The USA seems to have an unhealthy obsession with pre-emptive everything nowadays. First it’s a foreign defence policy predicated on pre-emptive action. And now it’s pre-emptive quitters. Say, weren’t you the country that gave us “Minority Report”, lecturing us on the dangers of pre-emption (at least, that’s what I think it said … forgive me, my attention was focused on Tom Cruise’s nose. I’m shallow like that)? So what’s with Google lately?

In case you haven’t heard, Google have developed an algorithm that identifies quitters before they resign. According to the Wall Street Journal and The Age:

Google examined data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories to try to identify which of its 20,000 employees were most likely to leave the California-based company.

Having worked in the USA, I know that once you walk past those office doors, the company owns every skerrick of employment-related piece of data that pertains to you, so I’m not surprised that they even did this. However, I am surprised by Edward Lawler, director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California, who is quoted in the WSJ article as saying Google is “clearly ahead of the curve” in taking “a more quantitative approach” to personnel decisions.

Good grief! Hasn’t this been one of the major problems in this world? The trumpeting of the quantitative over the qualitative? Since when is taking a “quantitative approach” to human beings a better thing? It’s certainly a simpler thing. A thing that looks good in presentations. A number that can make a manager angling for a promotion look damn fine. But “ahead of the curve”? I doubt that.

Recent Predator drone strikes in Pakistan have killed over 600 people. (Fact) The Pentagon estimates that the number of al-Qaeda operatives killed in such a way has been 7% of the total casualties. (Fact) That’s taking the quantitative approach to something. The military and governments of the world do it all the time to obscure very real human suffering, and it’s vile and pernicious and dehumanising.

If I am the manager of someone, then it’s my job to know whether someone is dissatisfied with their work. Reducing a skill of people management and motivation to a damn algorithm (and I say that being a lover of algorithms) is one of the most heinous things I’ve ever heard of. And here’s a newsflash. Not everything in the world can be reduced to numbers.

Let’s say I have a boring job, have not had a promotion in years, no pay raise, and feel I’ve been under-appreciated. According to Google, I’m going to leave. However, I am looking after an invalid parent and have three small children. Am I going to leave? Maybe. I may either have really had enough … or I may figure that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

But then I win a lottery jackpot. Am I going to leave? Maybe. I may try a life of leisure and hire help for my parent and a nanny for my children … or I may try investing it all and keep going to work because that’s the only place I have friends.

But then I go to the casino on the weekend and blow it all at the blackjack table. Am I going to leave? Maybe. Easy come, easy go, and it’s off to work I go on Monday … or I may decide that this is really the straw that broke the camel’s back and it’s going to empower me to give my old company the boot.

And so how, pray tell, given the plethora of permutations that make up our lives, is Google’s thin slice of knowledge of me via its HR records going to determine the correct answer at any given time? However, what bothers me more about the Google algorithm is not so much that it will identify potential quitters, but that the real agenda is to pre-emptively identify those who are “dissatisfied” and put those people on the A-list when the inevitable cycle of “restructuring” cuts rolls around. It’s an easy way out, you see. Why bother trying to make the workplace better when you can just get rid of the ones most likely to be unproductive?

I’d say, thank dogs I don’t work for Google, except I have the feeling that such unmitigated trash (and you know how high-level managers love trash dressed as “a decision-making tool”) will become part of every company’s arsenal in the near future (thus netting Google some additional licensing revenue, I’m sure). And don’t even think of being honest with your manager during your next performance review. That way lies the pink slip. Thanks again, America!