Does anyone other than myself find it "fishy" that EM has suddenly changed a ranking system that has been in place for years. Sounds like they're setting up a LAYOFF without actually calling it what it is ! Why not just be transparent about it like other companies ?
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I originally posted this nearly 6 weeks ago. DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW ?
Use all of the fancy articulate word plays you can think of and it's still a damn LAYOFF. The company just refuses to call it a layoff so they won't have to pay the peons who get the ax un-employment.
The new ranking system is something that has been in the process of change for several years. Surveys were done with employees and a lot of feedback gathered. Different ranking methods were presented based on the feedback but when each floated to upper management they did not like or accept any as they were presented. The new ranking system was sold to employees as a system that allows a person to move up or down without only being able to move up a few points at a time. It was mentioned that one year you could be up and one year down and that there would be a very small bucket at the bottom of the needs improvement bucket for people that needed to improve or lose their jobs. Early in the year the numbers of people that were suppossed to be in the PIP (performance improvement bucket) was supposed to be 3-4% but as oil prices hit negative, since Treasury has not been been able to borrow as much as needed to pay for all the OPEX and CAPEX then the bucket was increased. Supervisors were told that the needed to put 8-10% of their people in that bucket and make sure that it is not all people who could retire because they did not want an age discrimination lawsuit. In the past rankings the supervisors and managers would try to look at the regions to make sure one region did not have too many people in any of the buckets. However this year there was much less emphasis placed on making sure the ranking was fairly divided among regions. This year there was much more emphasis on putting people in higher cost locations in the bottom and ensuring that there were some age demographics in that bucket so an age discrimination lawsuit could not occur. Many supervisors went into the rankings with some of these people in the middle and after the ranking session where the "supervisor owned the results" they were pressured by upper management to put people who were higher cost from different age groups into the "layoff/PIP" bucket. The new ranking process offers less protection for employees so if a supervisor or manager does not like you even if you are doing a good job it only takes one rank cycle to lose your job in the new system and in the past a lot of documentation was necessary to move people up or down that is not needed now.
They called what? It's the same process as every year. Lower performers are going to get less slack than prior years but nothing is fundamentally different.
Props to this guy! He called it!!!
Anybody know what groups will be affected most? Mechanical, engineering, operations?
Ranking sessions are going to be brutal. July will be a tough month for the company. Layoffs are coming but because they are justified as performance based they do not need to be reported. I wish they were more transparent but we know that will never be the case.
Probably so.... They like to keep people in doubt for as long as they can.
It's going to take until November
EM is doomed. Millennials cannot be criticized. Everyone gets a trophy. How could you be wrong?
There are no losers only winners. First, second and third is offensive. After all second is just first loser.
Bottom 8% will be gone by end of summer.
Agree that older employees are the target, particularly those with less than 15 years service. This lets them off the hook allowing them to lump sum out of their retirement...….an added bonus to not having to pay them unemployment either. This company is HARTLESS.
Consensus is that the primary targets are people close to retirement ( 1-5 years away ) and a small percentage who actually deserve PIP
the 3% and 8% numbers seem to be pretty widely published, the person sharing it "at great risk" needs to get over herself lol
Reliable source in Houston told me (at great risk to herself) about PIP. The whisper number is 3% of hourly employees and 8% of salaried employees. All PIL on annual cycle in December.
Who is saying that PIP is mandatory this year? When are PILs announced to the employee, or is it staggered throughout the year?
Reply to elated. No company is perfect, it's all about the people. you have good managers and poor ones. But i like to tell you what you posted is not all true. I got a promotion in my 60's. I am in the middle third. If you are a good performer you will be rewarded regardless of your age. I am still working and still getting yearly increases. My last increase was this February and it was quite good.
A performance review should be just that, a review of YOUR performance, period! How well did you handle your responsibilities in comparison to the previous year. Better? Same? Worse? Instead, when you’re young you’re ranked In the top third so you get a higher raise. As you reach middle age, you’ve dropped to the middle third, and when you hit 50 it’s downhill to the bottom third....unless you’re upper management. The sups will deny it until they’re blue in the face, but this is the way it is. Not sure how the system will work. And the only reason you get put on PIP is because they want/need to reduce headcount and either they don’t have enough negative stuff to terminate you or you’re too close to retirement eligibility and they don’t want a lawsuit.
I recently retired, not because I was ready to walk out the door, but because I worked under three first-time sups who were trying to prove themselves to their superiors at the expense of their subordinates. Watched it happen to an older co-worker. It happened to me, and now another co-worker is being targeted.
Never had any loyalty to the company due to poor management and the corporate games. You don’t play and kiss up to those above you, your career goes nowhere or is outsourced to people outside of the US. Stayed because of decent pay and benefits. So thankful to be gone!!!
Darren Woods said at the shareholders' meeting, “Today, we have no layoff plans." Be sure the key message in that is "Today".
PIPs have never been MANDATORY until now ! They have been an option in the past...….not mandatory ! The fact that it is now necessary to rank a certain percentage at the very bottom really is very unfair to groups who have ALL high performers. A good employee being ranked at the bottom doesn't make them "deadwood" a%%hole, it makes them a victim. THIS IS A LAYOFF.
How is it lying if they get rid of the dead wood to reduce their headcount? Shouldn’t every company do that in lieu of paying them off. Seems some of you need to run your own business to understand the cash flow statement. Paying people to leave is VERY expensive. If they pull off a 20% headcount reduction through a poor performance program, shareholders should carry Woods down Wall Street. Although most are too p-ss-d.
Yeah they changed it alright, they are going to put employees on PIP’s so essentially a lay-off. Some may deserve it but tell the truth. Poorly run company but you can bet Woods will get his millions again. They should offer severance packages to those who are eligible.
At least Shell, chevron and BP CEOs have the guts to announce layoffs instead of lie about them and pretend they aren’t happening!
Yep !!!!! If it walks like a duck...…..
Interesting how our CEO was lying yesterday when he said no layoffs. EM already laid off contractors, they laid off people in 2015. Of course they used ranking to lay off just like everyone else does. I dont think Shell, BP, etc. lay off top ranked people, everyone does the same or similar, but our CEO says no layoffs, and he will say we just had normal attrition. Any involuntary job loss including retirement is layoff indeed.
I respectfully disagree with an earlier response to this post that the new ranking system is "softer" as compared to the old "bucket system". Under the old system, an employee could only be moved one bucket (up or down) from their previous ranking per ranking cycle. This limit has been removed in the current ranking system. AND the forced ranking system is alive and well ! It is still required that each manager rank employees, including placing a certain percentage at the bottom. This leaves the door open for some very good folks (performance wise) to end up kicking cans down the road to sorrow. Nobody seems to know (or won't share what that percentage is). The EM CEO announced yesterday that there would be NO layoffs. I strongly disagree ! They are in fact laying off people, they're just disguising it. The originator of this post was correct when he / she stated that the change in the ranking system was nothing more than a layoff in disguise.
I worked for EM and heritage Mobil for 38 years combined and not a day since Exxon took over did I trust them. Went thru numerous site studies and cutbacks with their stupid personal silos. Believe me there is gonna be layoffs by a top heavy good ole boy Corp.
Great write up @5yyd+151OFZSc
When you look at all those old guys, remember they survived 6 layoffs in the industry since 1982. They were all top 2 quintiles during the first 20 years of their career. That is why those experienced old guys survived layoffs. They WERE high performers for several decades. Now atfer 2 decades of layoffs...the bottom is gone and these former high performers are now at the bottom. Today there is a group of younger people ranked ABOVE the old guys, yet they are not nearly as capable. Today there is a group of mid career people hired between 1995 and 2015, that have never been COMPETITIVELY CULLED, like the Old timers. This will come as a shock because millenials only saw the GOOD TIMES. This cut needs to be deep. Too many Slackers. Too many WEAK MANAGERS. Too many very WEAK MILLENIALS
I worked for XOM nearly 40 years. Survived major layoffs in 1982, 1986, 1991, 1998 and 2015. Six times in my career oil prices dropped to 30% to 40% of the previous peak price. BOOM-BUST. Bottom ranked 10 to 20% are always at risk. The problem is once the bottom 20% have been cut. The former 20 to 40% group become the New Bottom 20%...This forced distribution reduces the promotion frequency and pay for everyone because everyone drops 10 to 20% on the salary curves. Next the competitor surveys for salary will show UPSTREAM base pay and variable pay down significantly, SO curves will drop down 10 to 15%...This means no pay raises for 4 or 5 years. Finally, the number of executive and expat jobs will be reduced. This feels way worse than 1986 layoffs. Pay was stagnant for a decade back then. Then the 1998 oil crash hit and more people had to be cut. Literally the bottom 50% of XOM was laid off or fired between 1986 and 1998. This downturn is worse than 1986. I expect HUGE changes with stagnant pay / promotion for 5 or 6 years. Also no promotions for anyone in the bottom 40% because they will continue to drop in ranking over time as the bottom gets cut. When the boom comes, middle ranked people quit because independents will hire the survivors of XOM layoff, because they know they were well ranked. The disenfranchised middle 40 to 60% then quit. BOOM-BUST is staffing also
Do you work for EM? The new ranking was in the works since last year. It's generally less strict than the last system, and it doesn't facilitate secret layoffs any more than they last. They'll still pick a percentage at the very bottom of the list and give them the boot.
I have a friend who works for another major O&G company. He wears jeans everyday, hardly ever tucks in a shirt and I have even seen him wearing a t-shirt to the office. Maybe one day we won’t have to wear crazy socks to show our personality. Doubt it, just like what has been said before after enough time you get brainwashed into not thinking for yourself.
Right after they started the ‘branded polo Fridays’ I had a grown man (this guy has to be in this 50s) come over and ask a group of us colleagues if we knew if it was required and he needed to tuck in his polo shirt or not. This is why Exxon will never change. People have been brainwashed to not think for themselves or form their own opinion. Just to “follow the lead”. Like dude, tuck it in or not. I don’t really care lol. It doesn’t affect your work or mine.
Ok change the ranking system to attract talent. Come on. We have a dress code. I feel like a kid in grade school. Google and apple don’t have dress codes. But don’t worry we don’t need to find talent right now we will be getting rid of a lot of talent very soon.
Hi all, I worked for EM a long time before retiring several years ago (35 years oilfield.) I had a great (challenging) time working billion dollar international projects across the globe (30 on and 30 off), making an eye-poping salary (well into the 6 figures) , raising a family and retiring financially independent; and now, truly loving life. It was dream job. Yes, ranking was a bit scary. But, I gave EM 100% and did my job well so it was never an issue. There were plenty of upstream EM engineers like me, many retiring FI. I'm not sure about the geologists or squiggly line guys. Just saying. Life is good - j
Culture needs a huge overhaul. I’ve spoken to many who have heard terrible things about Exxon, management and leadership and have no interesting coming to work here. And when word gets around they made it mandatory for folks to be back in the office during a pandemic it’s going to be even worse.
Don’t think we need to Change the ranking system to attract talents. The oil and gas sector is not s-xy anymore and can not compete with apple and google! Think!
I’m pretty sure that change was in the works a year before COVID. Plus, from what I hear they had to drag the executive team kicking and screaming to change it. Apparently, the reputation of the ranking system was making it hard to attract new employees. This new system is “softer”, so that goes against your theory that it is a conspiracy to fire people.