Lay offs or Lazy-way offs!

Unpopular opinion alert!!!

LinkedIn in 2020, Stripe last year, then Salesforce , 谷歌 , and yesterday, HubSpot , I feel sorry?and sad for these recent layoffs, and can imagine how?difficult the process can be for all the parties involved.?

Is economy the only responsible factor? Should businesses not own up to this, and be responsible?

In my recent experience?with several fast growth businesses, I noticed that so many businesses are so quick to hire, without fully analysing?and rationalising the impact of the role or whether the existing?teams are working on full efficiency.?

I know, and can comprehend, how gruelling it can feel asking already very hard working teams and people to do more, but is it not better than letting them go with all those years of accumulated?knowledge? Companies should find ways to make their teams more efficient through process automation and optimisation, enabling their teams to be more productive without working harder.

During my consulting years, I also noticed that some of the big businesses are often creating roles to slow down success vs accelerating?it.

Oh gosh, do you remember that big bad bully who asks you to justify every single hire with data and facts? It seems now that we need more of them...

Ok Ok... hear me out.

Here's an example:?

Let's talk about marketing!

It's 2023. Today, we should be able to measure clear impact of each employee in the business. Especially, as a marketer, when the goal is to create opportunities to drive higher revenue, we must be able to quantify the value we drive. Right?

However, instead of each marketer taking the ownership for data, we hire an endless amount of "data experts", who are often challenged by the non-data oriented marketers. And poof, 3 years are gone without clear reporting and inefficient spend!

What comes at the end of it all is let's hire more Xs profile and let go of Ys? *facepalm*

Meanwhile, in the sales world...

I was consulting?the sales operations team, and realised that between sales and customers, there is a deep, dark tunnel of teams involved in getting a deal finalised - finance, revenue operations, provisioning, implementation, etc.?

It's not uncommon for the sale-to-activation process to take an average of?3-4 days, because of so many unnecessary?processes. All while the customer is waiting to get started. Just why?

Moreover, I saw marketing teams, who have not in a day of their life spoken with the customers. They are so far secluded from on ground activities, that listening to sales pains and struggles turns into "office politics".

(PS I'm a marketer, therefore I'm purposely not going into other engineering, product, HR, finance etc roles, due to limited experience, but would like to open a dialogue and learn more!)

Long story short!

1. Have respect and gratitude?for your workplace but don't forget businesses are not families. Your work is not your friend. Most jobs are not for life.
2. Just because you grew fast, doesn't mean you will in the coming years. For my beloved growth stage startups, a lot of people does not mean a lot of revenue or quick scale.
3. What's the best thing about startups which is hard to find in big corporations? The sense of impact and willingness to go the extra mile!?
4. Lastly, big, established firms make great experts, but starts-ups make great leaders! I'm biased, I know. But when you learn to work with limited resources, you really know what it takes to make magic happen.?

In conclusion,

To employees?- Don't lose heart, you'll be back on your feet before you know it.

To Businesses -?Fix the broken hiring and management practices?before another lay-off.?

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. - Nelson Mandela