I've generally found that if you can't measure something well, large American companies act extremely poorly with regards to that thing.
Its well understood that layoffs destroy the morale of your employees, and that they drive out a huge percentage of employees, and specifically the ones who have the best alternative options.
But I imagine that measuring the impact of brain drain from a layoff after a subsequent overhire compared to potential growth losses from not overhiring during the boom is one of those things that is extremely hard to measure.
Good on Apple and Nintendo for having strong enough and competent enough leadership to make that call, instead of the typical metric based CYA.
> I've generally found that if you can't measure something well, large American companies act extremely poorly with regards to that thing.
You've got it. The number of companies I've worked with who talk about being "data-driven" and who do not use any data for a majority of their decision making is ridiculous.
> I've generally found that if you can't measure something well, large American companies act extremely poorly with regards to that thing.
This is true, and goes double (at least) for anything that is at odds with maximizing superficial short-term profits, or with absolute control by management over employees' existences.
There are many studies at this point showing how much more productive and profitable companies can be when they treat their employees well and pay them at or above market rate, but the neofeudal mindset and the idea that this quarter's profit growth are the only metric are so deeply ingrained into so many people's heads that it's very, very hard to make any inroads.
Its well understood that layoffs destroy the morale of your employees, and that they drive out a huge percentage of employees, and specifically the ones who have the best alternative options.
But I imagine that measuring the impact of brain drain from a layoff after a subsequent overhire compared to potential growth losses from not overhiring during the boom is one of those things that is extremely hard to measure.
Good on Apple and Nintendo for having strong enough and competent enough leadership to make that call, instead of the typical metric based CYA.