Grim news, work is "Rightsizing"

[Brat]

... I did keep a spreadsheet of projects in priority order, with headcount and dollars broken out by project.  ....

....Also came in handy when I wanted more money or people...I could show what new stuff we'd take on or get started on more quickly.

Strikes me that an individual could maintain the same project list to show what would stop happening if they got let go, and what the effects of budget cuts on their work would be...

And this is a great tool to use in an interview for another position and should you find one negotiate the payment of your tuition.  

It will be tough to look three ways a once... keeping the current employer happy, working on your Masters, while keeping an eye out for other opportunities.

As a former HR professional it bothers me to manage headcount by layoff, it communicates that managers do not know how to manage their business.  I can understand it when a plant is shut down or a major contract is unexpectedly lost but, short of those situations it makes managers look bad.  I coined the phrase "hiring pause" at my former employer, better that than staff reductions.

 

[donheff]

I coined the phrase "hiring pause" at my former employer, better that than staff reductions.

I took my agency from 25,000 to 14,500 a lot of it through hiring pauses. It beat RIFs but it was still a very negative period. I ended up leaving HR and sidestepping over to IT which was a lot more fun - for a while

 

[laurence]

To be fair, that's exactly what happened, in actuality, we had ten major contracts either get reduced or cancelled!  They froze overtime, got 50 employees jobs with other divisions, created a new line of business and generated another 50 jobs...so the original loss was to be 150, and they got it down to 50.  We all saw the writing on the wall, we knew they couldn't carry everybody forever, but nonetheless it was a shock.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

You hit it on the head though, guys.  I survive, but in six months I might wish I hadn't with more work and low morale.  We will see!

warning warning warning young laurence robinson.

that isn't to say that morale hasn't already been shot at the other companies. after my company went down, i got to listen to many of my friends complain about the same problems at their companies over the following years.

as i've posted, anyone who says the grass is greener on the other side has never laid sod.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

Laurence, good for you for making the decision to get a MS. I would only add one thing about doing a part-time program at a company that is going through "rightsizing". Make sure that inspite of the "rightsizing", your company has plenty of cash on hand. Otherwise, they're likely to find parting with the almighty cash very difficult. My company went through a very bad time. The first thing HR did was to delay my education reimbursement from 2005 to 2006. I got paid in early January of 2006, but by paying me in 2006, they have essentially locked me out of further reimbursement for 2006. Sneaky, eh?

I'd love to work at PACOM. 8)

DW is nervous, she's been home less than two months and she's already staring at her worst fear before she made the jump. She could ramp up her hours as a consultant, but health care is the big issue, especially with Tori's heart.

But I'm not too worried, it's possible, but unlikely, and for all sorts of mundane reasons that always take precidence over being smart or valuable to the company.

It has knocked me off the fence on one decision, I'm going back for my Master's degree, time to make myself more attractive to the marketplace in general! And Boston University has an on line program that is perfect for me (and work will partially reimburse)!

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

That was my experience. While I was working I was never layed off, but I did work for companies that went through the downsizing process on several occassions. I noticed a couple of common things about these episodes: 1) Being smart and being productive were not guarantees that someone would not be RIFed. Large companies in particular often manage the downsize process very poorly. They sometimes lay off good people for stupid political reasons related to who their boss is or what their current assignment is. 2) Survival is never that pleasant either. When people lose their jobs it affects the work environment for those that remain in ways that are not good. Managment gains power through fear and what they do with that power is not usually desireable for the employee. Frightened employees sometimes begin a personal campaign to make sure they aren't next. They can choose to work harder or they can choose to undermine their fellow workers who they now view as competition. Most will avoid the latter, but it doesn't take many to make the workplace miserable.

Speaking of ruling by fear, my ex-manager likes to cite trade journals about various layoffs. He thinks that we're too stupid to understand his "subtle" ways. Yeah, I can find a job anywhere because I have real skills. The last time I checked, doing nothing all day and trying to scare employees by citing trade journals about layoffs at other companies is not a skill in high demand, at least not at $120K a year.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

Hmmm, we just got a FAQ on the RIF. They are accepting volunteers, but either way, if you are laid off you get ten weeks pay, health care paid for a little while, tuition reimbursment for a year, pension accrual for two years, and a few other odds and ends (like computer purchase reimbursement - who's spending money once they get laid off?). That plus unemployment benefits and my accrued vacation time would get me quite a bit of time to find something new.

Hmm, I've been told they actually hope to add someone to my group to save a job/fire one less person. I guess my group is still a "revenue center" or whatever.

You hit it on the head though, guys. I survive, but in six months I might wish I hadn't with more work and low morale. We will see!

Wow, 10 weeks pay plus unemployment pay plus vesting in pension plus education reimbursement? Now I know my last company sucked for sure.

 

[Nords]

But yes, I have quite a weekend of resume building and job hunting planned.  (sigh)

Just make sure none of those potential new employers can find you here on a Google search...

... you'll know you've been unmasked when you sit down at the interview and the first question is "What does FIRE stand for?!?"

 

[HFWR]

Or "Whattaya do all day?"...

 

[wabmester]

Just make sure none of those potential new employers can find you here on a Google search...

That's a good point.   I would always google anybody I was thinking about hiring.   Just make sure you use an alias when posting to alt.sex.beastality....

 

[HFWR]

Or at least wear a mask...

 

[Andre1969]

I've tried googling my real name, and there are plenty of hits. Thankfully, none of them are me!

 

[maddythebeagle]

Now all of the perves are going to be searching the internet and end up here. ...or are they already here

Another suggestion is for L to remove the thread about being bored at work…

 

[saluki9]

I'm very lucky in that sense.

my legal name (right down to the middle initial) is identical to an (in)famous politician.

Anybody looking for me on google has to sift through a couple hundred pages of crap related to that guy.


of to the bestiality forums I go...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Speaking of ruling by fear, my ex-manager likes to cite trade journals about various layoffs. He thinks that we're too stupid to understand his "subtle" ways. Yeah, I can find a job anywhere because I have real skills. The last time I checked, doing nothing all day and trying to scare employees by citing trade journals about layoffs at other companies is not a skill in high demand, at least not at $120K a year.

Nice work. The only problem with this approach is that as far as I see it, employees fall into three broad categories. Your "A" players that do most of the really important work and are the people who kick in when the going gets tough. Your "B" players who show up every day, get some stuff done, push some paper around, make and go to meetings, and pick up some slack. And your "C" players that really dont do anything but are part of somebody's network, they've been around forever, or they're good at lying low when the bad stuff comes around.

You play these fear games, and you lose your "A" players. Those people can get jobs anywhere, anytime. Or at a minimum you have them questioning their committment and hard work. Once they slow down or drop out, the work dumps down on your "B" players. The better of those will follow the "A" players out the door or to unproductive gripeland.

Now you've got your headcount reduction...from the wrong end.

Funny thing is, in every organization i've been in...we all knew who the "C" players were, but they never got the axe.

 

[Andre1969]

Heck, around here I think you need to sink to an E-minus or an F before they do anything about you! And then sometimes it involves moving you to another project, even if it means a promotion...all your current project worries about is getting you out of their hair!

 

[Ginger]

Laurence, by no means do I sense you will be "rightsized." Our firm went through two major cuts. Believe me, it was harder on the people who remained at the firm. More work, less people, smaller raises, etc., same old team spirit pep talks, more meetings, etc.
Set your goal and get your Masters first. I have two children your age and wish they would think ahead for their retirement planning. They seem to have a 'glazed over look' when you tell them to invest their money. Hang in there...

 

[SteveR]

You play these fear games, and you lose your "A" players.  Those people can get jobs anywhere, anytime.  Or at a minimum you have them questioning their committment and hard work.  Once they slow down or drop out, the work dumps down on your "B" players.  The better of those will follow the "A" players out the door or to unproductive gripeland.

Now you've got your headcount reduction...from the wrong end.

Funny thing is, in every organization i've been in...we all knew who the "C" players were, but they never got the axe.

Jack Welch states in his book "Winning" that he required his managers to cul the herd 15% a year from the bottom up. These would be the low performers. The thing that struck me was at some point you run out of low performers and you cut intot he "B" and "A" group. That is, unless you are hiring "C" performers to replace the "C"s you just got rid of. Now that would be productive!

From my side of the desk, I have had to lay off folks from time to time and it is never fun. HR usually makes the choice about who goes so most of it is out of your hands. With the RIF goes both good and not so good performers. The rules for RIFs were not designed to keep your good people but rather to be "fair" to everyone that got RIFed. Seems like an Oxymoron to me.

Laurence,

Hang in there as long as you want to or as long as they will let you. In your situation it would seem the best gamble right now. You could come out a winner, even if for a short while, until you can leave on your own terms for the job you want in the location you want. Make them push you out or buy you out.

 

[Nords]

Jack Welch states in his book "Winning" that he required his managers to cul the herd 15% a year from the bottom up.

So have any of the 15% written the book "Losing"?

I can understand saying that "We have too many people doing this job and we're going to do it with fewer people" or even "We're not going to do this job anymore and we don't need those people anymore either".  But I would think that implying that the people you've fired that year are "poor performers" would only induce raving paranoia & back-stabbing in the other 85%.  It reminds me of the shenanigans at the Enron bonus-ranking meetings.

I wonder how the first Mrs. Welch feels about her ex-spouse's philosophy.  I bet she didn't lose...

On a separate rant topic, if one more of these alleged "experts" starts writing a Business Week column then they'll have to do it without my subscription dollars.

 

[HFWR]

Management by "rule of thumb"...

 

[SteveR]

Management by "rule of thumb"... 

Remember that the rule of thumb was....
one could legally beat their wife with a stick with a diameter no larger than that of ones thumb.

Same thing.......you still "stick" it to the emplyee, just without the physical stick...... :

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah, we had the "cull the herd" percentage requirements too. They just didnt work. The "C" players kept skipping along because they were nice guys, had been around for 20 years, were good buddies or neighbors with bob the vice president and the two of them were hired at the same time years before, they told lots of funny jokes and everyone liked them, or some other reason.

Several performance vectors, from the actual skills and contributions, who you know, how afraid the company is of any legal implications of shooting the guy, how much trouble you cause, how low a profile you can put on, how good your manager is at protecting you, or managers who refuse to act on the problems...either because they're too chickenshit to fire someone or because they think it'll reflect on them personally or professionally.

Fact is, the bottom 5% the first year I was at my last company were still around when I left. Quite a few had been promoted. Somewhere in the middle 50% we culled the people we were supposed to drop.

And the sacred cows were pretty sacred. In one review session the focus for "underperforming" fell on a couple of guys that I thought did pretty decent work. Up there on the board were a couple of guys that I'm sure hadnt done a productive thing in years. I finally pulled the sr manager and hr person out of the room and said "I think we should start looking lower on the totem pole...those guys are pretty good workers...or I'm going to have to go in there and start talking about bob and jack and how they havent done a damn thing since 1985." The two of them got a little pale and went back in the room, hemmed and hawed and decided there were NO low performers in that group.

 

[SteveR]

And the sacred cows were pretty sacred.  In one review session the focus for "underperforming" fell on a couple of guys that I thought did pretty decent work.  Up there on the board were a couple of guys that I'm sure hadnt done a productive thing in years.  I finally pulled the sr manager and hr person out of the room and said "I think we should start looking lower on the totem pole...those guys are pretty good workers...or I'm going to have to go in there and start talking about bob and jack and how they havent done a damn thing since 1985."  The two of them got a little pale and went back in the room, hemmed and hawed and decided there were NO low performers in that group.

Yeah I remember a few of those meetings too. We had a "little accounting error" that created the need to drop 15% of our management staff. Each morning for two months at 6:30 am until 8:30 am, the site staff went down the list of exempt employees one by one in every department and each one had to be defended from the rest of the group. It was not a pretty sight and I still have scars from the encounters. It was brutal and was all BS since none of us had a hand in the "issue" that created the whole problem to start with. A lot of credibility was lost and never recovered by that management directed stunt.

There is nothing like telling a good employee with 20+ years of above average performance reviews that he is being RIFed because the site accountant screwed up some numbers and the site staff thought he was a "little weak" in one area. :

I walked away from that job a few months later. I could not work with those creeps any more. Bad career choice but a satisfying personal one. Sometimes you gotta take the high road.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hah. ALL of our annual reviews were done that way. People cut into 30-40 people chunks, all their managers in the room, everyones name on a post-it note and stuck on a white board. Each manager gets to tell a little story about them, then everyone else tells you what sucky thing they did 9 months ago that apparently wasnt important to bring up until now.

Keep moving people left and right on the whiteboard. Eventually someone tries to draw a few vertical lines between them to break them up into 3-4 'groups'. Then the real **** hits the fan. That would go on for 12-14 hours straight. No leaving until we're done and in agreement.

Is it any wonder I wanted to get the hell out of there? :

 

[flipstress]

Steve and CFB, what wicked annual review and layoff procedures you had to go through!

Your scenarios are the very opposite of where I am.  I have asked the boss for an evaluation after three years on the job.  I had asked him before, about a year ago, but he was too busy and I didn't remind him until lately.  No merit increases are done here anyway but I still would like to improve and move up if possible.

Maybe I should count the no-review system as a blessing instead, although I am used to 360's, goal-setting reviews, etc. at various places I've worked.  One small IT shop at a manufacturing firm even tried to have mathematical weightings to different factors, and I remember being happy not to be penalized with a deduction for programs put into production that abended.

At the company that I left before this job, layoffs were just beginning by the time I left, and I was familiar with the A-B-C ranking that management was required to do.  (Some of my friends were managers and told me they were required to do the ranking just in case their area would be subject to layoffs.)
 
One day, the supposedly secure file of employee ranking was revealed to all staff for a few days, and I was peeved to find out that I was not ranked as A.  I can't remember if I was a B or C, but since there were only eight of us reporting to our manager, I understood that we couldn't all be A's.

Laurence, best of luck with whatever you decide to do--whether to stay or to go.  But just in case you'll have to go sooner than later, if it were me in your shoes, I'd spiff up the resume today.