Slashdot Mirror
Intel Offers "Unsigning Bonuses"
Ratteau writes: "Forbes is running a story about an innovative method Intel is using to deal with the economic slowdown. Everybody has heard about cutting jobs, but what about the people that had been hired, given signing bonuses, and were to start in the future? Intel is giving them money to forget the whole thing (although there is nothing that says if they refuse, they wont be laid off the day they get there...) If I were a current employee, it would certainly make me feel good to know that they weren't going to cut me just to get cheaper labor in the door."
Intel does not ask for a mutual 1 year contract, in fact I've never heard of a company that actually does. Most new employees are hired on a probationary basis; if you are unable to perform during your probationary period, you will be let go. Most companies do have contracts regarding signing bonuses and relocation, for instance, if you join a company and leave within a year you have to pay back your signing bonus and relocation fees (or at least a prorated portion thereof).
As far as the job being gone, sure, it would suck. But what would happen if you'd accepted a job at, say, Intel's Internet Media Services, and that group was shut down (as it was in January or February). You show up for work in June/July, and frankly, the job just isn't there any more. The company could try to place you in another job internally, but you're actually competing against a fairly large pool of experienced engineers who also came from the same group. If I'm a hiring manager and my choice is a fresh-out-of-school grad with no real experience, or an engineer with several years of experience, I can tell you who I'm going to be interested in hiring.
All in all, this is a fairly generous offer. It gives new hires who would have had to immediately start looking for a job within the company an opportunity to look elsewhere.
Will this lock us into the "salaryman" situation? No, I don't think so. The salaryman is created by a culture where extreme loyalty to a company is expected, and similarly that corporate loyalty to the employee for his entire life is expected. That situation doesn't exist in the US. When the economy improves, jobs will be available, and people will be moving all over the place, opportunities will be available, and things will improve. Right now we need to get through the .com hangover, and get back to reasonable levels of growth (and business plans that actually make sense).
On a similar bent, a year or so ago there were lots of conversations on Slashdot about "what should a young nerd do". Basically, should he go to college, or just try to get a high-paying job as a sysadmin at a high-flying .com. How do people feel about that decision/dicussion now?
Here's what's happening at the company where I work (and I've heard of it happening at Intel too):
There's a quarterly review process and an associated ranking process (many companies have adopted this in recent years). I know that where I work they're looking at the bottom 5% of the rankings and they have given the folks in that catagory notice that if they don't shape up by the end of the quarter that they're shipping out.
This is effectively a form of layoff in a company which has a 'no-layoff' policy. It's cost effective; you don't need to pay any kind of severance package. What tends to happen is that if you end up in the bottom 5% bin it's kind of expected that you will quit since even if you do improve your performance substantially you'll always be under a cloud of suspicion.
Now, sure some folks will say "serves 'em right! If they're slackers they should be out of there!". Maybe so, but everybody's had a bad quarter or two sometime or other, haven't they? A quarter where things you tried just didn't work out, a quarter when you were depressed for some reason or other and it effected your productivity, a quarter where you had a disagreement with your manager. In recent years you didn't have to worry too much about that sort of thing, but now that the economy is slow companies are taking this opportunity to use this 'unlayoff' tactic.
I interned for Intel a couple of years ago (and also had a fulltime offer last winter until I decided to go to grad school), and I heard an interesting take on Intel's whole hiring scheme from a couple of employees. They said that if Intel needs 3 engineers, they'll hire 7 knowing that 4 will probably burn out in a couple of years. But the other 3 will advance quickly up the chain of command. Perhaps if they would simply change this policy (hire less people initially), they wouldn't have this problem. As for me, I don't know what decision I would have made had I decided to accept Intel's offer. I guess it would depend on the size of the buyout and whether I could find something else. Damn, I picked a good time to go to grad school ;-).
I have seen a number of articles about this in the tech press recently. Clearly most of the people writing (and reading) these articles are too young to remember the 1980's, much less the 1970's. This kind of thing was quite common at all kinds of large companies in the 80's when the economy was swooping up and down.
10 years of continuous growth was pretty neat, but I hope no one was deluded into thinking the businss cycle had gone away?
sPh
This practice is directed more at keeping the placement offices at large colleges happy than it is at keeping employees (or un-employees!) themselves happy.
During the 80's the several large employers were threatened with being banned from recruiting at leading engineering schools due to their practice of retracting accepted offers. Since being banned from, say, an MIT would be a bad thing when the economy starts back up, the practice arose of paying off the un-recruits to keep them from screaming back to the placement office.
sPh
"If I were a current employee, it would certainly make me feel good to know that they weren't going to cut me just to get cheaper labor in the door."
/less/ than what you're being paid. If your boss takes you in his office to explain "the hard choice", offer to take a pay cut, a massive one even. This is what any labor supplier with half a brain will do in a "recession" (which we're not having, BTW), because having a job with less pay is better than having no job at all, tenfold so when jobs are scarce.
;)
This is silly. If you're going to be cut, it means that, at least in management's eyes, what you're producing for the company has become worth
The "downward stickiness" of wages is responsible for much of the unemployment that comes with periods of economic malaise. If more workers took this approach, recessions would be less severe, and recoveries more rapid. And it doesn't take an economist to figure it out
MoNsTeR
I thought that MS Visual C++ would use Clippit:
"I see that you are converting from signed to unsigned. Would you like for me to show you what that will affect and how you will have to change your code? Do ya? Huh? Do ya, do ya? Come on! Let me help."
It's a nice gesture to keep the employees happy, but in the end anyone buying an Intel based machine will pay for Intel's goodwill.
Will this push Intel prices up, or at least keep them floating high?
Trolling is a art,
IBM found this out during the last recession, when all their best minds accepted the voluntary quit bonus and got a new job the next day.
...and has ZERO affect on anything 99.999999999% of the people use...
So you are saying that the error affected fewer than 1 person per 10 billion (10^11)? I think you are way off here...
Obviously, it affected at least one person - the fellow that was doing some pretty intensive graphing and noticed some spikes where he did not expect any. True, his usage was unusual, but I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect that the error affected dozens of people (at least). What would be a high number for the P5 chips in use at that time? Probably less than 100 million, I'm sure.
Using ten people affected, and 100 million users, that gives us 1000 people per 10 billion.
I think, sir, that you are surely off by a factor of 1000 in your assertion.
A dingo ate my sig...
So, I guess this is good for current employee's but do we risk falling into the salaryman syndrom that Japan is suffering from right now. Current employees are locked in their jobs, but fresh blood is kept out. Will this limit innovation in the long term?
Plus as someone just about to graduate, I would be pissed if I lost the job that I have been promised and have been counting on for the last months.
-------------------------------END--COMMUNICATION
You're right about he blue collar sorts not being offered this kind of package, but I suspect that you're wrong about the reasons. In general, these sort of openings don't involve an offer letter being extended several months before the expected start date. These kind of arrangements really only happen with professional jobs when it is difficult to fill a position immediately. If I need a custodian, or secretary, or groundskeeper I can put an ad in the paper and hire one who will start next week. If that doesn't work out I'll call a temp agency and they will find someone for me. In a booming economy however, you can't do that with people like accountants and engineers. The best way to hire them in is to get them signed up in the winter and have them start when they graudate from college in the spring.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Most companies hire new graduates and insist on a mutual 1 year contract.
Are most of them mutual? I worked for my last employer for two months before getting canned in a big round of layoffs. I would have had to repay them for my relocation expenses if I had left on my own before a year was up, but there was nothing going the other way. They didn't owe me anything relating to that bonus, but they also didn't get it back. My new employer has a similar deal. I got a moderate signing bonus that I have to pay back if I quit, but they aren't obligated to keep me around for that year.
But gcc prints out a warning when I try to convert from signed to unsigned!
The shareholder is always right.
I guess its nice to see a change for the positive every once and a while. :-)
ÕÕ
ÕÕ
There was an article on the affect of losing company loyalty on the bottom line. Layoffs have a tremendous affect on loyalty, especially at a company like Intel. If you lay people off to avoid a short-term profit shortfall (and therefore are just propping up the stock price), you show people that they don't matter.
In this case, Intel isn't being a slime and rescinding offers (which can kill you at college recruiting, schools may ban you for a few years), and is offering to give them their signing bonus for NOT joining the firm. The recruit is happy (free money), the employees are happy (they aren't cutting staff to make way for the new people b/c of the intricacies of recruiting), and hopefully the company avoids burning money).
The short-term layoff strategy helps you in the short term, but alienates employees whose friends were let go. If you get fired for incompetance, etc., nobody feels for you. If you get let go because the company wants to keep its stock price up, that doesn't make the other employees feel valuable.
Regardless of Intel's other issues with employees, this move is a nice one.
Go Intel, you're being less slimy than a lot of companies I know.
Alex
Did you read the article? The people being given "unsigning bonuses" never worked at Intel. They are people who were recruited, signed an employment contract, were given signing bonuses, and haven't yet started working. The unsigning bonus is for them to forget about the employment contract because Intel overestimated their growth and recruited more people than they needed. It doesn't say anything about current employees leaving.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
If you find a new job right after you get fired at the old one, a simple new H1B-application (not the approval) will keep you in-status.
And apart from that, it seems the INS has some new policies about treating H1B-layoffed that still hang around in the country.
<grub> Reading
As someone who has done a lot of college recruiting and interviewing I will say that the statement of a one year contract is not typical of most large companies. "At Will" contracts are the standard for companies that recruit out of colleges, and in general really.
Untaken paid vacation time is a liability on the corporate balance sheet. Mandatory vacation time reduces the overall amount of it, hence improves the bottom line.
Secondarily, taking vacation time (years) later implies that the company will have to pay more, because of intervening raises.
This is part of why companies limit the total amount of vacation time an employee can accrue.
Wow! An Un-Signing Bonus!
What a great idea! I should go back to all of those places that have interviewed me in the past!
"I'm here to collect my unsigning bonus."
"What are you talking about? We only give signing bonuses to people we hire."
"Exactly. I looked at your business model and long-range profit expectations, and I want my unsigning bonus for thankfully not having to work here."
Thank you Intel. This is an idea that fits the New-New Economy perfectly.
Wouldn't want the budget to overheat...
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
This is INTEL we're talking about. Intel wrote the book on exploiting technical labor.
Take a look at FACE, Former and Current Employees of Intel. There are horror stories on the FACE site that I won't even go into. Suffice it to say, though, that Intel hires the cheapest pakistanis available, and treats their employees like crap.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
MG
Randomly distributing Karma whenever possible.
I can see where you would get that idea. However, if you read the article, as I did before submitting it, you will see that that very issue is addressed.
From the article: Although the company says employees offered the buyout are still welcome to show up on the agreed-upon start date, they could still be fired the very same day.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
There are a number of us who listen to Harris Miller, President, Information Technology Assocation of America tell the Congress that "425,000 job will remain unfilled during 2001." I (and many others on /.) wrote Mr. Miller asking him to convey our desire to take a shot at some of those 425,000 jobs.
I sent that letter on 2 April. I have yet to hear from Mr. Miller, the ITAA, any of the 2,500 member companies, or any headhunter about any of those 425,000 job positions.
How about you, Mr. Anonymous Coward? Do you really want to find qualified people? If so, drop a line -- I don't hide behind an AC name. In fact, to make it easy, here is my e-mail address in easily-clickable form.
When was the last time Intel hired a technical person in the over-40 age group? When was the last time you did?
If I was going to uproot myself and move across time zones, country borders, or even just 50-100 miles, I would REALLY appreciate it if the employer was upfront and honest me about my future with the company. I would MUCH rather be given the un/non-signing option instead of packing up and moving, only to find myself with a pink slip few months later. I think this saves their HR/Legal department some headache -- and to the employee as well... Dunno why ya'll are so angry about this... ...seems like a good move... it doesn't make me think of them as a wonderful company -- just a company with some rational sense.
...but hey, that's just me.
Particularly affected are the foreign VISA employees... They have to re-apply for their worker's VISA every time they get laid off...
It was a pretty sweet deal. I left the meeting extremely happy.
Intel has done things like this before. The money is just a way to stop lawsuits. Remember, a lot of these people might have quit their old jobs in preparation to work at Intel.
They're unemployed, and need to find a new job now because of Intel's decision. If I wasn't compensated, i'd most likely sue for my lost wages during that time.
Since I'm still mulling a career of not raising cattle, cotton or corn, I guess I could agree to not work at Intel for pocket money.
Pull my finger for my public key.
Its a nice approach for Intel to go this route. The market is hurting, and many companies paid top dollar to get some top people from the field into their company, which hurts them in the long run to let them go, have business return to normal, then have to go back out and look for top talent.
By Intel doing this, they save face in the eyes of employees, and who's to say that when the market rebounds, Intel may need some of those people back. So ask yourself, if a company just chooped you, but wanted to rehire you, you'd likely be reluctant to return, but if a company that let you go, with an option like this stating "Look the market is bad, we appreciate you, but cannot afford you at this point, here is X amount of dollars." you'd definitely think about it.
This was one of the big problems with dot.dom's I saw when I went to sillycone valley last year, too many top people having to jump around from site to site, for whatever reason, I'd bank on Intel rehiring some in the future should the market get better for them, and I bank on some people returning as well.
360 degrees of Karma
The Immigration and Naturalization Service appears to be giving a break to foreign tech employees with H-1B visas who have been laid off.
This is coming as a pleasant surprise to just about everybody it affects.
Acknowledging the "turbulent time in the tech industry," an INS official said her agency will not force H-1B visa holders to leave the country if they haven't found new employment within 10 days of being terminated.
"We are going to let things slide," agency spokeswoman Eyleen Schmidt said.
In fact, that 10-day deadline may not even exist at all. Nowhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 -- and its amendments, which contain H-1B provisions -- is there any language that stipulates a timeframe in which a terminated employee must leave the country before the visa expires.
read on
pimped BlackBox themes
360 degrees of Karma
I think it's probably only the professionals being given breaks like this. The average support worker -- secretaries, maintenance, accountants, etc -- will probably never see them. Reason? Intel is trying to protect its "talent pool" for the future, and the market considers these kinds of workers a commodity, not "talent".
Is located here, at Slate.com. It discusses how this is a way to artificially increase apparent attrition without screwing over as many current employees as it would if it had to fire 5000 people.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Employment contracts with Intel are "at will" - meaning that the employer *or* the employee is able to terminate the employment at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. This is noted in the article as well.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
Oh yeah? I work at Intel and overheard the following:
Intel manager #1: Let's send this kid from CMU $10k to stay away.
Intel manager #2: But he's damn good.
Intel manager #1: So is this guy. He's from Caltech.
Intel manager #2: Really? Caltech huh?
Intel manager #1: Yeah. Calcutta Tech.
--
I am graduating from Virginia Tech in two weeks and i was hired by Cisco to start thier Associate Systems Engineer program in October. They called me up last week and said, "Due to current economic....", but they are giving me 12 weeks salary. At $55,000 that is a nice settlement. Hopefully they will call me back later this year.