Trying to figure out what metrics are being used to target people and if its by age/ demographic etc.
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Being cherry-picked to a new group is exactly how me and 4 others from my area got fired. They moved us from jobs we liked and were doing well at, to new groups and completely new jobs we were not qualified for. We received no training and no documentation on how to do the new position. I smelled trouble 3-4 months before last August's cuts. I tried transferring out to the ADAS area, they had TONS of salaried postings they were looking to fill. None of the management there would even give me an interview. If anything I was overqualified for some of the jobs. I'm convinced Ford put us on a death list months in advance of the cuts. "Dont hire this person"
Just looked at Jobs Online at Life@Ford. There are a total of 845 openings globally, of which only 60% of the jobs are in the U.S. If Fartley plans to move a big chunk of white collar jobs overseas, there’s always a glide path of 4-5 years. I’m almost certain the layoffs will continue in the next few years unless he ‘ retires’.
The one engineer I saw get cut last week was a definite low performer. Years of it. Way overdue for letting go. I am still surprised HR and or management finally did the right thing for the company. Usually they are useless when it comes to problems like this one.
I had been at Ford for about 6 years before the most recent layoff. I had about 7 supervisors over that span of time and 3 roles within that time. I was originally hired into a technical role and eventually moved to a less technical one in my most recent role. I never received a negative review come performance time. My last role was HTHD at SG-7 and my salary was around 110k before bonuses. I don't know if I was let go because of my salary or not. But I can say the teams or products I was responsible was almost nearly all engineers and developers who were located in Mexico and India. I suspect Ford management is trying to reduce salary costs and rely more on foreign talent because it's just cheaper. Unless you have critical skill sets that cannot be replicated by foreign Ford talent, you are at risk of being replaced when company cost conversations become an issue again.
How do you perform just enough… work hard on your assignments, finish them on time and be cordial with your co workers. Don’t be difficult to work with but don’t be too popular. Don’t be a slacker or someone who causes problems as that can put a target on your back.
In addition to completing their assignments in a timely manner, top achievers also volunteer for special assignments, help others resolve their problems and work on their organization’s processes, documentation and training. They also volunteer to help organize special team building events. Volunteering for all these extras will cause you to put in lots of casual overtime and if things go well will result in better reviews and a higher salary which can put a target on your back.
Being a solid employee without volunteering for all the extras should put you in the middle of the pack.
The ones let go in this cycle were in two camps: Low performers with narrow skillsets that have resisted retraining, and 2) folks who were difficult to work with. The area is IT.
How do we perform just enough to extend our time here as much as possible?
"...what is the incentive to perform if you will be arbitrarily let go based on some nonsensical criteria?"
There is none.
Anyone considering a job at Ford who happens to read this should remember this.
Based on the responses to this and other similar threads, what is the incentive to perform if you will be arbitrarily let go based on some nonsensical criteria? It seems trying to foster a positive relationship with your management and peers means nothing. I no longer work for Ford but their employees deserve better. A lot of great talent wasted on this sorry excuse of executive management.
Some are clearly targeting highest paid
Others are the result of battles being fought layers up.
One example for you.
Years back management split IT infrastructure groups into two parts one that did all the research, architecting, initial implementation and created an easy bu-ton rollout of software to all the “servers”. The second group was responsible for pushing the easy bu-ton to rollout to all the “servers”. The initial split moved all the high performers into the first group and the poor performers into the second group.
The LL5 over the second group was angry that all of the good employees were moved under a different LL5 and also angry that all the interesting work was moved away from him. And so began years of sabotage by the second group, with active participation by the LL5 and LL6s.
Now fast forward to the layoffs. The entire first group was laid off. None of group 2 was laid off. Of course Ford should of laid off group 2 (the poor performers), but the LL5 battle was won by the LL5 with a team full of FnF and incompetents.
You are not being targeted. They are just arbitrarily firing people across all age groups to prevent a lawsuit with the end goal to get rid of every single salary job out of the USA. Appears their plan is to not have any more salary. Employees in North America. I’m afraid this is going to go on until their plan is accomplished.
It has nothing to do with the person. It has everything to do with the position (and whether the Company viewed it as a necessary job). It is also posible that the Company determined the position can be outsourced (either to another Country or to a younger person). We are like drones.
I was let go and, while I can speculate, I don’t know the real reason. I always got excellent performance reviews and had a manager that I know would have told me if I had performance issues. Over the years I changed roles a hand full of times and each time the new manager contacted me to ask me to apply for the position. A couple of those times my current manager tried to talk me out of moving. It’s hard to believe a manager would recruit me or try to keep me if I was a poor performer. I speculate that my reviews had resulted in a higher salary than some of my peers. I was also older with a pension that was still growing. How do you avoid being let go? Assuming you don’t have a pension, don’t move to a new team when layoffs are on the horizon and try to be a solid average employee. You don’t want to be a poor performer because they can be targeted and you don’t want to be a top performer because they can also be targeted due to higher salary.
I have not heard of anyone fired for a poor performance review. I wasn’t. I have no idea why I was fired.
The accounts I’ve read are the opposite. People were “cherry-picked” from one area to work in another area, then we’re fired. Top performers in one group were lured to another, then a couple years later now, they are fired.