Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-28 Thread Quim Gil 

Just a personal opinion about "talent retention" at the WMF.

There are not many factors contributing to retention in an organization 
like this, in a context like ours:


- Tech sector is very competitive. Not even high pays, bonuses, stocks 
and perks are any assurance of keeping people around for long.
- SF Bay Area is especially crazy. Guess why LinkedIn or Glassdoor were 
founded here.
- Average age of hires: young. Retaining people in their 20s is more 
complex than retaining people in their 40s.
- High % of remote workers. I have no data but I bet this adds to the 
complexity.
- "Open source style for real" is a key factor WMF has almost like no 
other mid sized employer. I can see why many qualified professionals may 
think this is cool when being interviewed, only to realize some months 
after that they are not really made for that.
- Young & fast growing organization. Lots of hiring with time pressure 
brings a higher risk of people leaving.



Looking at the numbers is not enough. The question is: are people 
leaving the WMF happy about their time here or not? Is the first 
motivation "leaving" or going to a new exciting challenge?


One thing is if someone leaves the WMF happy about the experience, and 
that experience actually helps that person getting an interesting offer. 
A very different thing is if someone leaves frustrated, escaping to 
anything else as long as it pays the rent. Both cases would count as "1" 
in the numbers.


Do I believe we should change the factors above? Actually tech, SF, 
young, remote add radically open were very positive factors when I 
considered joining the WMF some weeks ago. I'm very happy of working in 
a place like this! I'd rather keep the HR department busy trying to 
figure out how to work in a peculiar organization like this, instead of 
trying to become a more standard org you can run by the book.


The growth factor is another thing. I wish we were at the end of a crazy 
growth curve, prioritizing consolidation, sustainability and quality 
instead. The 'Narrowing Focus' strategy points in that direction, as 
well as the fact that we just ended a fundraising campaign before the 
planned date because we had reached the objective. I'm hopeful.


PS: what if there was a parallelism with Wikipedia editors? There, like 
at the WMF, you can see trustful oldtimers still around and then many 
newcomers, but a difficulty to keep these as mid time contributors. Just 
another personal idea without any data to back it.  :)


--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-28 Thread Sage Ross 
On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Steven Zhang  wrote:
> Staff and contractors page includes Fellows...not sure about contractor and 
> such but I'm pretty sure they are put on there too.
>

The staff and contractors page includes some contractors but not all.
By default, a contractor is not added to that page unless his/her
manager requests it.

-Sage (a contractor who was not on that page until recently)

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-28 Thread Steven Zhang 
Staff and contractors page includes Fellows...not sure about contractor and 
such but I'm pretty sure they are put on there too.

Steve Zhang

Sent from my iPhone

On 29/12/2012, at 12:14 AM, Thehelpfulone  wrote:

> On 28 December 2012 10:59, Andrew Gray  wrote:
> 
>> On 28 December 2012 07:31, Matthew Roth  wrote:
>> 
 A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
 about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
 seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
 leave, but so many?
>>> 
>>> Does that include interns? I know my interns get access to Office Wiki,
>> so
>>> it might skew the numbers higher. I believe LCA has had at least 8-10 (?)
>>> interns cycle through in 2012. I've had a couple.
>> 
>> Gayle no doubt has more precise numbers, but using @wikimediaatwork I
>> count 3 Dec, 1 Oct, 2 Sep, 3 Aug, 1 July, 4 Jun, 1 May, 2 Apr, 3 Feb,
>> 1 Jan - twenty-one departures in a year, including fixed-term
>> contractors (who probably shouldn't be counted in turnover
>> discussions)
>> 
>> Whether that result is still too high or not I leave as an exercise
>> for the reader!
> 
> 
> 
> There are a few from that page that are missing if you consider the
> historyof
> the Staff and contractors page on Foundation wiki, but that could be a
> reasonable count as it excludes fellows/legal interns/comms
> interns/short-term contractors - Gayle?
> 
> -- 
> Thehelpfulone
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-28 Thread Thehelpfulone 
On 28 December 2012 10:59, Andrew Gray  wrote:

> On 28 December 2012 07:31, Matthew Roth  wrote:
>
> >> A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
> >> about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
> >> seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
> >> leave, but so many?
> >
> > Does that include interns? I know my interns get access to Office Wiki,
> so
> > it might skew the numbers higher. I believe LCA has had at least 8-10 (?)
> > interns cycle through in 2012. I've had a couple.
>
> Gayle no doubt has more precise numbers, but using @wikimediaatwork I
> count 3 Dec, 1 Oct, 2 Sep, 3 Aug, 1 July, 4 Jun, 1 May, 2 Apr, 3 Feb,
> 1 Jan - twenty-one departures in a year, including fixed-term
> contractors (who probably shouldn't be counted in turnover
> discussions)
>
> Whether that result is still too high or not I leave as an exercise
> for the reader!



There are a few from that page that are missing if you consider the
historyof
the Staff and contractors page on Foundation wiki, but that could be a
reasonable count as it excludes fellows/legal interns/comms
interns/short-term contractors - Gayle?

-- 
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http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-28 Thread Andrew Gray 
On 28 December 2012 07:31, Matthew Roth  wrote:

>> A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
>> about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
>> seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
>> leave, but so many?
>
> Does that include interns? I know my interns get access to Office Wiki, so
> it might skew the numbers higher. I believe LCA has had at least 8-10 (?)
> interns cycle through in 2012. I've had a couple.

Gayle no doubt has more precise numbers, but using @wikimediaatwork I
count 3 Dec, 1 Oct, 2 Sep, 3 Aug, 1 July, 4 Jun, 1 May, 2 Apr, 3 Feb,
1 Jan - twenty-one departures in a year, including fixed-term
contractors (who probably shouldn't be counted in turnover
discussions)

Whether that result is still too high or not I leave as an exercise
for the reader!

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread Philippe Beaudette 
It would.  And Fellows, etc.

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Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

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phili...@wikimedia.org


On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 11:31 PM, Matthew Roth  wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 9:53 PM, Tim Starling  >wrote:
>
> > On 28/12/12 12:14, Gayle Karen Young wrote:
> > >> *2d. Does WMF have "a talent retention problem" and if so what is
> being
> > >> done about this?
> > >>
> > >
> > > The short answer is "No."
> > >
> > > The simplicity of this question is a bit misleading. I don't think we
> > have
> > > a talent retention problem because we have amazing people working for
> us
> > > who have and will continue to. The reasons that people move on are
> > > sometimes but not always problematic. I think it's GOOD for people to
> > leave
> > > the organization at various points - for their own career development,
> > > because the things that were more endemic to a start-up environment
> are a
> > > little less prevalent at our stage of organizational growth, etc.
> >
> > A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
> > about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
> > seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
> > leave, but so many?
> >
>
> Does that include interns? I know my interns get access to Office Wiki, so
> it might skew the numbers higher. I believe LCA has had at least 8-10 (?)
> interns cycle through in 2012. I've had a couple.
>
> -Matthew
>
>
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Roth
> Global Communications Manager
> Wikimedia Foundation
> +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
> www.wikimediafoundation.org
> *https://donate.wikimedia.org*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread Matthew Roth 
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 9:53 PM, Tim Starling wrote:

> On 28/12/12 12:14, Gayle Karen Young wrote:
> >> *2d. Does WMF have "a talent retention problem" and if so what is being
> >> done about this?
> >>
> >
> > The short answer is "No."
> >
> > The simplicity of this question is a bit misleading. I don't think we
> have
> > a talent retention problem because we have amazing people working for us
> > who have and will continue to. The reasons that people move on are
> > sometimes but not always problematic. I think it's GOOD for people to
> leave
> > the organization at various points - for their own career development,
> > because the things that were more endemic to a start-up environment are a
> > little less prevalent at our stage of organizational growth, etc.
>
> A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
> about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
> seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
> leave, but so many?
>

Does that include interns? I know my interns get access to Office Wiki, so
it might skew the numbers higher. I believe LCA has had at least 8-10 (?)
interns cycle through in 2012. I've had a couple.

-Matthew


>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
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-- 

Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
www.wikimediafoundation.org
*https://donate.wikimedia.org*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread Tim Starling 
On 28/12/12 12:14, Gayle Karen Young wrote:
>> *2d. Does WMF have "a talent retention problem" and if so what is being
>> done about this?
>>
> 
> The short answer is "No."
> 
> The simplicity of this question is a bit misleading. I don't think we have
> a talent retention problem because we have amazing people working for us
> who have and will continue to. The reasons that people move on are
> sometimes but not always problematic. I think it's GOOD for people to leave
> the organization at various points - for their own career development,
> because the things that were more endemic to a start-up environment are a
> little less prevalent at our stage of organizational growth, etc.

A count of office.wikimedia.org account deactivations suggests that
about 59 people left the WMF in 2012, for whatever reason. To me, that
seems like a lot of people. Maybe it's occasionally good for people to
leave, but so many?

-- Tim Starling


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread Thehelpfulone 
On 28 December 2012 01:14, Gayle Karen Young  wrote:

> > *2a. How active are Board members in participating in ongoing community
> > and WMF discussions? Personally, I note that the number of board members
> > who post on Wikimedia-l and/or Meta on a weekly or monthly basis seems
> > lower than I would hope.
> >
>
> I have no way to measure this. If someone else would like to do research on
>  a % of board posts on the mailing lists or as a portion of meta, that
> would be fascinating. =
>

You may find http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Wikimedia-l.htmlto
be interesting, people with at least 5 posts in the last 9 months to
the
Wikimedia-L list. There's also
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/ for
all the mailing lists and various ways of drilling down by mailing list and
poster. Credit to Erik Zachte for creating the script which generates those
pages.

-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread Gayle Karen Young 
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 3:39 PM, ENWP Pine  wrote:

>  Gayle,
>
> Thank you for the timely announcement that you will participate in a
> January office hour on IRC.
>
> I was already contemplating writing to you in the context of some recent
> discussion on Wikimedia-l and on Meta.
>
> So, I'd like to ask you to respond to these questions on Wikimedia-l.
>
> 1. Would you please respond to James' concern that I'm quoting below?
> *
> "For those outside of the U.S.,
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm(2.8, 
> 55%) should resolve correctly. Because Glassdoor is susceptible to
> sour grapes, it is probably best read in comparison to similar nearby
> companies. For example:
> *
>
> *http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WIKIA-Reviews-E428648.htm (4.5, 100%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9079.htm (4.0, 90%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Facebook-Reviews-E40772.htm (4.6, 94%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Twitter-Reviews-E100569.htm (3.7, 56%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Apple-Reviews-E1138.htm (3.9, 82%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Oracle-Reviews-E1737.htm (3.2, 63%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intuit-Reviews-E2293.htm (3.7, 79%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Adobe-Reviews-E1090.htm (3.7, 84%)
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VMware-Reviews-E12830.htm (3.3, 63%)
>
> "I hope the Board and leadership find some way to exceed the employee
> satisfaction scores of at least one of those nine others in the coming
> year."*
>
>
I'm not sure what the concern is. Is it that we find a way to exceed the
employee satisfaction scores? If that's the concern, I'm happy to report
that the results from the employee engagement survey were positive (at the
76th percentile for positive scores against all other organizations in the
survey database, which includes 65,000 respondents from 120 companies).
When directly asked the question about the level of employee engagement
here at the Foundation, 91% of the 84 respondents (66% response rate, which
is considered reliable for survey data) responded that they felt favorably
(a 4 or 5 on the scale). I'll talk more about this during the office hours
as the results are much lengthier and complex, but suffice to say, we got
both great qualitative and quantitative data in both the survey, the focus
groups, and the myriad other forms of feedback that I have about what we
actively need to work on from a leadership perspective.

I don't pay that much attention to Glassdoor. I'm aware of it, and it's a
very limited sample and perspective.  My main concern is that it
potentially impacts recruiting. I don't believe, because I have competing
and more reliable data, that it accurately represents a picture of the
organization.


> 2. I am interested in hearing your responses to some of the comments in
> this post from someone who identifies themselves as a current employee.
> http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Wikimedia-Foundation-RVW2021047.htm
>
> Specifically, I would like to ask:
>
> *2a. How active are Board members in participating in ongoing community
> and WMF discussions? Personally, I note that the number of board members
> who post on Wikimedia-l and/or Meta on a weekly or monthly basis seems
> lower than I would hope.
>

I have no way to measure this. If someone else would like to do research on
 a % of board posts on the mailing lists or as a portion of meta, that
would be fascinating. =


> *2b. How are senior managers held accountable for making progress toward
> Strategic Plan goals such as meeting the Board-approved "critical target"
> of 200,000 active editors each month by 2015?
>
>
We're improving our practices around setting goals, setting expectations,
helping people staff appropriately for the project goals, and figure out
plans to support those goals. The complexity in here lies partly in the
fact that it's not a 1:1 correlation between do X action and get Y# of
active editors. There are a lot of intermediary variables. The short answer
here is that each of the managers DOES feel vividly accountable for
organizational performance. We're willing to have the difficult
conversations, and increasing our ability to have the conversations that
have to happen between people when we're off target.  That's part of what
went into the narrowing focus conversation.



> *2c. Are people fired "every month", and if so, what is being done in the
> way of preventative action, for example changing the hiring process to
> select people who are less likely to be fired?
>

No. People are not fired every month. I found that statement a bit
ridiculous.

Additionally, I know all the reasons people have been either let go or
chosen to move on, and there's a fairly complex mix. For instance, culture
fit is hard and some people who look great and interview well don't
necessarily fit into an organization as collaborative and transparent as we
are sometimes, or may not have capacity to deal with the

[Wikimedia-l] WMF HR and leadership questions

2012-12-27 Thread ENWP Pine 



Gayle,

Thank you for the timely announcement that you will participate in a January 
office hour on IRC.

I was already contemplating writing to you in the context of some recent 
discussion on Wikimedia-l and on Meta.

So, I'd like to ask you to respond to these questions on Wikimedia-l. 

1. Would you please respond to James' concern that I'm quoting below?

"For those outside of the U.S., 
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm (2.8, 
55%) should resolve correctly. Because Glassdoor is susceptible to sour grapes, 
it is probably best read in comparison to similar nearby companies. For example:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WIKIA-Reviews-E428648.htm (4.5, 100%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9079.htm (4.0, 90%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Facebook-Reviews-E40772.htm (4.6, 94%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Twitter-Reviews-E100569.htm (3.7, 56%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Apple-Reviews-E1138.htm (3.9, 82%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Oracle-Reviews-E1737.htm (3.2, 63%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intuit-Reviews-E2293.htm (3.7, 79%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Adobe-Reviews-E1090.htm (3.7, 84%)
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VMware-Reviews-E12830.htm (3.3, 63%)
 
"I hope the Board and leadership find some way to exceed the employee
satisfaction scores of at least one of those nine others in the coming
year."
2. I am interested in hearing your responses to some of the comments in this 
post from someone who identifies themselves as a current employee. 
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Wikimedia-Foundation-RVW2021047.htm

Specifically, I would like to ask:

*2a. How active are Board members in participating in ongoing community and WMF 
discussions? Personally, I note that the number of board members who post on 
Wikimedia-l and/or Meta on a weekly or monthly basis seems lower than I would 
hope.

*2b. How are senior managers held accountable for making progress toward 
Strategic Plan goals such as meeting the Board-approved "critical target" of 
200,000 active editors each month by 2015?

*2c. Are people fired "every month", and if so, what is being done in the way 
of preventative action, for example changing the hiring process to select 
people who are less likely to be fired?

*2d. Does WMF have "a talent retention problem" and if so what is being done 
about this?

Thank you in advance for responding to these questions.

Pine

  
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