Anyone hiring at the moment?

[Ovid]

----- Original Message ----

> From: Roger Burton West <roger at firedrake..org>
> 
> >Frustrating, really. There's plenty of evidence (there's a William Whyte study 
> that I can't find a link to right now) that large-scale moves like this fail 
> dramatically.
> 
> Unless the objective is to sack everyone and hire cheaper people in the
> new place, of course. (Which it probably isn't in this case, but it
> certainly has been with other companies.)


The existing literature I've read on the topic make it clear that this generally isn't the plan, but is what winds up happening as people either refuse to move or leave the company after they move once they realize they don't like how things are going/where they've moved to.  As a result, these companies repeatedly lose tons of business knowledge which is locked away in the employee's heads.

And I've found a reference to one of the sources of this information:  http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/OfficeNewYork.html

Other articles I've read deal extensively with large companies in the US relocating to other environments and failing dramatically because they *can't* effectively deal with the loss of business knowledge.

Deliberately firing employees and moving is such a stupid idea that it borders on willful negligence.

Cheers,
Ovid
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