Does anyone here know, at what level of hierarchy do they make the decision to lay-off more or less people? Do they consult their subordinates, and if they do, how far down do they come?
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Here is how the sausage is made at EM. HQ controls ALL decisions. Most are made directly there, but for the few decisions delegated to the business units and support organizations, there are strict guidelines and controls in place to ensure that every local decision completely aligns with what HQ wants. No exceptions.
HQ sets the numbers on how many to lay off. They of course won't know you by name, you as an individual are not important to them, but you will fit into the boxes they have drawn with the parameters they have set.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I know how things work at EM. It could be legally problematic if no one successfully completes the PiP program and keeps their job; otherwise the program could be labeled a sham. Entirely possible that some of those PiP'ed may have been preselected to survive the program. If so, it would most likely be those with the highest rankings of the group such that a strong and "process based" case to retain them could be made (ranking meetings). The selected employees of course wouldn't know this, nor their supervisors, only local senior management. Remember that control is everything at EM, with very few things left to chance.
After all, it could be much too time consuming and legally problematic to have all of the managers meet and subjectively decide who passed the program and who didn't. How could the criteria to keep some and cut others meet legal challenges? This would be even worse than the rank group meetings. Hanging onto the highest ranking PiP'ed employees would solve this and require no further analysis, meetings, etc. I hope this is not the case, and that all who were PiP'ed truly had a chance to show enough performance improvement to keep their jobs, but it's hard to see how this wouldn't create potential issues that the company does not want to mess with down the road.
Regardless, the layoffs won't be finalized until both HR and Legal assure senior management that their actions have a bullet proof defense if challenged in court, in public or wherever. HR will run what is called disparate impact analyses, where the group to be laid off is similar enough in makeup to the overall workforce such that cases for discrimination for any group, age, gender, race or any other reason won't be successful. HR does the same for the final rank groups whether layoffs are planned or not. Routine business. No risks taken.
I doubt if any lower level supervisors or managers will play any meaningful role in the actual implementation of the layoffs. It is typically a very cold, sterile and carefully laid out process. Words are read from a script, with HR and Legal likely present. Hired security will be very close and on standby, although you won't see them. Often times off-duty deputies are kept in an empty office near where the layoff process plays out. That's for everyone's safety and is entirely normal. You will likely be immediately escorted from the campus.
It's all a very sad process, and I truly grieve for those affected. Layoffs impact not only the employee, but entire extended families, often causing huge hardships. But, there is a big world out there looking for somebody just like you. Go find it and get your life back on track. You may well look back someday and say this is the best thing that ever happened to me. I did in a previous life, and I am grateful now. Been on both sides of this. Good luck to all.
CEO makes the number. The "country studies" and external consultants take the blame for the number.
All done at the top. Your supervisor is given a number and identifies who would be the least painful (in their opinion) to lose. There really isn’t an opportunity supervisors to make a case or push back. Those who do are labeled as not team players, PIPd and replaced by endless stream of those who will not push back.
# is from HQ. Decision is likely 2~3 levels above you.
Dude if you haven't figured out, this is a command and control culture. IT is all done at the top (i.e., above VP level).