It dawned on me today that the company has created a no win situation for us, a truly toxic environment. We spend most of our time hoping and praying we’re not involved in the next round of layoffs. But then when the layoffs are done if we’re still here, there is no relief. We are still affected by the added workload and lack of morale. Either way, Nike has the upper hand. The house always wins.
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LOL, @4hjs, posting the same response to different posts. Nice..
When there is no rhyme or reason for who is laid off, you lose good people. People who were dedicated, tenured and knew their stuff. This was all mathematical to please shareholders.
So you lost good people who could do the job and are left with good people but also bad apples who deserved to go but didn’t pop up in the algorithm and you can’t rely on them to pick up the slack. To top it off new hires know nothing about the company or products so best of luck to you getting them to pick up the slack. But hey, it saved the company a dime.
let me share a few observations and experiences, I have to say that I kind of enjoy coming back to this forum when I know that a restructuring is taking place, I left swoosh 9 years ago after spending 11 years. I left the company (on my own decision). I was the best decision, I have seen my career flourishing elsewhere. Let me say that during my time and after I left a new reorg took place approximately every 3-4 years, Nike is very predictable in that respect, they do these reorgs anyway with or without global crisis. One of the main reason for these changes is the following: people in general want to keep working for Nike as long as they can. by this I mean: people with different levels of commitment, different level of performance etc. what I know for sure is very few consider leaving by themselves, therefore the company looks at these reorgs as "shaking the tree to get rid of the bad ones", unfortunately good ones also suffer, because the normal employee turn over is not there at Nike. probably noone will like this but most employees at Nike do not seem to want any change, not the management, not the way company operates and expands their footprint, they do not want to change themselves either, in most cases they do not want to work more, because spending time in the gym, using all the perks company gives is too sweet, also because swoosh as a brand is cool, you get nice discounts to the hottest product. I have witnessed many people who do stuff that could get you fired on spot elsewhere, but somehow many people do these acts for years at Nike without getting caught, even if you get caught, Nike does not seem to know how to follow through, or how to prevent these in the first place, believe me that I have seen sales reps seeing their customers only in showrooms for sell in, that they have never visited even one store within their portfolio for years, I have seen people reselling the product and samples on various platforms, I have seen people renting out their company cars to uber drivers while they are in the office or at home, I have seen KAM's charging their wholesale accounts consultancy fees for "serving" them etc. the place is full of filthy practices taking advantage of everything, there is no other company which will allow these. on the other hand managers are not trained or therefore not good in managing their team's performance or career. everyone somehow thinks that they are the next big thing without really delivering anything more than fancy slides. it is an environment where HR does almost nothing for the employee because they think this is managers job, and managers do everything to advance themselves and almost nothing for their teams. lets say " everyone is for themselves, in good times and bad times". when I see that someone hates the company they work for, and want it to fail, it gives me the chills. personally I think swoosh should/could be at much higher place as a company and much more successful without all these bad apples and parasites. all I can say is " leave or change it if you do not like it", at the end it is you who make up the company you very much hate.
You absolutely do have a choice. Nike makes you feel like this is the be all end all. I felt that way. And they laid me off. And one month later I have a better job. More money. I’m respected and I have a future. I can honestly tell you that Nike does Train you well. Partly because after that place everything else seems simple and doable! Just get the hell out. Look for another job now. Don’t wait until the economy is better. There are opportunities right now.
@1ibj, valid points except we, the remaining employees, end up paying for this mess with many overtime hours and mental anguish. We still get disrespected, lied to, blamed and even punished for the mess they have created. How is this fair? We end up putting up with so much sh– because they know we do not have much of a choice given the economic downturn locally and globally. What we can do is hang in there knowing that once things out there start to get back to normal (I know, that could take a couple of years or more), then we can elect to leave this show to the people who have created it.
Leadership pushed a re-org on us, a high-level CDA concept with very little understanding of how the work gets done in the day to day. There’s no direction. There’s no process. Simplification was the goal but now it is 2X, 3X more complicated. What they have created is more reason to leave. Let’s leave this mess to “ the house “ to figure out, it’s above our pay grade.
Nike is by far the nastiest organization on the planet. This is based on my own experience. I am still working there though I can hardly wait to out. What Nike did to employees during a pandemic is unforgivable.