Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

Confirmed: Supporting Function layoffs

Hot off the presses. Not really the presses; I found this out by accident via a careless senior employee. I’ll leave it at that.

Supporting Functions (Finance, HR, Legal, Gov. Affairs, Administrative Services, etc.) will see a RIF action. No timeline was mentioned. Names were not stated but roles were. Obviously I’m not going to mention those role titles because you can tell many of them are only held by one person. Eg if Nike has a role called “Director of Currency Transactions in Latin America” that probably means one specific person. I made that example up but you get the point.

It appears that like with prior layoffs there’s an emphasis on higher level roles. My surprising takeaway was the number of Director and higher positions in some of these orgs. For example one of these orgs is about 50% worker bees and 50% Directors or higher! This matches what I’ve seen in some Nike orgs where they became top-heavy when times were flush. Can’t have ten senior managers overseeing ten actual workers.

I can’t say I’m surprised. With a few exceptions I believe Supporting Functions has mostly avoided layoffs so far. It was going to be their turn eventually. Especially with those orgs that are top-heavy.


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Post ID: @OP+1kxs3vra5

28 replies (most recent on top)

@va Wow, jock mentality from the 80's, not a good look

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Post ID: @wm+1kxs3vra5

@wc didn’t say they were worthy of it. Just reality of the political power they hold. They’ve all gained a position of power by being political and cut throat.

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Post ID: @wf+1kxs3vra5

@g2 HR and ER “have power” that they aren’t worthy of. Outsource all of it to lawyers that might actually care about employees AND the risk to Nike.

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Post ID: @wc+1kxs3vra5

@qz getting rid of tech would also remove the smell of BO in West campus.

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Post ID: @va+1kxs3vra5

@j2, you asked why tech always feels the brunt of layoffs. As others have pointed out that’s because tech salaries are - compared to most employees - quite high. If a company is looking to cut costs they aren’t going to achieve that by laying off the $80k/year workers.

In addition tech is more dynamic (read: it changes) much more so than most functions. Nike’s tech needs today might not entirely be what was needed even five years ago. So I’d expect to see more layoff churn in that functional area. This is also why most layoffs nationwide are from tech companies.

The pay is good in tech but as a friend once told me, “Expect to get laid off at least two or three or five times during your career.”

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Post ID: @qz+1kxs3vra5

@mj you are absolutely right and if I may add....they add very little value. We still have around very highly paid DEs (the one that codes), whose main contribution is to re-post content from LinkedIn. I haven't seen any document that this dude has created on Confluence. There are many like him.

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Post ID: @q7+1kxs3vra5

We even have people in positions like "Business Storyteller" and all they do is send AI-generated updates to the org slack channel with information that we already get from the emails.

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Post ID: @pz+1kxs3vra5

Having several sets of updates are important because leaders can’t remember anything. Plus they can double check projects.

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Post ID: @pv+1kxs3vra5

@p8 My team was assigned a Principal Technical Product Manager who’s sole job appears to be sending a weekly status email to our D/SD/VP. All of whom already get regular status updates directly from the team.

If we’re supposed to be running lean, WTF is this guy doing here?

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Post ID: @ph+1kxs3vra5

Next All-Hands we will again see EH getting the cue card to let out the crocodile tears

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Post ID: @pe+1kxs3vra5

@p8 If Tech is still included, they should go for the layered cake of Sr Directors and VP's that do nothing but slow us down

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Post ID: @pa+1kxs3vra5

wondering if global tech is on this list for the next round still? tbh we don't need senior leaders in functions like product management or program management that set no direction and don't do day to day work but trying to look relevant.

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Post ID: @p8+1kxs3vra5

@j2 we do typically pay tech going rate for a technology company. So they are some of the most expensive employees at Nike. Second to our designers.

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Post ID: @mj+1kxs3vra5

@j2 True. We should look at innovation as well, that org (especially Dir and above levels) barely touched in previous layoffs. It’s about time to clean house.

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Post ID: @j6+1kxs3vra5

About time, otherwise why is it always global tech that needs to pay the price everytime Nike needs to save money with layoffs

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Post ID: @j2+1kxs3vra5

@e0 you’ll be looking to manage service “business HR” and ”Employee relations”. Those two groups have the most power right now, so definitely won’t be outsourcing. The ones which they probably will be People solutions, the people who pick up the phone, answer your emails, and general people who actually hands to keyboard in HR.

It’s least liked function in HR landscape because people hate having to answer questions about actual things.

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Post ID: @g2+1kxs3vra5

Hopefully the layoffs will help with parking

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Post ID: @fy+1kxs3vra5

Outsource or managed service HR, Finance, Procurement and Legal. Easy savings and help rest of the company move faster with red tape.

They protect nobody. Accelerate nothing. Manage no money when everyone just spends it. Waste of money and space.

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Post ID: @e0+1kxs3vra5

@aw
Can’t agree more. Only few of them deserve it, most of them are so bad that I don’t even know how they got into this company. And a sincere suggestion to our HR department. STOP promoting or moving people to any roles that they have zero experience just because they put that in their IDP, they will su-k really bad and the rest of us need to clean up the mess.

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Post ID: @dz+1kxs3vra5

Supporting functions (some) had RIFs last Sept or so. I guess it’s that time of the year again.

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Post ID: @d8+1kxs3vra5

HR has had about 8 reorgs since ‘22, we know come September and April timeframe, LT comes to shake the cage. Also not surprised about FI and some of the other departments.

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Post ID: @b5+1kxs3vra5

Yall really thought they were just going to casually shave 25% off gt and leave the rest of the company alone? Gonna need a bigger (life) boat

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Post ID: @b3+1kxs3vra5

Long overdue! So the fake jobs that create fake work will finally go away so I can do my REAL job! Yes please.

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Post ID: @b2+1kxs3vra5

Get rid of HR

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Post ID: @az+1kxs3vra5

About f u c k I n g time

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Post ID: @ax+1kxs3vra5

Still too many Ds, SDs, and VPs. Overpaid baggage that needs to be jettisoned to keep the company light and afloat. You either grow revenues or cut costs, and we ain’t growin…

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Post ID: @aw+1kxs3vra5

@at You don't merge procurement with another function and then keep all of both teams. Legal is another one that is gearing up for a fun time. IP is probably fine until after the calendar year.

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Post ID: @av+1kxs3vra5

Have you seen anything about Procurement? We usually avoided them, except for a few SDs a couple years ago not far from when I joined.

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Post ID: @at+1kxs3vra5

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