> There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart
Right up to the moment where there isn't.
Some companies have great values, a great culture, an inspiring mission and they'll be relatively consistent in maintaining these things for quite extended periods of time: years, sometimes even decades. That's really easy to do during the good times: when you're hitting your numbers and all the trendlines are pointing upwards.
However, when things get more difficult - when there's a downturn, competitors move in, or the market simply moves on - that equation changes a lot. Sooner or later under those circumstances every business has to start making hard calls that will make it very clear to all involved that it is not a family.
We can all point to examples of businesses that have gone out of their way to look after their employees during the pandemic. But even they can't do so indefinitely (hopefully they won't have to try if the vaccination programmes work as well as we all hope). Sooner or later the values of a business will become subservient to commercial reality even if that doesn't happen to our values as individuals.
This is the key point for me. Too many people seem to think that only workers should adapt for companies, and that the labor market exists to compete for the jobs that are bestowed on them. This is evident in the whole "no one wants to work any more! What a bunch of lazy [millenials|zoomers|derogative of choice]". Naw dude, they just don't want work for you, for peanuts, with no benefits or healthcare, in the middle of a deadly pandemic. They're not lazy, they're maximizing value for their shareholders too, in this case themselves. Covid has made a lot of people realize that the shit they had to take before was not a great deal for them, and they want something better.
>Once the pandemic is over, the company will return to normal.
I wouldn't say that. Your employees who did the work and had tribal knowledge are now gone. If they didn't document something, it may not be found for a good while.
Point is, it might take a lot of work to get it back going. Or it's as easy as putting some equipment on firesale and shredding everything else.
> Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable
Because people who can afford Amazon prime and prices are the most vulnerable
To be fair, there's a very real difference between companies that are thriving or at least doing as well as ever during the pandemic, and those that are seriously hurting. I don't blame the latter for tightening purse strings, but one would hope they're at least not assholes about it.
As long as this companies keep investing in marketing over customer satisfaction and real value generation for shareholders the scenario is going to be the same regardless of covid etc. As you pointed out Refused is a good example: focus on business fundamentals, that's it.
I disagree w/ the premise of the article. It's oddly assuming that leaders of these huge tech companies have no knowledge that the pandemic would end. Effectively calling them dumb.
It's just wording. I think reworded in the spirit of the article is "Leaders should _do_ better" and be more steady/stable with their project and hiring practices.
But it's simply good capitalism. You should grow and shrink with the times all while building a massive store of cash. The problem is, good capitalism makes people get used/burned and ignores... well people.
> In my opinion the pandemic era saw a significant increase in employee headcount
I am interested in hearing why you think that. I would have thought that the whole "Great Resignation" theme of the two pandemic years would suggest that people are instead looking to move away from the established companies.
> The forced move to WFH will be eye opening to everyone, managers included
I think you're overly optimistic about this, most just see Covid as a temporary inconvenience and will go back to business as usual when this ends. Sure, some smart managers may see the value, but I'd wager most of them are set in their ways.
> Both of those things are about the same as they were in 2019, before the pandemic. If a job at McDonalds was good enough then, why isn't it good enough now?
Because people have had enough. We saw the way companies treated employees during the pandemic—that is to say, like firewood that they could burn for profit, replacing them as they went through them—and many people are no longer interested in allowing themselves to be exploited for a pittance.
It's not a terribly uncommon phenomenon for people to be in a bad situation that seems, or has been treated as, normal for a long time, but when the situation changes temporarily, find that this sort of opens their eyes to how bad it had been all along.
> the underlying business didn't suddenly become nonviable
They may have. We don't know when or if things will go back to the way they were before March 2020 and how consumer and employer behavior will change.
For example, maybe movie theaters are completely screwed. Except as a novelty, the big business chains may not survive. Universal Studios is already pushing back on theater release windows and no live-action movies are being filmed right now, and who knows for how long that lasts. Will the public feel safe enough to go back into theaters all at once before theaters run out of money as if nothing happened? I imagine some of those jobs at least are permanently gone.
Employers will probably maintain work from home and cut back on office space. All those jobs that support maintaining offices may not come back either.
I don't think the restaurant business will jump back either, people can't just restart their failed restaurant as if they didn't lose all that money they needed to keep their already slim margin business open before the pandemic.
>Unfortunately 25% at mozilla, 25% at booking, 25% at uber, 20% at linkedin, more at airbnb (obviously) shows how internal management teams are seeing revenues HUGELY shrinking.
Of course some companies will struggle during covid. There are others though that have grown and are beating their forecasts. The covid proof tech companies will absorb this talent and grow larger.
>Because we all know corporations were keeping prices and profits low before COVID because it's good for PR.
Is this the same corporations that didn't want to pay "essential workers" a living wage and/or give them reasonable hours? I find it doubtful that they turned over a new leaf during covid because it was "good for PR".
> All these companies went on crazy hiring sprees for no real reason
Management broadly assumed the pandemic boom was the new normal, but now they are sacrificing labor to placate the wrath of Wall street gods in order to keep their jobs.
> I am beyond sick of my current company pretending like everything is going to go back to normal one day.
> management has refused to accept the current situation
You don't state what country you're in, but in the US, the pandemic is effectively over. Everyone (that wants to be) is well-vaccinated, many 3 or 4x, Omicron blew through the country and left us mostly unscathed, and the news hasn't talked about daily numbers in at least two months. There is little reason to wear a mask indoors unless you want to lessen your chances of catching the flu - which is ticking up a bit.
We probably don't meet the scientific/medical definition of the end of a pandemic, but socially, we're there.
However, if you're in the US and still feeling this way, you may be suffering from some low-grade PTSD. Don't be afraid to reach out for help.
> Workers in other industries were paying a heavy price for the pandemic. But tech continued to prosper.
Is that really true? It seems to me most (though certainly not all) industries have been fairing pretty well up until now if we discount the first 2 months of the pandemic.
Large companies are handling the fallout from the pandemic better than most other American institutions, and we would be a lot worse off dealing with the coronavirus pandemic if they had been broken up.
For example, most of the US population is currently under lockdown, most local businesses are closed, and households are dependent on delivery services for many products. A weak, broken-up set of former Amazon companies would have less capacity to provide such services, or even to survive.
Right up to the moment where there isn't.
Some companies have great values, a great culture, an inspiring mission and they'll be relatively consistent in maintaining these things for quite extended periods of time: years, sometimes even decades. That's really easy to do during the good times: when you're hitting your numbers and all the trendlines are pointing upwards.
However, when things get more difficult - when there's a downturn, competitors move in, or the market simply moves on - that equation changes a lot. Sooner or later under those circumstances every business has to start making hard calls that will make it very clear to all involved that it is not a family.
We can all point to examples of businesses that have gone out of their way to look after their employees during the pandemic. But even they can't do so indefinitely (hopefully they won't have to try if the vaccination programmes work as well as we all hope). Sooner or later the values of a business will become subservient to commercial reality even if that doesn't happen to our values as individuals.
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