#employeerelations

Stankey seemed awfully confident during today’s ATG Live. After one solid quarter in a six-year tenure, the tone came across as more smug than self-aware, and the comments about employees didn’t exactly help.

Let’s see what next week brings after Verizon and T-Mobile report. One quarter doesn’t erase years of mixed results or settle the competitive picture.

If I were in his position, I’d spend less time taking victory laps and more time rebuilding trust with the employees who helped deliver the quarter in the first place.

Manika says we have to be on camera when we wfh.

has anyone seen any info on whether our company will support pre-tax contributions to the new Trump Account, like up to $2,500 pre-tax, similar to a 401k? I haven’t seen any official communication from HR yet, so just wondering if anyone’s heard anything.

No rhyme or reason for the chosen: some long term tenured, some newer, but good at their jobs. That department was being hammered by senior leadership about meeting SLAs. They will regret it later when the staffing is needed later in the year. Why, Lord, oh why?

Matt Carr had an all hands yesterday. He said we need to move on from the laid off employees, was laughing the entire time and came off as an arrogant fat man. Not to mention, was complimenting women for looking good, super weird. There was a tornado warning alarm that went off and he dismissed it and kept the call going. He’s not fit for that job. What makes him a psychopath more than anything is that he promised no more lay offs but we all know that lay offs will continue. These “leaders” are clueless.

In a previous town hall, the senior executive who will not be named listened to the frustration of senior directors (plural) under him, as well as chat entries of attendees, on Teamworks which made them lose valuable talent.

The feedback is in unison: Teamworks is not worth the negative impact to employee's welfare and retention. In the end, this senior executive said "Don't worry about teamworks. So long as we don't see an average of five hours of work per day, it's fine."

Well his other cohort, another senior executive, has been going around in staff meetings pressuring managers to get tighter on Teamworks or else they themselves will get in trouble.

Same company (Hughes), two senior executives, two different perspectives on Teamworks.

...did this on an external AI too but translated all of my annual reviews into files, told it to parse them, told it my salary, & asked how hosed & stifled I am here compared to market. It told me not only to leave immediately (both Claude & Grok) but that while delivering more & more every year & outworking everyone else around me I've been deliberately sidelined, pushed around, & my personality used against me by my bosses in their responses to hold me down. That i'm leaving $50k/yr on the table & over the time I've been here have missed-out on $200k in earnings. No wonder I've felt so squeezed by this place & am barely surviving. Everyone else in my role & field is ki-ling it compared to me. This place su-ks & has stolen almost 10 years of career & growth from me.

I can't even get my boss on a regularly scheduled 1:1 for 15min to ESTABLISH a 1:3:5 for me after 2 years. He flaked yesterday while 'working' from India.

Combined with recently being told by my director to fudge numbers on Clarity & that my SSL usage is being tracked & used against me for (carrot dangle) prospective promotions - fu-k this place.

Let's not even discuss how I'm being split between two teams this year & how exhausting that is. They LOVE to keep me dangling in the wind moving from team to team to team - because I'll do it & can do it, I don't push back (thinking eventually SURELY some good has to come of this for me). I never get anything, all I get is hosed & progressively poorer, stolen from in lost earnings by this place. Sc--wed over at EOY in bonus while these shady executives hoard it all for themselves.

Anywhere else I'd be a senior engineer IC or manager by now. My loyalty has cost me a real career & major earnings.

I'm a swe earning under 100k after 8 fu--ing years. I'm done sulking & being a loser about it though. Now I'm on a mission.

Good job blowing me off manager, you just lost an employee.

Having worked there for the past 10 years I was shocked to come in and find this out. It feels like familiar faces have been wiped from the office like trying to get an old apple product fixed in the apple store. I heard that the NDAs were brutal? Anyone have any news from those laid off?

How come the majority of EMG in Member Protection (aka Fraud/Disputes in the Bank) were promoted in the first half of the year (EDs to AVPs, and AVPs to VPs) but non-EMG employees can’t get basic promotions in place approved? Like seriously, you can’t get an employee promoted from a level 3 to a 2 or a 2 to a 1. They get denied or you hear nothing for months on end. Not even trying to get people into Lead position, just into positions that they should be in based on performance and experience and yet so many EMG have been promoted like nothing. Just because you don’t send out promotion emails doesn’t mean we don’t know or see it. Absolutely ridiculous!

“An apologist is someone who writes or speaks to defend and justify a specific belief, cause, or institution, especially one that faces criticism.”

Managers need to STOP being apologists for U.S. Bank and defending bad behavior. While you’re not expected to speak ill of the company publicly , you will gain more respect of direct reports if you’re in line with reality. We can spot fakeness. Those that see U.S. Bank with rose tinted glasses are looked at with disdain. Whatever corporate carrot 🥕 you’re chasing here isn’t worth it if no one respects you at the end of the day.

So there is a new tactic that everyone should know about. Since performance management was released, managers have been in touch with HR to understand how they can give more money to their reports that are their friends or family. And the only solution from HR is this -> employees that are seen as critical to business needs and have a legal offer letter from another company will get a salary hike above the normal SAP limitations to match their offer.

So basically, if you have a friend who has a company, ask them to create an AI-related job for you and make you and offer - it has to be a written offer and cannot be just an email or verbal confirmation. And then your managers starts the process by creating an HR ticket and getting an exception for you and increasing your salary.

But the caveat is this - HR has been asked to reject as many of these as possible.

For a handful of roles where a manager is well connected within SAP, they will get HR to approve this and give 10% or more salary hikes. For almost all other roles, they will decline and then HR will flag that you are not committed to working at SAP and find ways to get rid of your role.

So if your area executive or T5 manager of managers or your T4/T5 manager is asking you to find a good role and get an offer and use it to increase your salary, DO NOT DO THAT. A lot of area executives are peddling this as an idea to work around performance management limitations. It is a farce.

This only works if that manager has already made a deal with HR. Otherwise you will not get an increased salary but be asked to join that other job. HR is doing this to easily identify people who can be laid off without a severance. They are also using sick leave and AI usage data to decide who should be put on a performance improvement plan and laid off subsequently.

Be careful of the sneaky HR and area executives and managers.

Hope in one hand and relieve yourself in the other and see which one fills up first.

And repeat the mantra "I am a close personal friend of John Donovan".

Those who work remote have the same title and job duties, but the rejection said “after reviewing your job responsibilities, we’ve decided we cannot accommodate remote work at this time.” I submitted with a doctor’s note explaining the condition and reasoning for the (temporary! Not even permanent, it said temporary) accommodation request, and it was denied. HR never even called me to talk about it, they just read the forms and denied it, which makes me think they’re just denying all of them. Anyone else have this experience?

When will portfolio SEs be pooled resources and not be involved with initial discovery calls?

Just goes to show you how Cisco values SEs.

Who is commuting 5 days a week, 60 miles each day. $25 per day in travel costs not including parking.

Aren’t you exhausted? Needs to be at least 3-4 years until Plano HQ.

Finding new employment in Dallas doesn’t help as commute doesn’t change. Those who work in Plano office are super lucky.

Serious question because I’ve been on STD for a while and haven’t been updated on this. I’ve read so much on this forum and feel like I need to know what I’m going back to since no one on my team has reached out. I did get the first email about being eligible for the VSP but haven’t gotten any other communication for anything else.

Comment here if you relocated and still have employment

Wellsfargo is annoying employees and so they are taking money to other banks, I am doing it too, Laid off , retired employees doing it too.
Wells should come up with some plan to retain good employees and keep them happy.

I see exhaustive number of complaints however I do not see anything factual where somebody was truly laid off as a result of RTO or anything else because it’s all vague and not specific. I think the intent of the site has lost its path. Instead of making a comment as my teammate was laid off maybe because they weren’t performing but be more specific as I have yet to see somebody be laid off in two years

Quick question. We are salary employees, we have recently been required to work holidays with only a 15% diff, if the holiday fall on the weekend. If it falls during the week we get no additional money. Also we are required to stay late, people are missing lunches and breaks to get all the required work completed. However if there is no work in the queue we are still held to the same production metrics. Now we have recently found out that if for some reason we have a loss of power or internet access, we must flex the hours or take pto. It seems like the salary benefits only favor the company and leaves the employees with no work life balance.

I'm not an "Alumni".

• You FIRED me after 2 decades of stellar reviews & documented accomplishments.
  *"WFR" is a nice way of saying "we can replace you for pennies on the dollar by offshoring your role". ONLY the execs are allowed to maintain a good quality of life. Back to the streets with you Peon!
• I was "told" I was safe...lying corksoakers.
• Corporations are fully vested in the two layers of societal ranks. Either you are rich or you are poor & on government assistance. Dell USED to seem like they cared for "their" workforce. Nothing could be further from the truth today.

We are NOT Alumni. If you are kicked out of College, you dont get to claim to be an "Alumni".

My last working day with Citi was 06/30, non-working notice period is 7/1-8/29. So far still haven't received the shipping box to return the company property. Can anyone share how soon do people who get laid off receiving the shipping box after the last working day? Thanks!

Even though I could be bitter and angry because I was let go, I'm not. I guess it's business after all and if that's how they want to run the company then whatever.

I am however quite shocked to be honest around the whole exit experience. I mean I knew from before that Dell doesn't really care, but the very fact that I've multiple times had to fight HR on things that were agreed on and they tried to gaslight me into thinking that I am wrong (although documents and agreements clearly says otherwise) just leaves such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Icing on the cake was when I handed in the equipment. Years ago whenever somebody left the company for whatever reason there used to be coffee, cake, somebody thanking the person and some parting gift. Now? Just handed over the equipment at the reception, not even a goodbye. Well over a decade at the company? No one cares.

I was listening to a podcast and the discussion was with a management consultant. I think they summed up the issue with Phillips 66 and this management team:

“…the macro implications of a society that is maximizing profit is that it's going to be minimizing other goods that aren't easy to quantify.”

Under Greg, there was a balance to things—a purpose. He cared about people and the legacy of the company. Yes, he was not perfect, but you knew he cared about the company, the industry, and the people.

I believe that is gone. We are just focused singularly on making more money, trying to beat the competition, and just catering g to shareholder interests. It is interesting that, despite that focus, we are falling further behind, while also giving up the soul of the company and are experiencing an erosion of culture.

In our search for profit, Phillips has abandoned its commitment to people, developing people and taking chances on people with promise. Instead, we give people a job description and tell them it is on them to prove they have the skills for the next role. We talk only in terms of shareholder interests, returns on equity/investment, and tell people we must always be focused on beating MPC, VLO and a group of companies that the management team and board are focused on.

Am I wrong? Would like other perspectives. Is Phillips still committed to people and the interests of the communities and customers we serve?

Come to think of it, I have been with the company for 10 years and almost never hear about customers. Why is that?

Assuming we get notified 7/27 and that most people's end date is 9/4, that only gives 5 weeks for everyone to use up vacation and personal time. They don't want us taking PTO within 2 weeks of separation, so all vacation has to be used by 8/21. I don't know about everyone else, but I've got 16 days of vacation/sick time to burn, and I'm not the only one in my department who has admitted to applying for the VSP. If we all get accepted with the default exit date, my team will be running at 40% capacity. It will be a good preview of the sh-t show that they are about to walk into.

This whole VSP/looming layoff has got me stressed to the point where my anxiety has gotten to the point that I am now on prozac and still can't sleep. I have barely been able to function in my role and spend most of my time trying to look for other positions. I just hope I am approved for the VSP so I know I have an end date for this company. This is my third time going through this and I can't handle this anymore.

Senior management protects their turf, you do something to better the company like win a technology challenge and are told that you should have saved it for your own group and not shared it company wide. For that specific reason I have been canceled. No longer an e performer even though no one knows nearly how to do their job and comes running to me. I was told that I should be honored that many take my slides for their own presentations and not giving me credit.

I went to a competitor who now loves my work and also understands their competitive edge over fidelity

Everyone should tune into 2Q earnings on Wednesday and witness “leadership’s” spin on their reality vs ours and our customers. What’s the anticipated playbook? If like other earnings or townhalls it will go something like this:
1) Credit Hoarding and Blame Deflection: Stankey will take personal credit for all successes, but scapegoat realities or market factors for any poor metrics, failures, or missed targets.
2) Spinning Data: He’ll present metrics selectively to inflate achievements while minimizing or altogether hiding negative data/results.
3) Focusing on Optics Over Substance: He’ll prioritize vanity metrics like PR splashes or superficial growth instead of addressing structural issues or the long-term sustainability of the corporation.
4) Gaslighting Employees: He’ll publicly contradict internal realities; he will claim the company is thriving while employees experience understaffing, canceled projects, and record level layoffs and burnout.
5) Silencing Dissent: He’ll negligently ignore bad news, punish employees (no matter their level) who report operational failures or low morale, and exclude critical voices from high-level conversations.
6) Lack of Empathy for Stakeholders: He’ll dismiss the toll that poor organizational performance (e.g., RTO and targeted layoffs, restructuring) takes on the workforce and quarterly results.

They see us as a cost to cut. Do they think they can survive without the people who actually do the work? We're treated like we're disposable.

Maybe God will have mercy on me and send me a severance package.

How much more can they cut before operations suffer? And by the time it stops, nobody will want to be here anyway.

It's the major rounds that happen occasionally and everybody gets all panicked about. But there are constant cuts, happening all the time, with just a few people here and there. You aren't noticing because you're not paying attention to anything smaller scale. Don't assume you're safe just because there won't be any major rounds before September or whenever.

As a manager, I could target an individual employee and make it very difficult for them to remain at the company. However, I couldn’t do that repeatedly without consequences because organizations monitor manager turnover rates, and a consistent pattern of employees leaving under one manager eventually raises concerns.

In practice, the process often favors whoever documents their concerns first. If I report that an employee is underperforming before they raise complaints about me, my version of events is already part of the official record.

When the employee later goes to HR claiming they’re being treated unfairly or that I simply dislike them, it can be difficult for their complaint to stand out because HR hears similar explanations from many employees whose performance issues are legitimate. As a result, even when someone’s concerns are genuine, they may sound similar to many previous cases, making it harder for them to be believed. That dynamic can create a system where the manager’s position initially carries more weight.

The local dimwits seeing their replacements arrive with all expenses paid relocation pack and a dwindling stock, are still wonder why they didn't offer themselves as tributes when they got the chance.

Well, because they thought they were equals when they treated everybody else with disdain. Funny, isn't it?

I wrote my resignation letter in 15 minutes.

The real version took 2 years
to write inside my head:

The one I submitted said "pursuing a new opportunity."

Professional. Clean. Polite.

The one I actually meant said something very different.

It said I brought you solutions for two years and you treated every one of them like an inconvenience.

It said I worked weekends you never knew about on projects you never acknowledged.

It said I walked into your office looking for a leader and walked out feeling like I was bothering you.

But resignation letters do not say those things.

They never do.

And that is the problem.

Companies never hear the real reason. So they never fix it.

And the next good person walks out the same door for the same reasons six months later.

79% of employees who quit say the reason was a lack of appreciation.

Not money.
Not a better title somewhere else.

They just wanted someone to notice.

30% of workers say they have felt invisible at their own job.

Nearly a third of the workforce is showing up every day wondering if anyone would notice if they stopped trying.

I was one of those people.

And I can tell you the moment I stopped being one.

It was not when I found a better boss.

It was when I stopped looking for one.

I started building something where my effort was the product.

Where every hour I put in went directly into something I owned.

Where I did not need anyone's permission to matter.

And here is the part nobody talks about.

The same traits that made me a great employee, the initiative, the problem-solving, the willingness to go above and beyond, those are the exact traits that make someone a great builder.

You were never the problem.

You were just giving your best skills to someone who did not know what to do with them.

If you have been writing your own resignation letter in your head for months, that is not burnout.

That is clarity.

Something in you knows that your energy deserves a place that actually values it.

And if you are ready to start building that place yourself, I put together a free toolkit to help you take the first step.

It walks you through how to take what you already know and turn it into something that actually belongs to you.

Ghoulishly giddy, whistling past the graveyard of loyal,longsuffering salaryman careers, sacrificed to the quarterly EPS projections.

What’s the name of the latest layoff initiative?
How healthy for mental health is it to run an initiative to crop 12 staff every 4 years?

Yet the management is barely affected or penalized! The only balanced thing is that their children will face a darker and harder future…

Laid off yesterday from SoFi. AI absolutely replaced my job! SoFi talks a big game about their people and values but at the end of the day they are just another corporation and you just another number especially if you don’t fit into their DEI ideals.