> Jokes aside, how do you end up having more than 500 excess people than what you need?
It's actually a pretty simple risk/reward equation.
The risk of understaffing a company is greater than the risk of overstaffing a company.
If you overstaff a company, the solution is quick and easy. If you understaff a company, the solution is extremely painful and takes a very long time to fix.
E.g. it takes 1 day to fire someone, but 9 months to hire/onboard someone. So to ensure the staffing isn't a bottleneck for growth, the obvious answer is to err on the side of overstaffing.
TLDR: You need to hire and onboard people before you actually need them. If hiring and onboarding someone takes 9 months, you need to guess how many resources you'll need a year from now, and hope that your estimation is accurate. (And obviously a lot of companies over-estimated how many people they would need, hence lay offs)
It's actually a pretty simple risk/reward equation.
The risk of understaffing a company is greater than the risk of overstaffing a company.
If you overstaff a company, the solution is quick and easy. If you understaff a company, the solution is extremely painful and takes a very long time to fix.
E.g. it takes 1 day to fire someone, but 9 months to hire/onboard someone. So to ensure the staffing isn't a bottleneck for growth, the obvious answer is to err on the side of overstaffing.
TLDR: You need to hire and onboard people before you actually need them. If hiring and onboarding someone takes 9 months, you need to guess how many resources you'll need a year from now, and hope that your estimation is accurate. (And obviously a lot of companies over-estimated how many people they would need, hence lay offs)