Got impacted by the LR yesterday. After seeing the list of people in many groups that were impacted, it’s about 95% old white guys like me. Can’t say I am surprised, the diversity preferences within Cisco is out of control and unchecked. The best person for the job is regularly not hired due to diversity requirements and now the layoff choices punish the old white guys as well I’ve had enough.
Anyone thinking of not signing the agreement and suing for agisim/race/DEI preferences?
Cisco is now using the PIP process to remove employees without announcing LR’s and paying severance. Anyone that has been at Cisco for a while is well aware of their Years of Service for employees with over 10yrs of service.
In Nov 24 they updated their MSA offer vs doing a PIP from 3 months plus Years of Service to 30 days and no YOS. Even if you really are not meeting expectations at this point of your career at Cisco that should have nothing to do with the Years of Service that you did meet expectations. Giving them over 20 yrs with outstanding evaluations they will blindside you with performance issues and offer a 30 day MSA vs all the additional weeks you would have gotten with a Layoff. As others stated above your loyalty to the company means nothing they will do anything to save a dollar.
CISCO should be called LETGO…they’re firing people of all walks of life. In an effort to reduce operating costs…employees with higher salaries are ripe for being targeted…so that’s why the lions share is old white dudes (if that correlation exists).
Cisco's margins allow failure at a level I've never seen anywhere else and the worst part is few realize how bad things are
Oh, so true. Look at 2 recent examples, MM and JD. Both allowed to accumulate vast empires in spite of middling performance over several years. Then have them spectacularly exited when at the top.
Time for the annual "if you're still doing the work of a kid three years out of college having not learned anything new since you first started your career and you're getting paid a lot more you are an unjustifiable business expense" post. Cisco's margins allow failure at a level I've never seen anywhere else and the worst part is few realize how bad things are. That said, Cisco has no problem bringing in young people with literally no relevant skills. In alphabetical order, having been a customer, employee and investor Cisco is a hot mess.
If you worked in California, then filing a complaint with California Civil Rights Department for age biased termination is free and offers more protection than Federal EEOC law. There's a three-year statute of limitation to file. CRD will investigate employer to determine if there was discrimination in your specific case, which could be helpful when convincing a lawyer to take your case.
Bay Area plaintiff law firms will likely have more intake work than they can handle now because of Cisco and Intel layoffs, so they'll want to pick cases they can win without litigation. This is because they often have to win a judgment for you in order to get their 30% or 40% fee.
Your severance agreement will likely force you to choose between justice and short-term income.
BTW OP I'm not saying what has happened to you is right, or just. I'm just saying you are one individual who would have to retain an attorney. Legal fees aren't cheap.
OTOH, Cisco is a large cap blue chip company who has an arsenal of lawyers in their back pocket, who are well versed and prepared to fight people like you in court.
Again, I'm not saying it's right, but unless your discrimination case is rock solid and you have witnesses.... better to just take the severance, take time off and move on.
Disclaimer: I do not work for Cisco nor do I represent them or any firms
Why waste your breath on a lawsuit, unless you have compounded evidence and multiple witnesses that, without a doubt, confirm your LR was discrimination it's a waste of time.
OP sounds like they are a long term Cisco employee who's time was finally up. Listen, getting LR'd after dedicating yourself to a company for several years and putting in the time and effort HURTS, and it STINKS. When you think the company cares and you realize you're nothing more than a number? It's cr-ppy. There's no other way to put it.
But don't waste your time on these bozos. Enjoy some of your free time, relax, then start thinking about what you want to do next. Take some online training courses, polish up your resume and get back at it.
You'll be OK.
The best deal you can get from a lawyer is:
Give a cash deposit of $10,000 to the lawyer to start the lawyer work at rate $500/hour. You cannot take the Cisco layoffer package. There is no guarantee any result, but the lawyer may say that he/she can take the Cisco layoffer package back for you at the end. Again there is no guarantee. The likely result is you spend $10,000 for a lawyer and still get the layoffer package. Financial it makes no sense at all, but it may satisfied my emotion, or maybe not:)
Meet with your lawyer, the first session will be free.
It will be short and consist of 2 sentences:
Cisco is not good at much, but they are highly skilled at layoffs. An army of lawyers, statistically supported layoff populations. Sure, skewed old but that can be explained in court with cooked stats. If you sue they will bankrupt you.
50+ males start having health issues, often costly. It might be a good idea to check into the gym and work from there a few times a week for a couple of hours to build your health score.
What list? They don't provide a list so you're just guessing
In the US an employer meeting conditions Cisco meets have to provide people 40 and older with specific information about those laid off. You'll find it referenced as an OWBPA notice or disclosure.
6 impacted in my extended team. 6 white males over 50. Company can say whatever they want. It is what it is.
Cisco is better at performing layoffs than anything they have on offer to customers. They would have spent a lot of money and time assuring that this layoff of older people had just enough of other boxes checked to make it impossible for the affected employees to litigate and win. Plus, even if they had not done that, their pockets are much much deeper than anything we could put together.
When first being informed of an LR, there is a feeling of shock and then anger sets it. Know that in most cases it has nothing to do with the work quality, it is a dollar number being met plus other considerations.
Cisco is an expert at conducting layoffs, with 23 years of experience, so when one receives the 62 page document it is quite thorough. The company includes poor 20 something performers so they can offset the age 55 and over bringing the average age down to a more mid-range age group.
Robbins has been an ineffective CEO since his first year and brought in a lackluster ELT whom should all be removed if the BOD was doing their job. Then there are the continued bad acquisitions wasting funds that should be used in building world class organizations and products. With all the mistakes the workers lose their jobs.
The main purpose of HR, with investments by Legal, is to protect Cisco for the yearly layoffs. At some point, each corporation with a DEI office and strategy will be prime for successful gender, age, race, etc lawsuits. I am not sure we are there yet so recommend taking the full exit package and move on to a better company.
Sanford, Heisler, Sharp, LLC https://www.sanfordheisler.com/palo-alto/
I am not afflicted with this law firm, nor am I soliciting on their behalf. When it was apparent things at my company turning foul, I wanted to understand my rights.
The attorney I spoke with was understanding and helpful. Though we believe companies have all the leverage, and usually they do, being informed is protecting your interests.
Consider yourself lucky you can sue. Juniper employees now have forced arbitration so they cannot sue. It is a condition of employment there
If you do that, you are just wasting your retirement and severance money. Just so you know, the LR list is pulled with age, gender, tenure, performance and dozens other data, before being sent to Legal to pass thru a bunch of sniff tests (both internal and external attorneys). There is ZERO chance anyone will have a case in these types of situation! Don't waste your time! Move on!
@krj+1r6qXGZY, then you were the sacrificial lamb to offset the average age.
@fhv+1r6qXGZY , the "list" is an appendix, usually "Appendix A" to the separation package paperwork you're given. It's restricted to your Business Unit, so it's not company-wide. By US law, that appendix has to be provided by the employer to all persons age 40 or older when they let go some number of people greater than X number, and IIRC it's a smaller number than what triggers a WARN notice, but it could be the same #.
Some companies I've worked at provide that list to all impacted employees just so they can say they didn't overlook anyone, and other companies lowered the age threshold to 35 yrs old, again just to make sure no one tried to claim age discrimination at age 39.
Without digging through my archives to find my appendix A from a decade ago, from what I remember was that Cisco broke the list down by:
and listed how many people in each category were being let go. It was easy for me to find my pay grade & my job title, then look to see how many people were let go in my "group". There was a > 60 person, a 35 and the bulk of us were in the 45-55 range. It was definitely "age" discrimination, but since Cisco claims that we "are too expensive" and they let some "token" young person go as a sacrificial lamb to show it wasn't related to age, it's hard to prove especially since age usually means more experience (unless you changed careers in mid-life) and greater experience means higher wages, therefore more expensive.
@tuh+1r6qXGZY, while word gets around and it's easier to know who's old and who's young, and who's white and who's not, there is still a list and you can easily see the ages. It's also not hard to figure out, based on the high number of old people that are on this anonymous list, how many are old white guys since you probably know all the old people in your BU just from looking at the audience at all-hands and seeing how many of the old people are white and male.
Have you considered that maybe there are just more old white guys working at cisco?
Maybe in the sales office in Omaha, NE or Billings MT.
Not in any Cisco office I've seen in the US.
They provide a list.
What list? They don't provide a list so you're just guessing
I was laid off in the Dec. 2022 LR. When I studied the report they attached as I am in my late 50's, I saw a number of positions included in the report by the BU that were not LRd as they were claimed to be, they were positions where younger folks had quit/transferred out and were simply never backfilled going back to to spring and summer of 2022. They were added to balance the real demographics of Cisco laying off older workers. Shocking.
We need “ Cisco workers Union”. Union movement can stop this huge layoffs ! Atleast engineers will have a voice in decision and top management will have to discuss the layoff with union like Europe !
Stop outsourcing our jobs to other countries!!!
There is a clear age factor her, and no early retirement. We need a class action lawsuit!
55 y/o Asian American got the notice.
Have you considered that maybe there are just more old white guys working at cisco?
The layoffs for older people that result in forced early retirement has been going on forever…..for my father it was IBM. It doesn’t matter if you give your blood, sweat and tears. You get old and they cut you. Hire new younger people at lower salary and less benefits. Unfortunately, it’s a reality for many. Focus on your future!
Come on, dude. Business Majors that don't know how to run the show made some d-mb calls that they shouldn't have, because they want stocks to be higher so they get a juicy bonus. Everyone of every walk of life was a target; please don't turn this sh---y situation into whining about diversity.
I got impacted too.. and I am young and not white.
No bro
Old black guys have been lost too
Old Latino guys
I am in the above...
Just need some old women then it is 100% inclusive
You have nothing but anecdotal evidence. You know less than 20 people who got LRd, and you observed that 80 of that tiny sample is older white males. So you jump to conclusions and extrapolate that the LR targeted only older white males. Go waste your money on legal fees. Or take a statistics class, that's probably a better investment.
It’s always been “age and wage”. When I was LR’d in 2015, they gave us a spreadsheet, and they showed the age of the people who were laid off. More than 90% were over 50, the other 10% were in their 20s and early 30s, obviously to keep the average age down. Surprised you guys didn’t get the spreadsheet, also surprised that they are laying off close to the weekend now - we used to get the dreaded 8 am meeting on Monday.
I was in the wilderness for a few years with contracting and bad companies but doing much better now with better pay and RSUs and I’m 60 plus. Hone your skill set and stay positive. It has happened to a lot of people.
Put on your big boy boots and su-k it up.
If you’re over 40, in the “good bye” package they provide stats for those 40+ that were impacted. Not names, of course, but profile level stats.
To be sure, Cisco manages to this number. Giving up the severance to take on a long, drawn out, and costly, law suit, that you’ll likely lose, isn’t a great plan.
The package gives you time to regroup, find a better job and double dip. This is the way,
For my many years observation, old guys are targeted. Not only old white guy !
I am LR-ed this round, it su-ks especially under current job market.
I want the OP to see the big picture.
The driving force is always revenue.
Yes, lets assume you were unfairly targetted.
But even this victory is short lived.
People who got their positions by doing BS have to ensure revenue gets generated.
I am not white, but i can assure you the teams saturated by unskilled people is struggling to deliver because they dont have technical skills. The hiring mgr is begging for some skilled candidate to join the team do the job that the whole team SHOULD have done , if they took time to know their domain.
It will be their turn for layoff soon. It has come to that. They know it.
So relax, focus on improving own skills.
The forces and reason that applied to your layoff is being applied to others as well.
That is the beauty of business metrics.
Take it as a life lesson and move on. Did 17 years there and glad to be away from the sh~t. Your life will be better for it in the long term. I would not exchange the mental clarity of the last five years for being asked to return there making double my salary. Toxic. You won't realize how much it affected you until you are away from it.
Really stupid part of Cisco is letting go of the skilled contributors; they often go on to other companies working IT, and in positions of influence and operations - and payback Cisco's treatment of being shown the door, by returning the favor by going to other vendors. Cisco "Senior Leadership" - right.
List is just from folks compiling who they know were impacted, after 24 hours everyone has a pretty good list of who was impacted in their respective areas. Definitely biased against old white guys.
Focus on modernizing your skillset.