#culture

New year but same old stuff
Hope everyone has a wonderful year
And the sun shines again on all of us

Anyone else feeling super anxious to see how this RTO will play out? I almost feel nauseous with it all

With the push for FAs to share office space, there are FA teams merging to combine AUM into one-book partnerships. All of the "book" will be evenly divided among each FA.

What will the success rate be of these partnerships?

Does EJ have all of the partnership arrangements worked out (legalities) or have these situations been patched together (which is a possibility because management is discombobulated, to say the least)?

I've heard of one branch that has 4 "partners."
2 veteran FAs, an AFA and a brand new college graduate that hasn't passed testing yet (already considered a partner and included in talks).

Curious what the success rate of a set up like this might be? Family members sharing a book sounds like it could be successful, but with 4 distinct unrelated individuals (friends) sharing a book......I am skeptical on the success rate.

Curious what your opinions are on this new EJ drive to "share one book" equally among FAs."

Would enjoy hearing your thoughts on this matter.

Happy New Year. Kraft Heinz is a case study in what happens when cost discipline outpaces reinvestment. Years of cost-cutting and leadership churn weakened execution and blurred ownership, opening the door for faster, nimbler competitors.

For Nike, the lesson is simple: efficiency matters, but without sustained investment in product, talent, and clear accountability, competitive advantage slowly erodes. Stop the random reorgs.

This feels uncomfortably close to home. The WSJ’s “ How Kraft Heinz Lost Its Lock on Mac and Cheese—and American Shoppers” is worth reading.
--Kraft Heinz and the Mac-and-Cheese Reckoning

Kraft Heinz has all but owned the supermarket macaroni-and-cheese aisle for decades. So when the first boxes of an upscale brand called Goodles landed on store shelves in 2022, the company wasn’t especially worried.

A call went out in the Chicago headquarters to try it out. Employees bought a few boxes, cooked up the gooey meals in a corporate kitchen and dug in. The verdict: Goodles “Cheddy Mac” tasted good. Other flavors, the testers decided, needed work. The noodle texture was a bit iffy.

Kraft Heinz employees said the market-leading product was due for an upgrade, but with $1 billion worth of it selling every year, executives weren’t in a hurry. Deliberations stretched on for years: More protein? New flavors? More cheese? Goodles has now gobbled up 6% of the U.S. mac-and-cheese market, while Kraft Mac & Cheese is down to 39%, from 45% in 2022, according to data from market-research firm Circana.

When Kraft and Heinz, two of the biggest names in American food, merged in 2015, the combined company was supposed to breathe new life into old brands. Instead, years of cost cutting, underinvestment and corporate chaos left Kraft Heinz’s $26 billion food empire — home to bedrock brands like Heinz’s Tomato Ketchup, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Kool-Aid — vulnerable to both buzzier premium ones and cheaper supermarket knockoffs.

Kraft Heinz sales have dropped for eight straight quarters. In September, the company said it would split in two, undoing the 2015 deal. Tensions flared in the company’s upper ranks. Many employees were uncertain who was calling the shots and which company they would end up working for, sowing further chaos. On Jan. 1, the company replaced its chief executive, Carlos Abrams-Rivera, with veteran food-company executive Steve Cahillane.

Big food companies are under siege, buffeted in recent years by heightened scrutiny of processed foods, consumer anger over soaring grocery bills and the growing popularity of weight-loss dr-gs.

Kraft Heinz executives overseeing a sprawling portfolio of cheese, cold cuts, lunch kits and boxed dinners face a dilemma shared by other legacy food companies: Fiddle with flagship products and risk losing the loyal customers who made them category killers, or stick with old formulas that don’t interest younger shoppers.

Cahillane, the new CEO, said in mid-December that the industry “is clearly in a challenging moment,” and that Kraft Heinz “has to meet the moment.”

Bankable Brand

Kraft mac and cheese, first sold in 1937 for 19 cents a box, was the creation of Chicago cheese monger James L. Kraft, who got his start selling cheese from a horse-drawn wagon. Marketed as a meal for four, it caught on during World War II, eventually finding broad success as a quick and convenient dinner for families.

For decades, it was one of the most bankable brands in food. After Warren Buffett and Brazilian private-equity firm 3G teamed up to buy ketchup heavyweight Heinz in 2013, they orchestrated a merger with Kraft, creating the world’s fifth-largest food company.

Though Kraft mac and cheese still ruled store shelves, and the company’s Velveeta Shells & Cheese also was a top seller, consumer tastes were shifting away from such processed foods toward fresher, healthier fare. Competition was mounting, with General Mills in 2014 acquiring Annie’s, which made an organic mac and cheese.

In an earnings call after the merger, Kraft Heinz executives called mac and cheese a turnaround opportunity. The company revamped the recipe in 2016, replacing artificial dyes with colors derived from natural sources.

Kraft Heinz executives, many of them from 3G, used an aggressive cost-cutting measure called zero-based budgeting, under which all expenses had to be justified anew each year. The company closed plants and laid off thousands of workers, reducing annual spending by nearly $2 billion. It said greater efficiency would free up resources to reinvest in its brands.

Dividends to stockholders jumped to $3.6 billion in 2016, from $1.3 billion the year before. Kraft Heinz boasted the highest operating profit margin among food companies.

But former employees and Wall Street analysts said the company lost experienced leaders and marketing, research and sales prowess. “On multiple levels, they depleted the organization,” said Rob Moskow, an analyst at TD Cowen.

Kraft Heinz struggled to shift from cost-cutting to growth mode. Executives who excelled at trimming costs faltered when it came to building brands, according to former executives and other employees, often leaving junior employees to increase sales of struggling products on slim budgets. In 2019, poor sales and accounting errors prompted the company to write down the value of its assets by $17 billion.

The company brought in a new CEO, Miguel Patricio, who pledged to reinvest in areas like marketing. Less than a year into his tenure, the pandemic hit, and homebound consumers flocked to familiar brands like Kraft mac and cheese. The company expanded manufacturing capacity to pump out more blue-and-orange containers of its signature product and other key offerings.

Kraft Heinz sales climbed by 5% in 2020, boosted by booming online orders. “We have sold nearly 90 million pounds of mac and cheese alone this year, which is equal to the weight of 41 Statues of Liberty,” said Abrams-Rivera, then Kraft Heinz’s president of its U.S. business, during a presentation to investors.

Mac-and-Cheese Challenge

A year earlier, Paul Earle had been walking the aisles of Chicago grocery stores with a notebook and pen when he stopped in front of the familiar blue wall of Kraft boxes.

The veteran consumer-goods entrepreneur had been assistant brand manager for Kraft mac and cheese during a short stint at the food giant starting in the late 1990s. At the time, Earle recalled, he thought the product could be made more nutritious to satisfy Americans’ growing appetite for healthy fare.

Earle had left Kraft and later launched several companies, including ones selling whisk-y and shampoo. At the time of his Chicago store visit, he was hunting for a new project.

He purchased several brands of mac and cheese, brought them home and cooked them. His 10-year-old son, Earle said, spat out a healthier variety from a Kraft competitor. Kraft’s classic version still tasted good and brought back fond memories, Earle said, but it didn’t appear much healthier than it was when he worked there. “I knew there was a way to do it better,” he said.

Earle approached Jen Zeszut, who had run baby food startup Cerebelly. They agreed Kraft Heinz had left the door wide open for a mac-and-cheese challenge.

Goodles, led by Zeszut, pitched itself as a fun, healthier take on an old classic. The company infused its noodles with protein and nutrients from spinach, pumpkin and kale, and said its ingredients and flavors warrant a price that is more than twice what Kraft’s sells for.

While Kraft Heinz and General Mills tried to appeal to children with noodles shaped like SpongeBob and Disney characters, Goodles targeted a different group. Earle and Zeszut believed many young adults were secretly eating mac and cheese, and others would too if it could shed its dorm-food vibe.

The pair sought help from Wonder Woman. Several years earlier, Zeszut had discussed a different business venture with Gal Gadot, an Israeli movie star who has played the superheroine on screen. The actress had passed on the earlier investment, but signed on when Zeszut pitched Goodles.

Gadot became a Goodles ambassador, posting videos of herself cooking and tasting the product for her more than 100 million Instagram followers. She said mac and cheese was her favorite comfort food in childhood, but that established brands weren’t healthy enough for her own four children.

Goodles caught on with consumers. Zeszut said retailers earned a higher profit on Goodles, turning them into fans, too. “It’s a higher-income consumer, it’s a younger demographic,” she said. “It’s exactly who they are trying to lure back to the center store.”

Slow Reaction

Goodles hit store shelves during Kraft Heinz’s pandemic bo-m, when its sales grew for many consecutive quarters. Kraft Heinz executives weren’t overly concerned about the new competition at first, former employees said. Kraft mac and cheese was the category’s leading brand by far, selling more than a million boxes a day.

There were other problems demanding attention. Mac and cheese was losing shoppers to other quick foods such as ramen, and many Kraft mac and cheese buyers were turning to less expensive store brands like Walmart’s Great Value.

Market-share shift, 2022–2025 (through Nov. 2):

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese: –6 percentage points

Goodles: +5 percentage points

Velveeta Shells & Cheese, Private Label, Annie’s: remainder

In 2022, a Kraft Heinz team proposed grabbing shoppers’ attention with more promotions, new flavors and a high-protein variety. Employees put together a proposal for new mac-and-cheese products, including ones using premium cheeses like Gruyere, Gouda and Parmesan, and herbs and spices.

Under a “design to value” approach the company had adopted, those employees needed to find corresponding cost cuts. They experimented internally with reducing the amount of cheese, mac and cheese’s costliest component, checking the effect on taste, texture, mouthfeel, cheesiness and “cling.”

A year later, another team made similar recommendations to executives, presenting sales data and retailer intelligence about Gen Z and millennial shoppers, many of whom were springing for premium versions. Health-focused options and new flavors like truffle and cacio e pepe, they said, could help coax back younger shoppers.

Executives faced other big troubles. Frequent restructuring and churn among employees led to shifting priorities, stalled projects and frustration among retailers. Brands such as Oscar Mayer and Maxwell House posed even bigger challenges than macaroni and cheese.

Kraft Heinz sales started dropping in late 2023. Consumers were fed up with inflation and hunting for deals. Patricio stepped down as CEO, turning over the job to Abrams-Rivera.

Executives were frustrated with Kraft mac and cheese, which continued to lose market share. Unhappy retailers wanted a growth strategy from Kraft, their biggest mac-and-cheese supplier. Costco wanted healthier products. Kraft Heinz’s sales employees were frustrated too, believing their suggestions had fallen on deaf ears.

Abrams-Rivera acknowledged the mac-and-cheese challenges in an October 2024 earnings call. “We have quite a bit of work to do, and meaningful improvement will take some time,” he told investors.

Employees drew up plans for new flavors, box sizes and store promotions. Internally, they declared 2025 the “year of mac and cheese.”

The company launched limited-edition flavors such as pizza, garlic Parmesan and, recently, apple pie, and jalapeño and ranch as permanent additions.

As part of a major initiative to boost its brands, Kraft Heinz ran more mac-and-cheese taste tests with consumers. Some results were disappointing, and executives told employees to fix it.

Diana Frost, the company’s chief growth officer for North America, said one conclusion was that the product billed in the 1990s as “the cheesiest” could use more cheese.

The company dialed up the cheese. It also introduced a bigger box that it says can feed a family of five for $2, and it updated its packaging to note the product doesn’t contain artificial flavors, preservatives or dyes.

In the 40 weeks ended Nov. 2, Kraft mac and cheese sales declined 4% from the year-earlier period, according to Circana data shared by industry analysts.

Abrams-Rivera said in October that mac and cheese was partly to blame for a 4% sales decline in the largest division of Kraft Heinz’s North America grocery unit. More recently, the company said Kraft mac and cheese sales in the four weeks ended Nov. 16 were up 4% from the year-earlier period.

“We know our brands better than we’ve ever known them,” Frost said. “We are not happy with where results are, but we’re seeing progress.”

The company said it plans to spend more than $60 million to boost Kraft mac and cheese in 2026, including the rollout of a higher-protein, higher-fiber variety that it said will be more affordable than competitors’ versions. It is also working on a premium line featuring fancier cheeses and noodles and bolder flavors.

When Kraft Heinz announced its planned breakup in September, executives said the mac-and-cheese business would be part of the new company focused on sauces, spreads and seasonings, not the other one selling grocery staples such as sliced cheese and deli meat.

Wall Street analysts have questioned the plan for Kraft mac and cheese. Cahillane, the incoming CEO who is slated to lead the sauces business, has said he may reassess the plans for the brands, including mac and cheese.

You’re not going insane — you just spent years in a system that promotes the ones who break people, not the ones who build teams. Time to rate the “survivors.”

Toxic Manager Rating Scale — pick all that apply:

1. Credit Thief – Devoured your work, slapped their name on it, and got praised for “thought leadership.”
2. Ghost Boss – Vanished when real leadership was needed, magically appeared when there was credit to grab or heads to roll.
3. Micromanager Supreme – Controlled every detail of your day, yet somehow had no clue what your job actually was.
4. Backstabber Pro – “You’re doing great” to your face, “they’re not a team player” the second you leave the call.
5. Blame Shifter – Their mistake, your “development opportunity.” Somehow you were always the common denominator.
6. Teflon Titan – Nothing ever sticks. Reorg after reorg, layoff after layoff, and they’re still there, failing upward.
7. Mood Roulette – You never knew if you were getting fake-friendly or full meltdown. Outlook calendar by day, unstable by nature.
8. Gaslighter-in-Chief – Made you question your memory, your performance, and eventually your sanity.
9. Loyalty Leech – Demanded 110% loyalty and availability, but ghosted you the second you needed support.
10. Corporate Chameleon – Perfectly adapted to a toxic culture. Thrives in politics, allergic to accountability or empathy.

Add up your score and drop it below.
The higher the number, the more you earned your severance, your sanity, and your exit.

Finally get rid of leadership that practices favoritism, over buys when we don't have the sales (expects tms in prep rooms to salvage the rotten product) , they believe their far superior to everyone else on the planet.

There is a lot of internal chatter regarding the decision to have the CSTO lead LATAM Foods while maintaining the S&T lead. With a direct report structure of nearly 30 people already, many are asking how this serves the business rather than just consolidating power.

The Financial Questions

The S&T era under Athina’s direct leadership—along with Vikram and G-yatri—has seen a staggering level of spend.

• ROI Gap: Many within the org feel the billions spent on "transformation" haven't materialized into frontline efficiency.

• There is significant frustration over the lack of business justification for the heavy reliance on specific global tech and consulting partners.

The Offshore Oversight Issue

The "India and Mexico Hub" model - While local teams face budget freezes, we see:

• Lavish travel and spending from global hubs.

• A perceived lack of productivity, with local leads often picking up the slack for offshore teams working limited hours.

Culture & Leadership

Is the "PepsiCo Way" being applied at the top? The leadership style and treatment of partners during this spend-heavy era have been widely criticized internally. Instead of an audit into the financial results of S&T, we see a promotion to a CEO seat. How does this align with our goals of being a lean, accountable organization?

So we have someone new joining our team and ever since they joined they have been on my a$$ to know how I do what I do.

While I understand the enthusiasm, I feel my manager is purposely bringing such individuals in the team (the latest being the second person) who seem to be "teachers pets", more noise for less work kind of person.
And I can tell they're someone who just wants to "have their signature" in everything that happens around.

PS: These new members are in same region as my snake of a manager.

Should I be worried???

To all of those who are treated like cattle sitting in small stalls all day while the elites sit in their offices with their doors closed…emerging once a day to say hi to the little people while deciding who to layoff off (mainly based on politics) God Bless You.

To all of you who sit in those offices who have never been laid off thinking you’re better than the rest filled with entitlement, arrogance and ignorance for not knowing how your decisions hurt others and the smugness of thinking you’ll never be laid off because you are somehow so invaluable…may 2026 be the year you yourself experiences this for the first time.

A layoff damages and impacts people in ways you can only know if you experience it first hand. It’s your turn.

Post below.

Curious about everyone’s New Years Work Resolutions.

What’s the culture in the legal department?

Except for Sheety, Jon Freier, Mike Katz, Jeff Simon, and Deanne.

I really thought that I would have gotten the ax by now, but nope, I'm still here. Guess I have to up my game in 2026 and do even less if that's possible.

I left in 2022 because I couldn't take the hostile work environment anymore. Are things still the same or have there been any improvements? I don't know why I'm suddenly curious nearly three years later. Call it New Year-induced nostalgia or whatever, I guess.

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Work is supposed to be fun, but companies have made it so difficult that many Gen X and Gen Z employees hate going to the office and feel like they’re just following marching orders. The ’90s and early 2000s felt more enjoyable because we had people from other cultures who assimilated and didn’t treat the U.S. as merely an economic zone. People weren’t constantly worried about their jobs being outsourced to developing countries.

Everyone’s miserable at Dell. They come here looking for meaning, but all they find is confirmation of how trapped they are.

Is anybody else so fu--ing tired of having this as an expectation? Every time we ask for resources or support, it’s like talking to a wall. They just pile on more work and expect miracles without giving a damn about the people actually doing it.

They are looking at them and writing employees up for non-work related content. No jokes, no whitty banter, nothing personal. Always use your cell to communicate.

My net worth since leaving. Frees your mind up to opportunity when leaving that soul crushing environment. Seems to attract nothing but Bill Lumberghs who get promoted. Seriously ATT Management are drips and blockheads.

Employee Morale and Shareholder Value.

What were the ratings exceeds, meets and what else?

There are more employees across clinical and business operations leaving, most recently there has been many exits from HR.

One of the common themes during exit interviews is the lack of trust due to the the $30 million settlement award against Integris due to the cyber incident in Q4 of 2023.

Our Information Security department was turned into a paper factory due to the bad hire of VP CISO Stacy Stika. Stacy Stika has been given absolute decision-power over technical defenses, yet she have never built a system, cannot read code, and fundamentally does not understand how attacks work. What she does understand is spending time investing in media attention grabs such as submitting her own nomination backed by her friends to the Becker's Hospital Review. Becker's should have verified Stacy Stika could walk through, in technical detail, how she would contain a ransomware attack that bypassed endpoint protection AND was has no negligent breaches linked to her name.

Stacy's leadership has done the following since her arrival:

• Increased stress of clinicians due to mixed messages of security
• Institutionalized Dishonesty
• Taken the focus from care of those most vulnerable

We are tired of of the security glitches slowing us down. We have provided feedback however the people we provided this feedback to are no longer with the company. The Deputy CISO who fixed the problems from the 2023 hack left. We have frustrated clinicians who are the backbone of Integris leaving.

This is how 'layoffs' work here, leadership is restructuring healthcare services which is causing clinical staff turnover with no backfill. Also people are fired after the Glint my voice survey which claims anonymous feedback. If one is not fired for honest employee survey reviews then retaliation begins until the target quits. Worst of all, hiring in IT has more than tripled.

I've been an employee for a very long time, and when I first started, this was literally the best place I had ever worked in ALL of my endeavors. Even throughout covid they took care of us and our customers - It was brutal, but tolerable.

Now, they've demoted some of their best performers, only to replace them with off-shore id--ts that have not one clue what they are doing. They tell the customers the wrong thing, or they tell them they ordered a replacement or issued a discount, but they did not - leaving MC to clean up all of their messes. MC has been a catch all for the last 6 months. We are large parcel, we are managers (without the title), we are frontline, finance; but yet we don't have the tools to take care of the customer. For a company that wants us to practice the CARES transcript to better assist our customers; I'm not sure they know what that word means. I give everything I got with our customers; to make sure they have a good experience or to better the issues they had, but when tools are constantly taken away from us to deliver that customer experience - That shows that this company does not care - About our customers or us. And before those of you get on here and say. "if you don't like it, find something else." - you think it's that easy? You're still here aren't you? And you can't be having a good time unless you're getting paid an above normal salary or in upper management, where you're making up these ridiculous margins, that are somewhat impossible to achieve or maintain. I'm old school when it comes to customer service and again, I put my all into it - that's what the retail business is about... Retaining customers and building relationships with them. Wayfair, you're losing more customers than your gaining and retaining. That's not on your employees, that's on you and upper management who quite frankly doesn't know how to manage squat. I'd get your act together or there won't be a Wayfair. It might hang by a thread for a while; but the more offshore takes control, the thinner that thread becomes.

How are we still hiring people? What are they telling candidates to make the job sound good, now that the word has gotten out about all the cr-p we go through on a daily basis? I can't see why anyone would accept an offer here right now.

Has anyone ever accepted a new position only to discover the day-to-day reality was completely different from the job description or what was discussed in interviews? I'm trying to avoid that situation again. What are the best ways you've found to get an honest sense of the work environment and the actual role before you sign an offer?

Please stop peddling “the five gears of change.” The HO team is trying to push this concept (and subsequently the work) down to Service. Instead of trying to sell this concept, these GPs and Sr directors should think about how they are actually going to do the work. If not, may be they should be considered for next cascade.

I've seen a pattern recently where several former coworkers who left a while ago for what they thought were better jobs are now quietly reaching out, asking about coming back. Their new roles had hidden problems, worse culture, or just didn't live up to the promise. It's made me think twice about my own plans to leave. Before you jump ship for something that looks better, it might be worth talking to people who've actually made the move. As bad as it is here, the reality can be very different from the offer letter.

Why does Target think dumping millions into AI at a time when the business is struggling with fundamental processes and retailing execution is going to help?

Slop in, slop out

People first, then process, THEN technology

What is going on with the first two at target? Nothing.

was in outlets and Nike stores during holiday shopping with family. And they all had tons of AJs, AFs, Dunks and other classic styles by the tons and in deep discounts.
After this effort by Nike, I don't think that anyone with correct mindset will pay outrageous and bloated Nike Classic products in the future.
JD and Nike management couldn't stand resellers and tried to get rid of them. They couldn't stand the fact that anyone was making money off their product. Well they succeeded!! Because no one will touch it!! Nike Classics RIP, you are dead and buried.

Nike management in their infinite wisdom tried to ki-l all the roaches but ended up burning down the whole farm. LOL what a joke.

I have talked to few of the resellers and afficionados that I know and they are all out of the business. And they are so burned, they will not touch Nike products with 10 foot pole.

Employees describe shock, demotions, and a rapid overhaul following Advent’s $2.5 billion takeover.

“Sapiens was a very family-friendly and pleasant company for many years. CEO Roni Al-Dor was a people person. Employees went through fire and water with him, which is why everyone is so surprised now, and deeply hurt,” says one employee.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/r1illfbebg

Now we know why marketing won’t give us the PR we ask for. The CMO was focused writing this masterpiece as the end of year message to let our customers know we have gmail. The innovation is off the charts. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251230219645/en/Avaya-Chooses-Gemini-Enterprise-and-Google-Workspace-for-AI-Driven-Collaboration-and-Next-Gen-Workplace-Productivity

It has been over six months since I left Honeywell. And in that time that time looking back retrospectively, failed managers at Honeywell are constantly trying to keep their talent cheap and over worked.
Seeing people leave for more money was always a sign of hope that people are capable of more. Often managers are forced to offer, less than ideal candidates for rather serious roles. Seeing work flows occurred by people doing the minimum, or even just resume building for the presumed manager role in the future was scary.
If, and that is a big if, you find another role. Jump. It will be only be the best decision of your life. At least for me it was a less of a gamble, but rather, a healthy environment where you are treated like an adult and have actual opportunities to learn, grow and yes advance.

That's why everything we do fails spectacularly. It's that simple.

Just submitted my charitable donation matching request to Fidelity Foundation and happy to see my humble donation to my cause was tripled! Yes, Fidelity match 200% of your charitable donation.

2025 was a good year for me, a foot soldier who worked honestly as always and was rewarded fairly by Fidelity. I wish those middle managements who leech off my work and those coasters who steal their salary from Fidelity be cut off in 2026, so Fidelity becomes a even better work place!

Scratching my head on this one…. What kids dad got him a CEO job at Huntington? It shows.

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1k7mpsx69

I don't understand what anyone will achieve by reducing work from anywhere days from 10 to 8. Like wtf company will benefit from extra 2 days a year in office work. Like it's not even vacation just wfa.

It's just feels like RV personal hate for all BNY employees showing up. It's bitter and vindictive and servers no real purpose. What even is the point of this.

What a nonsense.