Working at Nike is easy for 80% of people that are not needing to put in more than 30% of the effort which would be normally required at another job. Three years of WFH just allowed those to take advantage of that even more and thus become even less productive. The wise ones who did do work got fed up. Surprise surprise… it shows on the bottom line. The purge is a good thing and hopefully brings the effort back to a level where it should be
9 replies (most recent on top)
OP overall message is ridiculous and attacking, but unfortunately they do have a point. Nike functioned semi-well and was managed before WFH with a lot of people pretending to do work. Not everyone, or even a majority, but A LOT. That method/culture required an in-office environment where the “doers” would be able to take up the slack. WFH shocked the machine and created even less output by the pretenders/talkers and made it more difficult for the doers to keep up with the slack and thus here we are.
The good ones left. The naive ones have selflessly kept trying. Managemnt didn’t change quickly enough. Stockholders are mad. And we are all left with this mess.
The scales have been severely imbalanced. A declining job market and layoffs can be a great motivator.
Been here a long time and my days at the office are very much less productive than when I’m at home. I’m fine being at the office but that blanket statement for all is wrong to say.
If people took advantage of WFH, it just goes to show that managers/directors weren’t holding their employees accountable. I have worked with many in previous years that have no KPIs, no weekly meetings for status updates, no project timelines with ownerships and the list goes on and on. Several people haven’t been through a CFE in years. Being in the office looking busy, doesn’t mean a person is adding value or being held accountable. Some people are great talkers and can work a room without doing a lick of real work.
The fact remains that business priorities have been a mess for 3 years. Major turnover with a major shift of culture will need time to level out.
The right thing that should have happened is manager remote training and Directors demanding metrics against targets. Actual metrics and not bullet points of what happened. Good managers successfully ran their teams at home with no issues. These skills were needed before Covid, during Covid, and for years to come in order for us to succeed, no matter where we sit.
The problem is that all of the good people that have other options will leave by their own choosing while the bad people with no options will stay. The negative feedback loop churns on.
A true 360 feedback may help. Direct reports deserve an opportunity to surface feedback to their managers without worrying about retaliation.
If this “purge” was so great it would show in the stock price. Instead NKE stock is trashed. Management delivered poor results, a poor outlook and it’s been this way for two years. Management failure all the way.
As long as the right people are purged. Bad management = bad employees.
Honestly this is the worst take. I know multiple people who were laid off already who were stellar and delivered massive results. Taking this attitude and spreading it Around is arrogant and does a disservice to the good people let go and some of the very sh---y ones I know who were kept
This discourse centers on the critical issue of workforce reduction methodologies within corporate structures, particularly those that rely heavily on evaluative metrics established by a potentially extraneous managerial tier. The competence of this stratum is frequently called into question, especially given its tendency to engage in the strategic devaluation of subordinates perceived as possessing superior skills and knowledge. This practice, ostensibly a self-preservation tactic, poses a significant threat to the meritocratic principles that ideally should govern organizational advancement and stability.
The pivotal concern here revolves around the decision-making framework for organizational downsizing, which is primarily predicated on assessments rendered by a managerial echelon whose efficacy and competence are themselves questionable. This layer of management, often perceived as superfluous, systematically undermines subordinates whose capabilities they deem to exceed their own, perceiving such individuals as existential threats to the prevailing hierarchical structure.