Would It Work to Reward Obsolescence?
I was talking with a friend today about “working yourself out of a job”. In many cases, there is a conflict of interest for someone to make their job more efficient, automated or obsolete because it will result in losing their job. Only the most enlightened and noble of people are going to take one for the team like that.
This reminded me of a popular slide show going around these days from Netflix that outlines the culture they would like to develop. In the portion where they talk about how they value high performing individuals, it says:
adequate performance gets a generous severance
In other words, adequate performers should be fired, so that a star performer can be hired in their place. And, the generous severance* should be offered because, as CEO Reed Hastings says, “otherwise managers feel too guilty to let someone go”.
Combined, an idea was born: what if you told your employees that if they worked themselves out of a job that you would guarantee their employment for some period of time thereafter, so that they could find another job (in the company or elsewhere).
For example, say to your employees, “if you automate your job so that it’s obsolete, thereby saving us the headcount cost, we will guarantee your employment for six months. During that time you can find a new job at our company, or look for job elsewhere.” Obviously, the employees who succeed at this will most likely be retained by the company. As an employer, these would be just the type of people I would want on my team.
Thoughts? Do you think that would work? What are the drawbacks to a policy like that?
* – Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to determine just how much severance Netflix offers, but I did find a document that says executives are paid for 9 months.