#changemanagement

Did any one notice the recent changes for HR? Is this the sign for the next reorg for the company as whole? (I know most parts of the company is currently or just finished their reorg)

Houston is modernizing the buildings based on the San Ramon model and we promise you will only move to the unassigned model in a modernized space. You’re going to love it.

What is the mood knowing they broke that commitment and are now awkwardly and cowardly backtracking by possibly bringing the Hess building into play?

Btw, MN was the decider to force everyone into unassigned. Now RB is trying to clean up his mess.

In the news: Mr. Clean himself has been retired. Rumor has it Dan is in talks to bring him on board to help clean house. An professional of his stature would be a useful asset in facilitating the serious cleanout Vz requires. It is doubtful however that he will come along at a low cost.

Firstly in sales you have to believe in what you sell, for me unquestionably Opentext are a leader in the information management space , and we should have full confidence in telling that story to our customers.

The old adage of no one got fired for going with IBM(poignant with new CEO), for me is the narrative that we should be using at OT(we are big enough to carry this)but we need help with messaging, let's get crisp and slick with this.

I know there has been change in marketing(needed) how did we get to the point of having a few fancy dress Teddy bears, dressed up involved in our core messaging(this is embarrassing) . We are talking about a small group of people who were paid millions of dollars per annum, and that is the best they could do, surely someone must have thought wtf is this!!

It is time to get serious, we all know change is a foot. I am in a non core part of the business and could be gone next quarter(this core /noncore needs boxed of ASAP, horrible for morale) but I wouldn't hold that against OT if I left the business, that is the world we live in. If iam here and I hope I am, let's get our ** together and start working together.

Looks like evicore is def getting hit again on 2/12. They sent an all hands this am changing the process for terminating an employee. Sounds like they are trying to streamline the process jeez.

When senior executives leave, the change rarely stops there.

Leadership shifts reset strategy, trust, and expectations. That reset naturally moves to the director level.

Directors are visible. They execute strategy and often carry the imprint of the leadership that promoted them. In transitions, that association matters.

The signs are familiar. New operating rhythms. More focus on accountability. Questions about why work exists, not just how fast it moves.

This does not always lead to exits. Sometimes it shows up as stalled growth, role changes, or sudden performance narratives.

What many miss is that this is not about personalities or praise. It is about how large organizations actually operate. Leadership change is a business process, not a sentiment exercise. It also exposes a harder truth. Many people in senior roles never fully understood the business to begin with.

Titles offer little protection in these moments. Alignment does.

Executive exits make the headlines.
The real change happens one level down.

Following are brief recommendations on how Managers may approach Strategic Realignment discussions with associates:

1. Opening Remarks (Smile, but not too much)

• “Thank you all for joining today’s discussion about our exciting next phase.”
• “This initiative is part of our commitment to agility, efficiency, and other words that sound positive but mean ‘change is coming.’”
• “I want to reassure you that this is not a layoff. It is a realignment. The difference is mostly semantic, but Legal insists we say it.”

1. Key Messages to Deliver (Without Laughing)
   A. “We are evolving as an organization.”
   This means:
   We are eliminating roles, but we’re calling it evolution so it sounds like nature’s fault.
   B. “We are aligning talent with business needs.”
   This means:
   Some of you are no longer aligned with the business.
   Or the business is no longer aligned with you.
   Either way, alignment is ending.
   C. “We are optimizing our global footprint.”
   This means:
   Your job is moving to a place where the company pays people in gratitude and snacks.
   D. “We are committed to transparency.”
   This means:
   We will tell you everything we can, except the things we can’t, which are most things.

2. How to Answer Employee Questions (Without Actually Answering)
   Q: “Is my job safe?”
   A: “Great question. What I can say is that every role is being evaluated for future alignment.”
   (Translation: No.)
   Q: “Why did my performance rating drop?”
   A: “We’re using a new calibration model to ensure fairness and consistency.”
   (Translation: We needed numbers.)
   Q: “Why didn’t we issue a WARN notice?”
   A: “We are fully compliant with all regulations and are executing changes in a phased, thoughtful manner.”
   (Translation: We sliced the layoffs into tiny pieces like a corporate ninja.)
   Q: “Why is my role moving to Pune?”
   A: “We’re leveraging global centers of excellence to maximize efficiency.”
   (Translation: Labor arbitrage.)
   Q: “Why do I have to return to the office when my team is remote?”
   A: “RTO strengthens collaboration and culture.”
   (Translation: Attrition tool.)

3. Tone Guidance (HR Requires This Section)

• Be empathetic, but not so empathetic that employees think you can help them.
• Be supportive, but not so supportive that employees think you know what’s going on.
• Be confident, but not so confident that employees think you’re safe either.
• Avoid humor, unless it’s the unintentional kind created by corporate jargon.

1. Phrases You Must Use (Even If They Make No Sense)

• “Future‑ready workforce”
• “Talent optimization”
• “Cross‑functional agility”
• “Global alignment”
• “Strategic redeployment”
• “Enhanced operational cadence”
• “Employee‑centric transition pathways”
• “Right‑sizing for long‑term success”
  (Note: Do not use the word “layoff.” HR will appear behind you like a ghost.)

1. Phrases You Must Avoid (At All Costs)

• “Layoff”
• “Firing”
• “Job elimination”
• “Cost‑cutting”
• “Offshoring”
• “WARN Act”
• “Unemployment insurance”
• “My badge didn’t work this morning either”

1. Closing Script (Read Slowly, With Forced Optimism)

• “I want to thank each of you for your continued dedication during this exciting period of transformation.”
• “We are confident that this realignment will position us for long‑term success.”
• “Please check Workday for updates to your role, location, reporting structure, job title, and employment status.”
• “If you have questions, please reach out to HR. They have been fully briefed on how to not answer them.”

1. Manager Reminder
   If anyone asks you a question you don’t know how to answer, simply say:
   “We’re still finalizing details.”
   This phrase is legally safe, emotionally neutral, and universally applicable.

Serious question: does anyone else feel like we’re past the ‘planning’ phase and already in the ‘waiting for the shoe to drop’ phase?

Big leadership announcements, but no full org charts below first line, no clear direction, and oddly few real comms.

Feels familiar.

• Michael Fiddelke, who started at Target as a finance intern, takes over the top job at the retailer on Sunday.
• He must deal with declining sales and civil unrest in Minneapolis, the city where Target is based.
• The company's outgoing CEO will stay on as executive chairman, raising questions about how much change is possible.

https://www.businessinsider.com/target-ceo-michael-fiddelke-thrown-into-crisis-mode-day-one-2026-1

With all the changes I thought this board would be active.

There is something in water brewing with the IBM connection. I found it quite strange IBM speaking at the kick off given the past relationship. It looks quite clear the new CEO has been brought into to facilitate a takeover of some sort by IBM, clears the decks of what they don't want and make the takeover/transition easier and cleaner. He looks a safe pair of hands that IBM trust, there is simply no other reason you would give a man closer to retirement and has been semi retired for a number of years this gig.

It was essentially ignored in the earnings call, but it was on the slides. Expectation of captured Lexmark synergies and continuing project Reinvention. Together, each drives layoffs.

One example, a software used by Lexmark is chosen instead of one used by legacy Xerox. Software cost savings are achieved, but the people managing the legacy solution? Bye bye headcount. This applies to Reinvention as well, as we have seen over the last year with layoffs.

Let the unfettered McKinsey begin. Get that efficiency ration down now. Layoffs anyone,

OOM-2's in L3 and L4 Stores will swicth to OOM-3 positions, L-5 stores will not have a CCA but wil have an OOM-3 only if they also have a GGT. That will be decided by a HSA.

Severance for 2026 has anyone heard any changes to the current plan?

Spotify was a broken model to begin with especially in Fidelity.

But What's the inside story on how they realized this agile model is not working in Tech. After spending millions over the years on all change.

New Geo's coming soon
!!!

What will happen with CS? As APLA will sure to cease.

Dan, you have taken the pledge, have an obligation, thus to be resilient and NOT RUTHLESS.

Outage, valuable 2026 lesson(s) learnt, difficult as-is, thus formulate a to-be "savvy and realistic" turnaround strategy.

Mission (make it better): Customers first and then employees second!!!

Goal (image is everything): Do not allow the competition to eat and take Verizon's lunch.

Irony (sorrow): Wednesday's Outage, formerly Hans the network SME and also formerly Shank (Shankar) the IT SME, causes and effect??

The layoffs and reorganizations are a distraction and targeted to ki-l the old SAP business streams and make way for the future - Palantir becoming the most important service provider in Europe with the help of SAP.

CK recently sent an email to everyone explaining why AI is the top priority and all 5 OKRs on the SAP leadership level have AI in them. What he failed to mention that SAP is diverting their internal resources away from the core businesses such as ERP to focus on the immediate demand from Plantir and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Palantir is already an SAP partner.
https://www.sap.com/partners/find/palantir.html

However, there was never a time when SAP doubled down its entire engineering effort to satisfy one single partner. I won't share each of the 5 OKRs publicly. But if you look into each OKR and their overlap with the requests from Palantir, you will be surprised. The entirety of Sovreign cloud features are to support the U.S. Department of Defense and its supplier base.

Joule is synonymous with the Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform where SAP just builds features that Palantir needs. Like AIP, Joule is supposed to focus on a relatively user friendly GUI for AI agents with a focus on low code / no code. It is to be given access to all customer data and also private SAP employee data. Even the interface of Joule mirrors AIP and it has the action-driven logic and automation in the code structure.

In internal emails, CK asked for focus on some critical industries for Joule. It is the same list that Palantir advertises on their AIP website.
https://www.palantir.com/platforms/aip/

In 2026 Q1 several employees in the top management will 'quit' because of the change in direction for the 2026 strategy. Signavio Process Mining is actually developing features that can be sued by Palantir's Foundry Process Mining & Automation platform.

I understand why a company would shift focus on AI features. But I don't understand why SAP is changing their entire strategy to accommodate for everything asked by a single SAP partner - Palantir. Seamless connectivity between Palantir and SAP Business Data Cloud was the first step. And now the executive board's decision is that the development in 2026 and 2027 will effectively ensure interoperability between Joule and AIP and allow for effective bidirectional data access.

Palantir is unable to get adequate access to European government, industry and civilian data and they plan to get this access through SAP. For this, Palantir is working on HyperAuto, which serves as the dedicated integration bridge connecting SAP’s core systems into Palantir Foundry and AIP.

You know which company worked closely with Palantir before SAP? Airbus. Palantir literally powers Airbus's digital twins via Skywise, currently used by more than half of Airbus Commercial employees giving Palantir full access to their design, manufacturing, and predictive maintenance. It came into fruition around the same time Dominic Asam moved from Airbus to SAP.

This Skyview system is what accelerated layoffs across Airbus just as Joule is supposed to accelerate layoffs across SAP. Performance management and HPOM and lower salary and benefits budgets will keep SAP employees too distracted and busy and scared to speak up.

This is a major concern for SAP shareholders because they did not vote for SAP to become a puppet for an American intelligence company. This is a major concern for SAP employees because they are supposed to work on the exact technology that will be used to fire them. This is a major concern for SAP customers because they are getting really bad AI slop in SAP products which is counterproductive for their use cases and they are asked to pay more to fund the development for Palantir. This is also a major concern for European governments because the U.S. Department of Defense found an effective way to infiltrate and cripple Europe's data sovereignty. The SAP executive board has been downplaying the significance of this cooperation

All of this because CK, the former Airbus CFO and other executive board members are making money from SAP executive bonuses and have their future set up when they leave SAP. .

Politics rule this company. It would be established if they didn’t stop changing technology every 3 months… about the amount of time it takes for a senior leader to be let go or forced into retirement, and bringing in someone new who wants a notch on their belt for implementation.

Let’s also start where they positioned to sell to Cigna and took themselves out of regular insurance without signing contracts. Cigna backed out, most likely pointing and laughing and the stupidity. The email sent by sad-sack senior leadership was confusing, poorly written, and verified there was something fishy going on. If you’re going to lie, Humana, lie better.

Humana: when it takes a year or more to resolve IT issues but 3 months to restructure and change technologies.

https://careers.massmutual.com/job/springfield/global-workforce-management-director/724/89713009728

The Opportunity
The Global Workforce Management Director will be responsible for leading the development and execution of Operations’ global strategies to enhance organizational performance. Establish and implement workforce management standards and best practices to promote strong communication, collaboration, and engagement across onshore and offshore teams, ensuring the organization operates efficiently and effectively in a global environment.

The Team
The team is comprised of Strategic Consultants responsible for developing, implementing, executing, and overseeing global transition initiatives across Operations. Your individual role will have an impact on ensuring we have effective remote working standards, hybrid working guidelines, cultural competence, work location recruiting and engagement strategies, etc.

The Impact
You will be accountable for driving the strategic vision, planning, and management of global workforce transitions, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and operational effectiveness. As the Global Workforce Management Director , you will partner with senior leaders, business units, and external partners to identify, plan, and execute transitions that optimize the global operating model. This will include communication, change management and readiness considerations.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Lead and Develop Team: Manage and mentor a team of Strategic Consultants focused on global transition activities, ensuring coverage across all operational teams. Ensuring the team maintains effective coordination, communication, and appropriate confidentiality in the work they perform.
• Strategic Roadmap Execution: Develop and drive the execution of the global workforce transition strategy, including the creation of transition roadmaps and governance standards.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Consult with senior leadership and business partners to identify transition opportunities, provide recommendations, and facilitate decision-making.
• Transition Management: Oversee the identification, planning, and execution of work transitions to global partners (e.g., MMI, external vendors), ensuring seamless handoffs and operational continuity. This includes establishing new offshore engagements, modifying existing engagements and coordinating corrective actions for underperforming engagements.
• Vendor and Partner Oversight: Maintain and enhance relationships with external partners, manage contracts, and ensure business satisfaction through regular performance reviews and issue resolution. This includes monitoring SLA’s and operating results, taking the lead on coordinating performance improvement and corrective action planning as needed.
• Governance and Reporting: Establish and oversee standards, KPIs, and reporting mechanisms to monitor the performance and impact of global transitions.
• Enterprise Coordination: Work with the MassMutual Global Business Services (GBS) team to maintain alignment on short- and long-term planning, execution, reporting and governance of offshore activities. Ensure the Operations GWM and MassMutual GBS teams maintain alignment on their activities and avoid duplication of efforts.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement strategies to enhance productivity, mitigate risks, and continuously improve the global operating model.
• Change Leadership: Lead organizational change initiatives, fostering a culture of agility, accountability, and inclusivity.

The Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or 8 years of experience in operations, strategy, global or workforce management.
• 5+ years of experience in strategic consulting, operations, or managing large-scale transitions.
• 5+ years people management experience or commensurate leadership experience

Announced rebadging for E Content Shared Services: EDMS CMS LMS and OCR affected. ?/130 members number currently unknown.

Given our current workforce culture ratio(s), this is curious to me. Are WE to become more like THEM, or are THEY going to become more like us?

Did you all see the email the other day? I cannot keep up with the changes anymore. I also heard of a shakeup for the HMS people. Top heavy folks leaving over there and huge re-org changes. I have never seen a company like this!

expect several months worth of small, targeted little potshots and pruning to avoid more bad PR and WARN, etc. hopefully some bigger changes will come at the top level.

I’m curious if Optum will adjust severance again soon and if there’s any way to know that? Those updates sometimes come out of nowhere, but they’re too big a deal to just learn about them when the actual layoffs happen.

Here's what I've gleaned so far and I'm certainly hoping the new year will shed some.real light on things. Please feel free to add anything I may have forgotten or missed.

So Dan comes in and touts himself many things, including an authority on AI, even so much as smackin coffee lips about it at the white house.

He's uber excited for this "new Verizon" that will be scappy and non-bureaucratic, with inital claims that no other carrier will be able to easily replicate what we're going to do.

To accomplish this mastery of his mind, we obviously must have massive cuts to fund the multi-billion dollar mystery venture.

And so far, this has consisted of a mega layoff, a declaration laden in hypocrisy that our culture must shift to starting meetings on time so we are no longer sloppy, and a story about a cancer patient who was allowed to break contract, implying that delighting our customers mean we will now be more giving to all who want/need special cost-related provisions.

I fail to see the connection. In fact, as I typed it out, I felt an overwhelming sense of nausea come over one me. Something doesn't feel right.

Apple Inc., long the model of stability in Silicon Valley, is suddenly undergoing its biggest personnel shake-up in decades, with senior executives and key engineers both hitting the exits… And more changes are likely coming.
Johny Srouji — senior vice president of hardware technologies and one of Apple’s most respected executives — recently told Cook that he is seriously considering leaving in the near future.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-06/apple-rocked-by-executive-departures-with-johny-srouji-at-risk-of-leaving-next

Another week of high profile corporate exits. Head of channel (VP) out after just 5-6 months in the job. 5th channel leader in 18 months. Replaced by 2 senior directors.

Marketing leader leaving Dec 31.

Joe IBM and his gang have pushed the outsiders fully out the way of the leaders team so he can continue his takeover of marketing. Sandy Oh-No is either helping plot his succession to CMO or is too busy with her AI characters to even notice the empire building going on. Sad to see things falling a part due to incompetence and egos winning over good leadership but has happened to many teams and this week to ours. Why do they keep moving functions under someone who not done anything and still thinks he works at big blue?.

ABU was among the first business units to move toward modernization and, in the process, implemented unassigned seating. The experiment failed spectacularly, creating widespread frustration and ultimately forcing a reversal back to assigned seating.

It’s hard not to ask why we continue to repeat initiatives that have already demonstrated clear and predictable failure, rather than learning from past experience.

Today marks the end of ExxonMobil's presence in France, with the change in control for all remaining assets owned by US major to North Atlantic. There will only remain a tiny commercial structure with less than 20 employees. Esso France is dead, long live North Atlantic Energies.
Rejoice! This is the end of all the corporate bullsh-t people had to swallow for years (and keep smiling as if they liked it), the end of decisions made from 30'000 ft with limited knowledge (if any) of the local context, the end of dysfunctional organisations, having to deal with the incompetence and carelessness of “service” centers supposed to support you, the end of underinvestment in industrial sites making them more and more challenging to operate etc. etc. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?
To all those in the EM world facing the same prospect (i.e. being dumped by big mamma): DON’T BE AFRAID. There is a world outside the fence of the prisoners' camp... 😀

Jamie Rutledge is on a mission to drive delivery off a cliff. The minions he has hired (Michele Moesman and his direct reports) are the foot soldiers in brute forcing the implementation of “industry pods”. Highly efficient teams being broken into the POD model, manages have no clarity on their roles, such as big org change being done without any due diligence. All in the name of driving productivity. Jamie’s minions think that using “Agentic AI”, we can eliminate manual work. Kyndryl is sadly becoming another Indian IT provider under the current leadership. Kyndryl is driving off a cliff, and I dont see any skid marks.

It seems odd that the other PayPal execs are around already, but Shankar is still not replaced. I mean, he's not doing any work, not showing up for anything, not talking to his teams, not setting a strategy or a direction or anything. So clearly HE knows he's out (fingers crossed that the rest of his posse are out as well.. first of all Vivek and his reports) But still, it would be nice to know which PayPal guy will oversee the next shift of 10+k jobs to India / contractors...

SAP, founded in June 1972, when Dietmar, Klaus, Hans-Werner, Claus and Hasso departed IBM when they were told the software they had all been working on was no longer needed and so they started their own company - SAP.

We all need to pay  highest recognition for what these individuals achieved and the great company that was created.

But the time has come  for the remaining two founders and specifically Hasso to completely step away from the management, operation, executive selection, strategy, etc.... and allow new leadership take over SAP,  Times have changed from what they were in 1972 and so must SAP also evolve - which as long as the legacy founders are running the company and selecting the C-Level executives we will be stuck in the past.

Yes, Hasso removed Punit Renjen ( even before he officially took over as Supervisory Board Chairmen), but why did he do this.  Because Renjen was prepared to make significant changes ( whatever they may have been?)  and Hasso was not supportive.

And then what did he do?  He installed another puppet who was a protege of Hasso  and on SAP Board since 2002 - Pekka Ala-Pietila.  The issue is not who are the individuals in C level positions BUT rather WHO is putting them in such positions. 
This type of oversight and control is  simply what IS NOT NEEDED AT THIS TIME.

Look, the issue driving our latest survey results down to 59% when measuring confidence in the Board, is the Board itself  !     And CK, Asam,etc.. are all in Clevel positions for one reason = Hasso.   Until we get  leadership who is responsible for selecting the best and most talented key people AND holds them accountable, we will not see any improvement.

Yes, all congrats go to the founders of SAP for what they achieved, but the time has come for them to move on and allow new talent  that has domain experience and is capable of running a company the size and breadth of SAP.  We no longer can afford to just have hand picked people by Hasso who really have no outside C Level experience running the company - or we will all  be on the outside looking in.  Yes, the time has come and the time is now.

I'm curious about how the future of our jobs is shaping up. Given all the changes happening, I wonder what might be next. They've already shifted our request process to only go through workforce, and no longer allowing instant approvals for hours available like before. In an email, they mentioned upcoming changes in now going forward into 2026 regarding PTO requests, which makes me think we're in for more shifts ahead. Plus, they continue to ask for volunteers to work through our lunches and before or after our shifts. It raises questions since I thought breaks and lunches were a legal requirement. I'm left wondering if these changes are the new norm and what insights others might have about what's really going on. What can we anticipate in the coming months?

Is it just me or was the last company meeting different? It wasn’t the usual energetic fluff that we’re used to. There was no formal run down of the numbers by the CFO. Then SM and SR bring in another one of their friends to run security. What’s unusual about this friend is she’s close to retirement age which means she isn’t joining for a lengthy career. It says a buyout is near without saying a buyout is near.