I assume the layoffs will continue. Remember the layoffs of February 2019? I lost alot of friends. I am guessing there will be another round in Feb 2020. I wish I had been let go this round. This place is miserable. I don't trust Optum or UHG to ever do the right thing. I don't know why a multi-billion dollar company treats employees like this. For those that are left, watch your back. For those that were let go, God speed... and know that our thoughts are with you. You WILL prevail. When Optum does come and stab you in the back sooner or later, remember Julius Ceaser... Et tu, Brute?
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Today just received the email about new president. My friend looked him up said he is getting 25million a year so you are absolutely right because who really needs that much money when you want your company to “remain competitive in order to better serve members”. Horrible. We are their members and still can’t get quality health plans that are affordable.
I'm in a senior leadership role, and I hope my team understands and respect what we go through - but they probably don't, and if I were in their shoes I'd probably feel the same way. We've been consistently slaughtered on the internal employee surveys, and the results are always poor in the same areas, but if you've worked here you know nothing is ever done. Trust in 'leadership' drops every survey.
As managers we know something is up when suddenly we get told that on upcoming evals anybody getting better than a 3 has to have extraordinary justification. And we're given a quota to meet a certain number of 1's or 2's (NI's). HR will deny deny deny, but this is a regular conversation during eval season - yes, we absolutely get quotas for how many can be above a 3 and how many MUST be below a 3 (usually 20-30%). To make matters worse, if you've consistently been a solid, but middle-of-the-road performer, if you've been a 3 for the last 3-4 years they consider that as if it's a 'Needs Improvement' - even though we're told we CAN'T give people above a 3 without extraordinary reasons! This is incredibly stressful, especially after months and months of previous exercises to reduce staff and eliminate lower performers. Yes, somebody will always be on the bottom but you reach a point of diminishing returns eventually - and it seems like NOBODY ever gives a thought to where that work will go once that person is gone. That's why things get neglected, or other depts suddenly get swamped with extra work they know nothing about (which in turns leads to lower performance, etc. Catch-22). Likewise promotions are impossible, limited to 1% or less of the people we nominate. And the internal job postings are a joke, I've yet to see any internal candidates seriously considered, and more often than not they don't even get the courtesy of a call-back, just silence.
I try to make my teams understand they need to be ready at any time (and in this case it's especially true, since I've already been told that some of my teams have been targeted for 1st quarter) but there's a lot of denial out there and unfortunately some folks who think they're safe will find out the hard way that they are not. Performance is NOT a criteria anymore, and tenure doesn't matter (and in fact may be a negative factor, out with the old, in with the new). It's location, percieved redundancy, and simple 'old boy' cronyism. I've seen a lot of folks recently get their jobs because of who they know and not because of what they know - on the backs of talented tenured staff who got let go because they weren't close enough to right exec or office.
Pay attention to the executive compensation too. I've seen when layoffs occur, executive compensation goes up for the year. We've been told we need to be more efficient, and reduce costs, yet the executive compensation is still through the roof!
Lots of corporate greed in the executive stack. Cut heads to appeal to stockholders, show record profits/revenue, and get a ton of stock options as part of executive compensation... They need their new yacht or supercar for 2020...
Managers and supervisors in my department were rabid about getting employee performance reviews in the works back in September. Workflow at that time had dwindled and our performance is based on metrics. Good luck everyone.
Layoffs are common in Feb, it’s performance based at that time.. ratings are in and those with a 3 or below should expect to be cut. I am hearing though another key date is 11/20.. I fully expect to be let go at that time.
It’s going to be hard to swallow the Scarface for success mantra. How many executives took a hit? Or board members?
Not to mention huge layoffs are a sign of incompetence in management. That can’t look good to investors.