Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

@5ear+1hODUwjY, you said:

Just because you can't thrive at Cisco's over the top toxic environment in your 50s doesn't mean you can't work elsewhere if you know your sh-t.

in reply to my comment. But you obviously didn't read the comment my post was in response to. I said they couldn't hack it because they said:

Me too and I am 53 near end of career and struggle in Cisco now because too much change and too many very complex solution like sda/aci/security and stuffs. licenses are stupidly crazy complex and customers always complains. I want to do something else much different in rest of career where I go to work and come home and no worrying about stuffs like I do at Cisco.

They think Cisco is complex and hard to work at. 75% of Cisco is legacy products and bug fixes. The rest is trying to shoehorn acquired products into Cisco's products to be bundled as part of a Cisco solution.

I left 19 years ago. Oh wrong thread.

"If you can't handle the work now at 53, there's no way you're going to get a new job at 53 that "is much different" where you can work and go home without worrying about work unless you want to ask people if they want fries with their order, become a Walmart greeter or a retail worker making minimum wage."

Handling work at Cisco is very different from handling work elsewhere. I was so sick of Cisco and left with ER in 2020 - early 50s. I was coming the tail end of my ER exit date and starting to think about what to do next. It took me one afternoon of scanning LinkedIn job postings, found some that were interesting. Interviewed the following week for one day for my current position. The Hiring manager book-ended (first and last) the interviews that day. On the final interview, I was informed they are working on an offer. Accepted it a week later and been great ever since.

Just because you can't thrive at Cisco's over the top toxic environment in your 50s doesn't mean you can't work elsewhere if you know your sh-t.

I took the ER in 2020 in my late 50s. 2 job offers at a higher salary than what I made at Cisco. 2020 -2022 we're probably the best years ever for senior talent to be looking for something new. Don't fear leaving regardless of your age. Keep LinkedIn up to date and network.

@1xrz+1hODUwjY, you're correct that the fact that many employees are hoping for a layoff is Cisco's problem, but I disagree with the rest of your comments about it being a good thing to start a new job at the end of your career at 53. Many companies do not want to hire people in their mid-to-late 50's and early 60's.

If you can't handle the work now at 53, there's no way you're going to get a new job at 53 that "is much different" where you can work and go home without worrying about work unless you want to ask people if they want fries with their order, become a Walmart greeter or a retail worker making minimum wage.

Chuck danced around the subject at the check-in. He really couldn't say we were going to do a layoff without having announced it to the street first. He said we'd be spending more on employees next year than this, implying growth, but also hinting at adjusting across the company. You know the drill by now - this area needs people while this other area is cutting people. At a company this size that's gonna happen a lot.

I'm not sure why you say he can't announce it to us first without announcing it to the the (wall)street first.

Back in 2011, when they had the first Early Retirement (ER), they announced the ER in late Winter/early Spring at the beginning of 2011. They said, based on the numbers of people who took the ER, the number of people who would be impacted by the workforce reduction (WFR), now called LR's, in August. After the cutoff date for applying for the ER, they announced internally in April or May that something like 5,500 or 6,500 employees would be let go and affected employees would be notified Tue, Wed, or Thur of the first full week of Aug. I remember this because I was pretty certain I was on my boss's sh-----t and would be let go, so I sort of started looking for new jobs between Feb - Jun. I got a few offers, but nothing from a company I wanted to join so I turned them down. I had been on a performance improvement plan (PIP) since Sept 2010, and my weekly goals were hard and getting harder as time went by, but in Feb/March, they suddenly just became more typical tasks of my current role and not "growth" tasks that he'd been throwing at me in the hopes I'd fail so I could be terminated. By May, they just became token goals and I knew I was on the reduction list, so it was no surprise when my Thursday PIP meeting the first week of Aug got cancelled and rescheduled for 8:30AM Tue morning. Monday night, I came in after dinner and cleaned out all my personal effects and deleted all personal data off my Cisco laptop because, at that time, I'd not seen an Cisco reductions and didn't know how they were handled. I had no idea I'd get to keep the laptop for the next 30 days "to look for a new internal job", except that because I was on a PIP, I was ineligible for any internal transfers.

IIRC, the year Chuck took over as CEO was the only year between 2011 and now that Cisco didn't have LRs and the first LR under CR's tenure was in 2016. That was the turning point where they were no longer announced internally in late Q3 or at the start of Q4, and were announced during the year-end earnings calls and affected employees were notified the next morning. I had returned to Cisco in 2012 after my 2011 WFR and my current team's manager told us all in a morning team meeting that we all should listen to today's year-end earnings call. That afternoon, he mass emailed the team a link to listen to it and immediately left for the day. Almost immediately after Chuck announced that there was going to be that huge 5,500 or 6,500 LR in 2016, several people on my team received meeting invitations from our manager for first thing the next morning with no subject and no agendas. People were sharing emails and Jabber messages amongst themselves and looking to see who had common meeting times scheduled w/ the manager and we knew exactly who on the team was getting the axe that night. One guy was on PTO and the manager had to call him while on vacation to read him the HR boiler plate message that he was laid off.

I just hope this spineless ELT aims right this time by being surgically precise and cut where there's no hope, rather than peanut butter spreading LRs across all BUs.

Don't hold your breath. Best you can hope for is that BUs will target low performing people instead of expensive people w/ skills due to their age and keep leader's boot lickers.

ELT would’ve said no layoffs by now, and they have not.

Correct, at the most recent Cisco Check-In, Chuck said there would be more people working at Cisco in FY23 than there was in FY22, implying that Cisco would be growing.

However, he very carefully did not say there were going to be no reductions followed by increased hiring. They mentioned they needed to do a better job of transferring people between BUs instead of laying off people and hiring new people to do the same work on different teams. Hopefully that means they realize that there are costs involved with paying severance packages, the fact that they're not getting any work done for those paid wages of pay-in-lieu-of-notice plus severance, the people hours involved in returning and wiping laptops for return, and the cost of lowered productivity in having to go through the process of opening and approving job req's, interviewing, performing background checks, onboarding and setting up new users with accounts, setting up their laptops for their new job function because they just received a laptop w/ just the base OS on it. It's much cheaper to move people around and way better for morale. Given that we're all "hybrid" now and don't need to come into the office, it's even easier to switch between teams that might be primarily based somewhere else than where the other team is because the employee doesn't have to relocate to where the new team is. It's getting harder and harder to setup new laptops as part of the 3 yr refresh remotely. I know it can be done because two co-workers did it earlier this week, but both had to open support cases because the instructions were either unclear or just didn't work.

Naw, what am I thinking? There's no way Cisco would wise up to that and start doing the smart thing.

Most likely it'll be the quiet layoff - new process: where we're eliminating your roll you have X time to find a new job internal or external. Unless its a large layoff (or if they've switched again) they're trying to have these fly beneath the radar.

Chuck danced around the subject at the check-in. He really couldn't say we were going to do a layoff without having announced it to the street first. He said we'd be spending more on employees next year than this, implying growth, but also hinting at adjusting across the company. You know the drill by now - this area needs people while this other area is cutting people. At a company this size that's gonna happen a lot.

People sitting around waiting for an LR package are screwing themselves. They had a chance to make a move when the job market was hot. Now if they get cut they're stepping into a cooling market. Bottom line is if you're not happy then go someplace where you can be happy.

Chuck basically said there would be layoffs on the Check In yesterday (I think he called it rebalancing).

Don't think there will be net cuts, but perhaps it's time for sales to get a new structure aligned to Cisco selling software, like CX has restructured already.

If you need employment stability in your life right now, leave Cisco.

I hope there will be a layoffs. There are tons of employees hoping for layoffs and that is Ciscos problem. So many people not bonded with the company and here for the check only and do what they needs to do and no more. Days of going extra miles long gone, what point if no promos/no raises and no one cares???. Cisco have lots of much older peoples compares to other tech companies and so these people end of careers so a layoff is golden chance for some $$$$ before retires. Me too and I am 53 near end of career and struggle in Cisco now because too much change and too many very complex solution like sda/aci/security and stuffs. licenses are stupidly crazy complex and customers always complains. I want to do something else much different in rest of career where I go to work and come home and no worrying about stuffs like I do at Cisco.

I am expecting 10%. I just hope this spineless ELT aims right this time by being surgically precise and cut where there's no hope, rather than peanut butter spreading LRs across all BUs.

I was told by my manager that I could be reassigned to another team ... meaning my current team and project are being scrutinized. A very expensive team.

Things don't look good, the finance team can't "cook books" no more. If Apple is freezing hiring, what do you think limping Cisco will do?
On the last earnings call, Chuckie blamed the unexpected shutdown in China and the resulting supply chain fallout. Those issues still exist. Now he will blame impact from the Ukraine-Russia war.

ELT would’ve said no layoffs by now, and they have not.

I just hope they give out good packages

I know of 2 contractors that won't be back after year end, found out this week.

LRs have traditionally taken place in early Q1.

I would be amazed if we didn’t layoff folks to be honest. I hope we don’t, but unless inflation starts coming down before our earnings, cuts.

We have always had a layoff for the last 8 years. This year is highly unlikely to be any different. There is a reason people are leaving in droves. If it is stability you are looking for - it's time to leave Cisco.

Pay attention to the upcoming earnings call, both what is said and not said. Understand you are working for a company in transition similar to IBM in the '80s. Continuous LRs and restructuring is a fact of life in this environment. If that makes you uncomfortable better find another place to work.