I keep hearing that some people got laid off, and I thought I would be safe at least for a while. Layoffs do happen, but no one has any insight. That uncertainty is really exhausting. They could be a little more transparent, right? The employees of this company deserve it. I don’t understand why these things are kept so secret.
5 replies (most recent on top)
Very poor planning & 0 transparency sums it up. I understand the intent of CDA re-org, but there were many unnecessary changes that LTs swept in.
@1jxs is spot on. Global Tech is overpopulated and needs both trimming and reorganization. Only a handful of changes were made and I would be shocked if we do not soon see layoffs and people shuffling.
Why is it secretive? Because the ELT and JD sh– the bed in rolling out the CDA. I can’t put my finger on any other companies realignment strategy that was at or near as poorly executed as this was. I’m not going to hold my breath for JD’s monthly all hands call happening because he has NOTHING POSITIVE OR EARTH SHATTERING TO SHARE!
Prior reply is logical and I'd agree with most of the points although I think it's missing Nike Tech which is a very large group of employees that has yet to go through the reorg as a response to CDA. There will likely be a significant number of layoffs as part of that action so it is too early to call "all clear" for a while if you are in any of those teams.
OP this is my understanding of what has gone on:
- Nike announced the layoffs last summer to align the company with the new CDO.
- The first round of layoffs last Fall/early winter involved VP’s. I think this might have been nearly 100 people but I don’t remember.
- A few weeks later came layoffs of Sr. Directors.
- A few weeks after that came the big layoff event mostly targeting Directors and other people in all bands from V to E.
- After that JD held his all employee meeting saying something like “That’s it. This is the new team.”
- Most of the above layoffs involved people working in the “core” of the Nike business.
- After that, various areas of Nike that support the core business had to realign to this new CDO structure. So we then saw a few additional and smaller rounds of layoffs in “support service” groups. I think most of those happened in March. I have no idea how many people were impacted but it seems to have been more than 100 and less than 200.
All of the above is just my understanding of what has gone down and I think it has left a lot of people confused. I think people are confused because HR communicated these layoffs poorly giving everyone the incorrect impression that once those “core business” layoffs happened everything was over. Which clearly wasn’t the case. It didn’t help that JD said “This is the new team” since that also caused everyone to believe all of the layoffs were done.
It is my understanding that all of the layoffs are now done. Although that doesn’t mean a few people here and there might not still get let go as they further refine the new business structure. But yeah I think any larger or group layoffs are now all done. I have no insider information. That’s just what I’ve heard.
If you’re still around at Nike I think there’s a very good chance your job is safe. For now. I have no idea what the longer term looks like. I tend to agree with others who have suggested that layoffs might be a more regular thing going forward. Here too that’s just a guess on my part. I don’t know any more than anyone else. And maybe I’m wrong about that. I sure would like to be.
My best advice now would be go with the flow and don’t stress over it. None of us ever have as much control over our lives as we’d like to think. This is a tough but important life lesson to master. Hope for the best but always have a solid Plan B in your back pocket.