I don't understand why would somebody think Exxon owes them lifelong employment just because they've been here for a certain amount of years. That's not how employment works. You'll have a job for as long as a company needs you to do that job. Things change, companies evolve, work changes, and if you're not able to follow along you can't expect for an employer to keep you on "out of the goodness of his heart." Too many of you have a very distorted idea about what you are entitled to...
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Yeah EM corporate is entitled. They feel like if they just spread how awesome EM is the profits will just roll in because we deserve them. In reality, a company needs to adapt to the times and not just ignore reality or fail to follow through on their commitments.
Last year Jan 2020, DW had a townhall where he talked about courage of conviction and how you have to invest when prices are low (buy low sell high). This was to justify his $30B+ CAPEX program while other operators already had started cutting back. Merely 3 months later in April/May timeframe, DW announced massive cuts to the CAPEX programs due to COVID and low oil prices.
If DW had any actual courage or conviction, he would have paused the dividend ($13B per year) and renegotiated existing projects with contractors for better rates. He might have even accelerated some schedules. Right now oil prices are climbing so this would be the opportunity to “sell high” and take the payoff before EVs and other tech start displacing huge swaths of the O&G market. However, DW/EM failed to follow through and instead decided giving away money to shareholders during a downturn was the best way to generate investor returns lol.
Calm down Karen and tell DW hello on your next dinner date.
The Company pitched retirement - hard working, honest people believed in a long term career. That is not entitlement. Perhaps posting on a forum , name calling colleagues suits the definition better.
There is absolutely an entitlement problem at Exxon but it's not really at the employee level. Corporate profitability was taken for granted for so long that many questionable practices and cultures sprung up in downstream/chemicals/support.
Now these organizations are being expected to actually deliver profits, while historically they were mainly focused around minimizing losses. A switch like that is very challenging for a business this large, and its employees.
Here's to a better 2021 for all of us
Breaking news. Leadership behaviors updated. It is now required to villanize the workforce by calling them names such as entitled and ungrateful.
It has been so interesting to watch this language describing employees as entitled develop.
@2onm+19C5t2VB
Thanks. We don’t have exactly the same. We have “voluntary” separation, no clause to prohibit re-hiring, and no severance pay. We were offered to work up to 3 months max from date of separation and during this period, it is to facilitate handover. We were also offered sign-up with Placement Company to help us look for jobs outside. The US lay-off is slightly better. All other benefits are terminated at the end of the 3 months. This is how it is done in the Far East. If you read the similar blog for “Singapore”, you will feel the “anger and disappointment” of the still employed and those who were “laid-off”. It’s really very sad to read .... Take care and wishing all the best in your endeavour
@1hfb+19C5t2VB Keep your faith and hope it'll not happen to you. Do I need to say more? Karma.
In the US at least those who were laid off were not NSI or the lowest performance category. They are people who would have kept their job had there not been a need to reduce headcount. They can be rehired if we start to hire again. They were given severance, kept on payroll for several months but not expected to work, were connected with a job finding service, and have their health insurance paid for several months.
Thanks for the clarification @1hfb+19C5t2VB. I did not realise that there is another category called ‘lay-off’. What is the difference (for my own info.)? Is it based on job redundancy and is there any redundancy payouts unlike the NSI/PIP?
Those who were part of the layoff didn’t have to sign the form saying they wouldn’t reapply to the company. That is only for those in the NSI/PIP.
Everyone of us seek a lifelong employment with a Company. Job security is one of the key factor that job seekers look for, not a “ hire-and-fire” organisation. Job security is very important as it allows us to commit to home purchases, bringing up families, etc.... the point I am getting at is, if the employees are good and they contribute to the growth of the Company, they should not be treated the way the Company is axing them when the business turns sour due to many factors. This is my definition of “entitlement “.
Furthermore, when business turn sour, which sometimes do happen, does the Management think that it can be revived? If yes, then they should handle lay-offs fairly to affected good employees so that their livelihood is not that badly disrupted and it gives them enough time to find a new job elsewhere and even return back (not the way those they lay-off need to sign that they should not apply to work for the Company in future.). This will keep the reputation of the company to be very high so that when the business turns around, they are able to hire the best. From the actions of EM, laying off good/performing employees under the disguise of “poor” performance without lay-off benefit is telling the employees/shareholders that the Company is giving up hope that it will ever be great again.
The Management need to rethink of the damage done and quickly try to correct it, if they believe that the Company can become great again one day in the near future. I believe it can and we should not let some poor business decisions ruin the Company forever.
FYI, I used to be a loyal employee with 30+ years history with EM (got laid off in the recent “non-performance” exercise). and I know that EM can rise again. In the Far East, we will shout “Jia Yu” to encourage the Company to move forward positively.
Look at it this way.
All it takes is one major environmental episode or plant episode.
Or the tax breaks go away.
and the company is gone completely.
So don't take it personal.
Op, allow me to clarify for you: moving from EMPLOYER TO EMPLOYER, e.g., different companies, not within the same company
What are you talking about? Job moves aren’t on a whim. The company moves us. There are no open job postings.
If you had just received a college degree and were too lazy or naive to conduct due diligence and check out each prospective employers hiring pitch, shame on you. Please don't try to buy a house or car if you expect everything you hear to be true. There has been no "job for life" mentality at EM for probably over 30 years now, so it was obviously no secret had you bothered to check. All employers paint a rosy picture, but who you elect to go with is on you. Plus, you are the ones who mostly talk about moving from job to job at a whim, staying long enough only to get trained and then leave, etc. So what about the company's expectation that the cost and effort to train you will pay off? Oh, that doesn't matter because it is not solely about you getting ahead. Same old song and verse. Endless whining and no credibility. On the corporate t##t.
The entitled are those who whine in a company forum about how their multi-million dollar compensation is subpar, then proceeds to chastise us about cutting cost, to finally arrive late to another town hall after laying off people because he couldn’t park his jet.
Look around and see the clones and wannabes, the entitled, useless, and unaccountable cadre is managers and cheerleaders.
All of you feed daily at the EM pig trough. You gorge yourself with high salaries and excellent benefits, then endlessly complain about the smell of fellow pigs. Hypocrites each and every one.
So many entitled people in corporate.
People don’t expect that. How wrong you are.
People expect stable employment for as long as they do their job effectively. They also expect to be dealt upfront with and to not be deceived. They expect to be treated with respect, the basic reps eg all humans deserve.
What’s hard to understand about that?
OP seems to be a member of DWs squad or a paid member of mgmt. committee.
Well you tell people enough times that is how the company works they may actually start to believe it. Maybe management shouldn’t have made promises they didn’t intend to keep.
My definition of entitled is continuing to award yourself stock bonuses as a once great company sinks and the teams you manage lose their jobs due to your choices.
The once who drove us into this ditch have zero accountability and their party continues. That’s my definition of entitled.
Might have something to do with the fact that for years lifelong employment was sold by management as part of the company culture and values.
Calling the workforce entitled is the new way management gives themself an out so they can sleep at night knowing full well what they are doing is wrong. Their day of reckoning will come.
“We hire you to retire you” and “You will have careers within a career at ExxonMobil” were repeated over and over to the workforce. People didn’t leave during boom times for other jobs with better pay because we were told “slow and steady wins the race” and even though we don’t have bonuses you will have consistent steady salary treatment. All has proven to be a lie and company has no credibility anymore. Management just looks out for themselves and doesn’t care about the workers who they see as entitled, ungrateful widgets who can easily be replaced. All the talk about safety and family is just so management can meet their metric and get their bonus. If you actually get hurt they pressure you to work through the pain and seek medical attention on your own time so it isn’t reported. Sad. Very sad.
I agree fully with +19CSt2VB, from as far as the Far East. The past Management sold this “assurance” to us. This “assurance” has been broken by the current Management Team and I don’t know or understand the logic behind this. Without this “assurance”, it will be more difficult to attract good employees going forward. EM that I knew always claimed to hire the very best and in my 30+ years, I have been an unsolicited ambassador for the Company when I supervised University interns, recommending the trainees to grab an offer from EM vs other offers. I guess I had done a dis-service to them, on hind sight. I regretted my actions and I will no longer recommend anyone for long term career but to grab the opportunity to work in EM for the short term, learn as much and then leave for greener pastures. EM is not a place one should work for long term, if the Company culture remains what it is today. Employees are not treated fairly.
I’ll bite at this troll. @OP+19C5t2VB the problem is EM sells it when they recruit you. That If you do your job well, you can make a career out of EM. They prided themselves on this pitch and the pension and the addition of a 401k match.
“EM is the best at managing people and we don’t do layoffs”. Blah blah blah. That credibility goes down the drain when you target 8% in the layoff but not a layoff ranking last year. And now a true layoff with a pretty lousy severance (compared to other majors) oh and then I’ve heard this years pds cycle is also 8% so good luck with that one.