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Netflix Algorithm Tells You When Your Best Employee Is About To Leave You
An anonymous reader writes "Former Netflix data scientist Mohammad Sabah has used the basis of the video-streaming company's movie-recommendation engine to create a new system to predict when valuable employees are likely to leave your company for pastures new. The new application 'Workday Talent Insights' uses the basis of the engine to correlate diverse factors such as interval between promotions and current length of tenure with equivalent job opportunities at employment websites, in order to gauge 'corporate restlessness', and provide options for employers who identify potential leavers."
That works for European employers, it's much harder to fire someone in general than it is in the USA.
When a manager finds out someone is leaving, one of the following happens:
1) They're fired on the spot and escorted from the building;
2) The manager tries to guilt them into staying;
3) A pathetic counter-offer is made (nevermind that the reasons for leaving may not have anything to do with compensation);
4) A significant counter-offer is made (usually intended to keep the worker there just long enough to hire a replacement).
Occasionally what you describe happens. It's rare in my experience. Look at it from the employer's point of view; to this point in the employee's time there, they have been able to do pretty much whatever they want w/r/t the worker. No binding job descriptions, arbitrary re-assignment, (for exempt employees) forcing them to work 60, 70, 80 hour weeks with no extra pay, making them do the work of three people for a single salary, etc etc etc. The playing field is heavily tilted in their favor. So, it comes as a shock and an insult when the employee exercises the one right that US workers really have: They can quit. How DARE they! Don't they know that the company will only make 6 bazillion dollars instead of 6.5 if they leave? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE SHAREHOLDERS!
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
If 70% of your salary is not enough to make ends meet, you are living well beyond your means.
If 70% of your salary is not enough to make ends meet, you are living well beyond your means.
Most states cap that - Mine caps it at just about $350/week. That doesn't even cover my mortgage.
underwear is for suckers
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
At-will means two things:
1) They can fire you with no notice and no reason at any time.
2) You can quit and walk out with no notice and no stated reason at any time.
On paper, that seems fair. However, it's tilted in the employer's favor because most of the time losing a job is much worse for the employee than it is for the employer.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
With the exception of companies that treat employees so abusively that they just leave in the middle of the afternoon in a torrent of obscenities, for the most part it works as follows:
Employee finds a new job. Employee gives two weeks notice (or more, sometimes). Employer escorts employee off the premises immediately and pays them for two weeks of "vacation".
or...
Employee gets called to a random meeting. On entering, employee sees his manager, one HR person, and possibly one random middle-management "witness" (point #1 - If you ever encounter this situation, immediately demand to have your own witness present, because they legally can and will lie to you about every materially relevant aspect of the ensuing discussion). They hand employee a pile of papers, ask for a bunch of signatures (point #2 - You have no obligation to sign a damned thing, this counts as your last bit of leverage to negotiate for things like prolonged severance, and some of it, such as anticompetes, you do not ever want to sign at an exit interview no matter what they offer you). Employer escorts employee off the premises immediately and pays them for two weeks (or as negotiated) of severance pay.
And yes, for any European friends reading this, that counts as the norm in most of the US. Companies really only deviate from that script in one situation - They so desperately need the employee that the employee actually leaving would temporarily cripple a significant portion of the company. In that case, they play nice and pretend to let you stick around for an extra two weeks - Meanwhile, your computer access drops to the point that you can't do anything but play solitaire (if even that), and you suddenly have a shadow ostensibly there to "facilitate" your knowledge dump (because rookies from security make excellent facilitators, of course).