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   Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:38 JST Anil

   This thread is from a larger-context conversation about why some tech workers choose to work for giants like Google; Justin details their experience in systemic failures with healthcare and benefits at a startup. Since I was CEO of that startup, it’s worth sharing the insights I got into how these systems fail, in hopes that other workers (and well-intentioned managers) can avoid replicating these problems and sparing people pain. https://twitter.com/modernserf/status/1610702219149557762

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     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:33 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @anildash A thing that is kind of glaringly missing in the above thread is unionization, collective labour power, and pushing for real political change in solidarity with workers in other parts of the economy.

     It's only going to be more important going forward.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:34 JST Anil

     in reply to

     A few lessons for managers:
     * HR systems are optimized for convenience of management, meaning they shortchange marginalized workers _by default_
     * HR culture is defined by people who _like_ those systems, and now often led by execs who resent their own workers, so resistance to improvements is often deep & pervasive
     * One of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made as a leader was speaking to how we *wanted* a system to serve our workers without fiercely interrogating the risk of masked problems

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:34 JST Anil

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     For workers, a few bits of advice:
     * Culture of leadership and the values of the organization _do_ matter, but always verify with the actual experience of the people working on the specific team you’ll be joining
     * We often say “HR is not your friend” to workers who are having issues at work, and that’s valid, but it’s good to understand _why_ that is true in so many orgs.
     * Even if an organization _is_ addressing problems, make your decisions about your career based on your current real needs.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:35 JST Anil

     in reply to

     The most pertinent thing that amplified the challenge here is that our workforce got significantly more diverse *while* we were trying to improve these systems. What had primarily been a fairly homogenous old-school tech company over the prior 15 years was quickly a lot more inclusive, but that exposed all the weak points around key benefits like health care even more acutely. The most vulnerable bore the worst brunt. Small companies in particular have atrociously poor choices and little power.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:35 JST Anil

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     I wanted to share this story because I think many of us who care about the human impact of working in the tech industry intuitively know that the vulnerable get hurt by our systems. We hear the anecdotes from those we care about & we understand their stories. But few in positions of power can articulate _how_ they fail, even though there are (for now) managers & execs who genuinely do want to get it right. Many workers are going to have to reckon with similar concerns in the near term.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:35 JST Anil

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     The answer can’t just be “go to big tech companies with world-class HR systems”, because those companies routinely harm vulnerable workers in other ways, and their leadership is being taken over by increasingly radicalized extremist execs. One way of improving things in other orgs may be if we can share insights into how to make things run better. I have a few lessons I’ve learned, and would encourage people to talk to those who’ve been affected by these failures, in order to learn more.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:36 JST Anil

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     In this particular case, while I knew there were gaps, I underestimated how a small (but quickly-growing) organization could mask these failures. This was often due to miscommunication, but to be sure there were people who actively obscured the ways the system was failing workers because they question the norms of tech industry benefits. This kind of risk will increase hugely in the industry as the tech execs become more pointedly anti-worker in the Musk Twitter era.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:37 JST Anil

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     That’s the abstract description. In real terms, it meant that the lived experience of our workers was that their benefits were *worse* while we were putting in more time (and cost) to try to make them better. And if things are worse for you while a company says they’re trying to do better, most people don’t care if the cause is dishonesty or incompetence. It just sucks. It causes real pain.

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     Anil (anildash@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jan-2023 23:46:38 JST Anil

     in reply to

     First, as background context, when I took over as CEO of Fog Creek (later Glitch), the company had long claimed to offer innovative benefits; in the context of the turn of the century, they likely *were* more generous in offering complete coverage of many kinds of care. But the state of the art in benefits in the tech industry advanced and having a bespoke benefits system made every common task harder, slower, more complicated and nonstandard.