Take my group for example. We are painfully understaffed. Whenever we do get new people, they usually leave before they hit the 1-year mark. We recently had someone quit less than a month after joining. Then we have a bunch of old-timers who are counting down the days until they can retire. For us, layoffs will only make a bad situation even worse. How is this supposed to help?
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From a far broader perspective than just Cisco, teams that can’t keep people for a year are disasters and in most cases should simply be disbanded for everyone’s sake.
Rather than disband them, how about getting rid of the toxic leadership of that team and possibly clean out the bad apples on the team too?
I was on a team that was part of the startup of a new BU a long time back. The manager finally quit because he hated being remote and rarely getting to talk to people in person except for their once-a-quarter visit when budgets were loose. They'd run the team for about 8 yrs and the only people on the team that had left were those that took promotions outside the team for advancement. Anybody w/ less than 8 yrs on the team were hired as part of growth/expansion over the years. The new manager who came in was toxic, felt he'd been at Cisco long enough that everyone should bow to him and he started making things so bad that people were transferring out, quitting to take new jobs, etc. just to get out of that situation. Those that wanted to stay, he changed their job descriptions and/or duties to give them responsibilities outside their skills just so he could put them on a performance improvement plan (PIP) and fire them. Then suddenly came along the first big "workforce reduction" or WFR as it was called in '11, and he suddenly stopped giving those on a PIP "goals" or "tasks" that they'd struggle with as part of his paper trail for firing them and suddenly ignored them until the date came along to notify them they'd been LR'd.
The sad thing was, Cisco had just done one of its pulse surveys back in Apr or May, and then in late Jun or early July, or Director was sharing the results of how his group had rated the 3 managers under him. Two of the three scored a 4 out 5 and the new manager got a 1. The director had the ba--s to say that the scores were exactly what he predicted they'd be and was not surprised by it. One of the people on a PIP asked the director, if the scores were what he expected, and one of the managers was so bad that no one liked him, then why wasn't any corrective action being taken? The director just ignored the question and went on, and of course, the person w/ the PIP was let go and they knew they had nothing to risk by rubbing the director's face in it.
It turns out that the director had put in for the early retirement that was offered before the WFR and it was accepted, but he'd been asked to stay on while they found his replacement, so the decision was made to promote one of the two managers who'd been there since the start to Director, and replace them with a good manager. The toxic manager was pi---d that he didn't get the promotion because he'd been w/ Cisco longer, but only in this BU for barely a year whereas the other manager's entire career was managing his team in that BU and knew more about the BU's business than the toxic manager. Karma got her revenge and the toxic manager only lasted another year before he was LR'd and the BU could start getting rid of the "yes men" he'd replaced good people with, but the damage had already been done by running out good talent that would not return.
That's what's wrong w/ Cisco and has been for at least a decade.
From a far broader perspective than just Cisco, teams that can’t keep people for a year are disasters and in most cases should simply be disbanded for everyone’s sake.
Send the full-time jobs to countries without labor laws... or replace the full-time employees with cheap contractors. Layoffs aren't about cutting headcount but reducing costs
Why pay a full-time employee in San Jose that has a family? We aren't a charity. There's a reason over 20 buildings have been sold at headquarters
The US is a country with little-to-no labor laws. The EU is way better in that regards.
Replacing full-time employees w/ cheap contractors is stupid. You've heard the expression "You get what you pay for." Contractors can only stay for 18 months. You never get to build up team/institutional knowledge. Just watch what happens to Twitter in the next few months now that all its institutional knowledge has left.
Yes, there's no point in having Engineering or Support in SJC. Sales, maybe. Headquarters, maybe. But for those that never interface w/ the other big tech companies in the bay area, why would we want to have staff there in a high-cost of living area when we can have people in cheaper cost of living areas doing the same work for lower costs?
I remember an LR in '08 that cut mostly SJC workers and suddenly there was a mess of req's for the same jobs in RTP.
Ask yourself why your team is understaffed. Seems like Cisco doesn't think your team is worth the cost of staffing it properly, so it's likely to get cut.
Or you might be lucky and the cuts on other teams are to allow your team to get additional headcount. How many req's are open for your team?
There isn't a need. They just enjoy it.
Send the full-time jobs to countries without labor laws... or replace the full-time employees with cheap contractors. Layoffs aren't about cutting headcount but reducing costs
Why pay a full-time employee in San Jose that has a family? We aren't a charity. There's a reason over 20 buildings have been sold at headquarters
imho, an understaffed team does not mean a profitable team.
a product can have its support teams overwhelmed because it's a bad solution.
but if the product is not selling anymore, guess who can get laid off.
We are painfully understaffed.
If you work on a key project, you will get more staff.
If your project will be marked redundant, you can look for a key project elsewhere.
Your group may not be affected, no point speculating not every org will have layoffs