I've had 2 coworkers PIPd and another 2 high flyers leave for other opportunities. Starting to feel like I haven't jumped when I should have.
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Started last August and got the boot this past month. 3 month severance. I was a “relatively” ‘good’ performer (ask my coworkers) but since I didn’t do a good job on a project for my manager directly (it was impossible to do given I was 5 months into the company and didn’t know that much) he placed me at the bottom and I got the boot. Very sad for exxon. I’m confident I will recover quickly but can’t believe exxon is doing this mainly cause the managers play favorites.
To all the comments on high fliers, was talking about the ones with good technical skills that ACTUALLY do something for the company. Not management positions. Performance assessment is so obviously stacked against technical employees that they are going to be the 1st ones to jump ship.
Process of picking high flyers needs improvement. Agree, many of them would struggle outside of EM; 3rd tier schools, a “sense of entitlement” mindset and focused on internal politics rather than developing competence and hardwork. Seen many in Chemicals HQ and U/S.
To be fair, some are good - but they are far and few unfortunately. Need a better talent selection process to pick the next generation of leaders.
High-flyers. Met so many and they left me behind.
Ground control is mine.
Here's the story per Jim Carroll:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPNqojbyIDk
@1dqc+173lPBgc - Agree, our high-flyers wouldn’t cut it in companies that actually drive results and generate shareholder value. I don’t know of any successful companies where you are rewarded mainly for self-promotion and visibility without any real results.
@1mue+173lPBgc Our high flyers ain’t that good actually.. just smarter at playing internal games.. that’s all folks! Anyway we have DW.. that’s all we need to WIN!
"Low performers" are being kicked out this cycle. High performers are looking for other opportunities as they have really good skill sets to navigate the market and don't want to deal with the potential uncertainty of the next cycle.
Soon, the company is going to have to deal with the loss of experience (older employees) and ones that are really efficient in the work they do (high performers). This is going to lead to a spiral effect of perspective employees not hiring on and existing employees just leaving due to poor culture.
IMO, stopping the cash flow problem this cycle by PIPing employees is a short term solution that is going to cause a very long term problem for the company. Years ago, DW commented on an employee forum that we don't have a retention problem, going forward... Now we do.
Get Out
I don't want to be your friend