Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

"Higher ups have to worry about making decisions that keep the company afloat so that 70k people aren't looking for jobs"

Nope. Just one person. Themselves.

The internet runs on 80% Cisco gear and
software.

Wow. Shows how much you know about the current trends in the industry you pretend to be a professional in.

I'm a 18 year veteran at Cisco. What people on this board don't realize is that the higher ups make LR decisions that benefit the company and not individual employees....

You're probably some worthless services guy that should have been cut 18 times already.

While I agree the executive leadership team is filled with mo–ns, Cisco will not be the next Sun Microsystems or Nortel. Cisco has built strong government relationships in North America & Europe to ensure our boxes must be bought.

Lucent had those same relationships and agreements with the US government (but much stronger for better part of the 20th century). And it went by way of the dodo. To add insult to injury, the small amount of assets that survived were sold off to foreign companies (Alcatel). Nortel had similar ties with the Canadian government.

So, 2 points here:
1) It CAN happen.
2) If our one and only golden safety net is our ties with the government, we’re already doomed.

Cisco is learning layoffs style from Huawei which is even much worse. If no Huawei, I would not say we have so frequent layoffs.

And it’s full of people with so much emotional intelligence. Yay!

The internet runs on 80% Cisco gear and software. Cisco is here to stay. I love Cisco, it puts food on the table. Complaining because you unfortunately got LR'ed is not going get you your job back. Just move on.

The very fact that Cisco has implemented constant LRs as an ongoing organizational best-practice that has become part of its DNA -as evidenced by a former Sr Director, no less- shows the level of incompetence at the helm, the disastrous disregard to do things the right way, the fact it is a bunch of clueless people that don't know how to build a successful, inspiring long-term business vision, it's all about managing loss, painfully, bit by bit. Innovation in Cisco died with MPLS, and even that was invented elsewhere. Mediocrity rules. As another poster mentioned - Sun Microsystems all over.

I worked at Cisco for 23 years, left as a Sr. Director on my own timeline with no severance or package. I knew it was my time to go, I had 2 exceptional leaders on my staff who were ready to take the helm, and it was the right thing to do for me. I was involved in many an LR decision meeting, and observed some very good senior leaders struggling with the process and the decisions. My opinion is the people at the highest level of the organization come up with the financial goals (Cisco is above all a Finance-driven company, make no mistake about that), and the downward communication and LR execution began. The next level of leadership down now had to deal with the fiscal responsibility to the ELT, and to the people below them. They made a few decisions that some agreed with, some didn't. But those decisions also established the first traunch of who was safe and who wasn't. Sometimes it was personal, sometimes it was based on performance or contributions. Then the process got pushed another level down, rinse and repeat. After 4-5 levels of this, the target population for LR candidates was reduced to people who either had no strong relationship with one of the levels above them, were heads down workers who just didn't want to make waves, so they weren't "known" entities, or people who clearly needed to go but were never addressed previously. I do believe that in the big picture, 75% of the LRed people probably needed to go, some sooner than they lasted. I also believe that those initial layer process steps mentioned above ended up protecting too many managers or directors, mostly out of familiarity or friendship, so the "kept" population looked much more nepotistic than the LRed people. I managed organizations through multiple performance review systems and do feel the move away from formal performance discussions compromises the entire LR process to the point of corporate negligence. Senior leaders need to hold themselves and their staff accountable for as much 'ratings and rankings' as they apply to the non-management staff. One truism remains - the greater organization "knows" who is worth their salt and who isn't - at every level. It can't be hidden. Not addressing those people at every level creates a company lacking in integrity, equity, and accountability. Over time, it will come back to haunt them. One of my greatest concerns was the dilution of quality people coming in to the company - they used to say they only hire the top 75% of talent. But when you don't have a top 75%er hiring the next wave of people, then they're only at best 75% of the top 75%, then they hire their own "top 75%" and it goes on. It doesn't take too many waves of that before you're hiring bottom 35% people rather than top 75%.

What was the cash position when the current elt started - ie before repatriation, the extra tax bill for that and then the strategy of share buybacks, dividends and recent acquisitions?

CSCO only has $10B in cash and cash equivalents, and $24.3B in short term investments.

Current Assets are down $14.5B since end of July’18.

Interesting post. I don't deny that there's stress at the top but it's a lot less stressful when you inherit a business that's generating over $1B in cash a month and has more that $100B in cash. Not many companies are in this position and this has allowed for some innovation. One of those innovations is to do away with people development and career planning - it is simply more efficient to acquire new skills (we have the cash) and LR old skills (we have the cash - and the severances are respectful) - and the share price is reflecting the success of this innovation. Moreover, this doesn't apply just to the worker bees but it applies to senior leadership as well. I mean, didn't the ELT say they just interviewed every CMO in tech when the right leader was already an employee. Some level of career planning would have avoided that wasted effort. However, and if you can deal with the new reality, the company still has great people and amazing assets which allow us to do great things. It's still a great place to work!

While I agree the executive leadership team is filled with mo–ns, Cisco will not be the next Sun Microsystems or Nortel. Cisco has built strong government relationships in North America & Europe to ensure our boxes must be bought.

I worked for Cisco longer than you.

I have no sympathy for the higher ups. I actually worked on suggestions to embrace new industry initiatives. I recruited top customers.

Top leadership was too intellectually lazy and too compensated on q2q results to think long term.

Cisco will be the next Sun Microsystems.

Saddens me because it was good to me for 20 years. But it focuses on cost management rather than transformation. Looks how Microsoft transformed from their traditional obsolete business model with their CEO. Look how Cisco is still eminently dependent on selling boxes despite BS lip service to being a software company.

The leadership is abysmal. The transition to software has stalled and was never genuine.Think DEC. Think Sun Microsystems. Think Nortel.

I have been gone since January after 10+ years, and I am surprised to the degree I just don't give a rip about anything going on at Cisco, except for perhaps 50 people I interfaced with over the years. Life is so much better on the outside.

At this point, if you are not enjoying the ride, it's on you to find another. Great for those who love it–but you know what you are signing up for as they have institutionalized this layoff process over the last 10 years.

My parting advice: Always make sure you are getting more out of them than they are getting out of you. Upper management certainly lives by that statement.

That’s why execs and C suite get paid the big bucks. Layoffs s—. Constant layoffs mean bad leadership at the top.

I concur with OP. Cisco is the best place to work. LR can happen sometimes, no big deal. If I get LR'ed, I will not complain or cry.

Hey folks I’m part of the recent LR of 5k(?) employees, where Cisco took pain to repeat that my dept belongs to StandAlone Nexus division and this was nothing more than a business reason. Have had great reviews , am in my mid 40s, and so yeah 22 years at Cisco means I was recruited right out of college. But looking at the 650 or so positions they ‘eliminated’ it seems more than 95% are 40 and above years old employees.

Is this ground for age discrimination? I know hey took great pain to recite all the legal codes they’re following, but I think a lawyer would need to see this(?)

"higher ups make LR decisions that benefit THEMSELVES and not individual employees"
There, FTFY. FFS.

Good read.

Summary seems:

Employees concerned on their future.

Employees concerned with transparency.

Employees concerned with true talent and innovation, beyond simply aquiring companies.

I Love Cisco but just can't stay anymore.

Wish I could, but it's a completely different company to us 18+ year folks. I can't invest 50+ hours a week and worry all the time.

Wish everyone, including those making the big decisions, the best.

Cisco has come a long way. Please try to remember the roots.

That's just about the biggest load of #$%t I've read on this board. You are impaired beyond help. Management across the board at Cisco does nothing but manage revenue and costs. Sure, those are critical factors, but Management has lost the human touch. Just like @10qehXXt-idw said....once Cisco removed formal performance appraisals, they removed a key factor of successful employee communication: getting REQUIRED performance feedback, which is documented and managed. However, we all know that appraisals are still done, whether it is performance, value, or age....otherwise Cisco would have no idea who to layoff. But the biggest problem is that information is not required to reach the employees anymore. Once Cisco cut the required appraisals, they severed the communication between employee and upper mgmt. It was a brilliant move by the lawyers, but seriously damaged the culture of the company.

It sounds like you’re the one who doesn’t realize.

This is so much bulls***. You don’t have to be a CEO or CFO to understand corporate finance. If the execs are so concerned about the company’s long-term health, they’d invest in innovation and talent. Cisco is doing neither. All our capital is going to short-sighted acquisitions, PR, and the execs’ pockets.

In my opinion, Cisco’s long on bodies and short on talent, due to many years of terrible leadership and undisciplined organizational strategy and hiring practices. So layoffs are unfortunate but unsurprising. The bigger problem is that no one’s learned a da*n thing, so the cycle continues, year after year, with leadership pretending to wring their hands over the “tough decisions around strategic cuts and investment” and naive and/or underdeveloped employees shocked when their job gets shipped to India or backfilled by a 22-year-old with no experience.

That 18 year veteran must be a Cisco marketing person marched out to spread some BS. I too have been at Cisco over 18 years and have never met an executive and only a few managers that cared about anything besides themselves. Well, in the sales teams the goal and attainment are more important than anything. This company is a sales company, Chuck only cares about the stock price, and the rest of the so called executive leadership team they care about their massive stock options. Once the chain of command gets above the direct manager they don't even know the first line workers, where they live, or anything about them. It just does not matter. They simply take what comes down from the ivory tower and parrot it out to everyone downstream.

I'm always amazed as to how much certain people love Kool Aid.
I hope the original poster's comment was just satire.

• 1 with @10qehXXt-ret. There are so many worthless Directors and a few levels above that in Cisco that is dragging the company down. They get to where they are in climbing the ladder with political alignment by moving from one group to another as they destroy teams based on bad decisions. Those are the fat that needed to be trim as oppose to the worker bees. I have seen many Directors with zero or one report that do barely anything; Nothing to show for during their year as a Director. They then find a spot with their friends and get to manage the whole team. Way too many of those scenarios within Cisco. Trim management and not the folks that do the work. Cisco strategy is flawed and will keep Cisco at the existing level. Cutting OPEX cost by focusing on the payroll to contain cost is the right strategy in some cases, but the approach have to be very well executed.

Calling bull on " What people on this board don't realize is that the higher ups make LR decisions that benefit the company and not individual employees". Your narrative is so inaccurate at so many levels. Painting a picture perfect illustration of executives and their decisions. There so much political driven as well as personal gain decisions that are made as oppose to the holistic benefit of the company. Let's not forget about lack of accountability for bad decisions and results based on performance. Evaluations for their performance are made mostly on political alignment.

I have to strongly disagree with you. 18 year veteran here. One exec I know got a $22M sign-on bonus. At those numbers I don't care if I get let go. They throw bodies out the door to make their number look better and get them three more months of the gravy train. To me it's like Hitler sitting in the bunker letting thousands of people die so he gets a few more days to live. Bottom line is they don't care about anyone under them. LR isn't an inconvenience, its mortgage payments not being made, it's food on the table etc. etc. while the exec's that made the bad decisions get in their limo's to go home every night.

Bad or marginal formal individual performance appraisal feedback beats living with one's head in the sand.

Sure, let's all be sheep and work in an imaginary world where there is no performance management or annual review cycles. Maybe that's just too stressful for a senior leadership team to develop, manage, and drive resourcing by; instead of shoveling people into a bin for harvest when the financials need to line up.

People need to be pushed, have an annual review cycle; have a PIP program, and perhaps even establish a bottom 5% ranking policy to be used when restructuring requires.

So people should just go do their best, spend much of their lives just running on autopilot?

It's called accountability, and it is a two way street.

What you are describing is weak and lazy management style driven by relying on Boston consulting and other consulting houses. It is not ok. There are better ways to successfully manage a company then treating employees as expenses rather than the assets they are. This leadership team does it every single year!!! Manage a tech company and internally build technology rather than be a lazy venture capitalist.

Not arguing with anything else but this. Executives are looking after their own self interests. They are not thinking about 70k people being jobless. They make decisions that suite them. Not that anything is wrong with it but you are making it sound as if execs are altruistic. They are not.