the other place. I feel like this will result in employees stopping giving two weeks notice.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
It seems like we need significantly stronger guarantees on contract signing. If company signs this employment offer, and I sign this employment offer, I am hired and getting paid. Anything else constitutes firing me. It is more surprising there is not a longer history of companies breaking these pinkie promises.
reaperman 3y ago
> if you’re already employed somewhere else This is already covered by promissory estoppel[0]. Anyone affected by this, who can show that they quit an existing job or turned down a different offer, should have access to civil remedies - Flexport would be responsible for making them whole for any damages they suffered as a result of relying on Flexport's promise of employment. I'm not a lawyer. There may be some caveats for these particular people. But it is a well-recognized remedy for this type of thing[1]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel 1: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-law/job-hunting/promises-and-rescinded-job-offers.html https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-law/job-...

MagaMuffin 3y ago

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ksec 3y ago

>Obviously companies will do these sorts of things if faced with existential threats, but the recent trend seems far more widespread than this. For majority of startup, not getting another round of funding, or the rounds are much smaller is an existential threat. I guess most people still dont understand what high interest rate is doing to VC or in fact to the economy.

jitix 3y ago

This seems like short term reactive thinking but I'm sure every programmer worth their salt will research "<company x> layoffs/rescind/return to office" before accepting an offer. I recently went through the interview gauntlet and past layoffs and policy changes were a key deciding factor for me. I could imagine that in a bull market candidates would ask for offer acceptance bonuses before quitting their current jobs as a form of assurance. And this issue is even more severe in countries where 2-3 month notice is the norm.

princevegeta89 3y ago

"I hope you will forgive us someday and even consider coming to work here again once we get our house in order" Lol at that shamelessness in asking. What sort of drugs is this guy on? You seriously screw and fuck someone over once and still expect them to come and help you on a different day? Insane greed right there.

FireBeyond 3y ago
The only way it could be worse is if someone tries that, and then gets told they don't meet requirements!

juancn 3y ago

They balance the existential financial risk vs the trust and consider it's worth to sacrifice some trust. They may or may not be right, time will tell.

borroka 3y ago

"What I'm trying to understand is do companies not think these actions will limit their ability to hire in the future? As I see it: - there is higher supply of talent than demand for talent - offer enough money next time and see all the doubts disappear (come on, there are companies with a terrible reputation that have been around forever and employ tens or even hundreds of thousands of people) - companies need to survive now before thinking about tomorrow, especially a company like Flexport, which appears to be quite fragile from a financial standpoint. The relationship between employees and employers, especially when the latter are big companies, has always been more adversarial than cooperative. In this context, I don't expect my employer's best, and in return I certainly do not give my best. A lesson I learned after having been let go. It has worked fine for me since then.

StressedDev 3y ago
Another thing to consider is the employee might be coming from a worse employer or may take a job because they are really interested in it. Flexport's behavior was not good in this case but I suspect a lot of future employees will still choose to work there if they make attractive offers.