The fact that there are significantly fewer ‘good’ jobs to move up into. Org charts have been stripped. Everyone who has been working hard thinking at least there’s a bigger job out there for me, think again. They’re gone or in the process of being gone. Once people see their next job isn’t what they hoped for, they’re outta here. It’s a shame.
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Don't forget the following reasons:
- layoffs in 2020 was a tectonic breach of trust as one of the selling points of xom was it's stability and financial discipline
- Suspension of 7% match for an entire year.
- Fake performance review used to layoff people, particularly the most senior.
- Forcing everyone to return to campus in the middle of the pandemic.
- pathetic salary raises in a 10% annual inflation environment
Spot on. When a company is no longer growing the opportunities to move up disappear. Declining company in a declining industry. Go join a company that is growing headcount and growing in size to find opportunities. ExxonMobil’s best days are clearly behind us. Just look at how employee benefits continue to decline.
And all the expat assignments are reserved for engineers from India.
@cil+1hNwffiY is absolutely correct. The same “leaders” that were pushing for growth in 2018, like DW, were responsible for the 2020 layoffs. Remember the advantaged Chemical projects and the refinery upgrades, that was all DW pushing to “win”. He’s quick to blame others but should look in a mirror and hold himself accountable!
This post is spot on and it's the reason I'm leaving XOM GP for greener pastures. My last two job assignments have been roles with progressively less responsibility despite ranking excellent for 4 years running. I'm leaving because I'm ready for more responsibility and there are plenty of other companies willing to give it.
I joined EM for the training and development opportunities. The EM I joined as a graduate put me through a rigorous graduate development scheme, provided early job rotations that kept me intellectually stimulated and gave me exposure to subject matter experts who had travelled the world and were the best in their field. Fast forward to 2018, now at IOL and training was non-existent, rotations were ill-conceived and young graduates were expected to know things that nobody had shown them. My 'global exposure' suddenly reduced to producing mediocre mundane reports. The thought of spending the next 20+ years in such a suffocating environment was enough to convince me to walk away. I'm happy I left, it was the right decision for me but I'm also sad to see this giant of a company slowly become a thing of the past.
EM needs more projects so that there are more opportunities. EM needs to find more oil and gas. If EM had not bought into other company’s discoveries in the Bakkan and accidentally found oil in Guyana then there would be near zero projects. Notice I said accidentally found oil in Guyana, because the exploration team that found the first discovery in Guyana were given the very specific instruction to “drill the cheapest dry ho-e possible”.
EM then took the opposite approach for Brazil spending loads of money instructing the drillers to make that great big certain discovery subsalt. Oops, they drilled many dusters trying to drill that big subsalt discovery.
Seems strange that with so few discoveries and so few projects, why did EM hire an additional 5000 employees in 2018-2019?
EM likely would have needed a layoff by end 2020 even without the Covid downturn.
Which Executives approved ramping up staffing with no apparent increase in projects forecast? The same that approved the layoff in 2020?
Management is not the only career path. I fully agree with the OP. Working in Global Projects there is no longer any clear or defined career path, and specifically there's very few decent projects to get allocated to. After those that are sponsored and the correct demographic are allocated the best projects and opportunities, there's nothing left. So as saud, the lack of meaningful progression and challenge just mean that the vast majority are looking to leave.
The supervision and management gravy train is tightly controlled by and for the faithful.
Ok, this is complete double-speak. For the last two years, all you were commenting on how we need fewer management positions. We’ll, surprise!?!? That means there are less management positions to move into. It is still the right thing for the company.