And supposedly, layoffs aren’t legally allowed to be performance or merit-based! You’re supposed to lay off only for eliminating a position. When projects are shut down, that’s a natural one, but when it’s a X% cut of all engineering staff, for instance, it’s meant to be almost random, on paper at least. Of course in real life nobody would lay off the absolute most genius 10x developer, but nobody’s supposed to be laid off because they’re slackers. If they’re slackers that should be a separate issue and a PIP.
>>And supposedly, layoffs aren’t legally allowed to be performance or merit-based!
Where is that? Even in the EU where employee protections are very strong you can absolutely let go of someone because of poor performance, you just have to do the whole dance of giving them enough warnings, then a PIP, then you can terminate their employment as they are failing their contractual duties. It's not super simple but it is legal and it does happen.
A layoff is a reduction in force, ie we need to lower headcount by 10% so bring me 10 names at this 100 person company. Firing someone for performance/attitude/don't-like-you-anymore reasons isn't a layoff.
I don't think that's right. I know as a fact that when Facebook did their layoffs here in UK they got rid of their lowest performing employees, going through the proper multi-month process, but at the end of the day they got rid of a large percentage of their staff purely based on merit/performance. I literally don't see how that's not a layoff.
