Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

From the comments at the leaders’ checkin, it was clear that many 1st level managers were not consulted.

I'm sorry for you about your manager's behaviour. YOU are laid off and THEY are crying? If you are a manager, a real manager, you need to keep your sh*t together, especially in those kinds of situations. I'm not saying that a manager should have a cold heart, but you can't cry in front of an employee you have just fired. Says a lot about leadership culture at Cisco.
I was laid off some time ago too, a very unpleasant experience, but my life is much better now, and in a way, I'm regretting that I didn't quit earlier myself.

I am a people manager and I was not consulted - my upper management made the decision. I was told my team was affected and I had to deliver the news.

There was a post here, in Cisco section of this site that described the lay off process in details. It was re-posted couple of times.
In essence, first-line managers have nothing to do with making lists. People are cut off depending on projects they are working on. So it is a question of importance and value of the project, not the employee. These lists then go through HR to identify if any of those LR candidates is part of protected groups, so Cisco don't get into legal trouble for discrimination.
My working theory is that managers are aware of this, so some of them assign people to projects depending on who they are ready to sacrifice and who they want to protect. Depending on a manager, the criteria can very considerably: some may favor people for reasons that have nothing to do with competence, or hard work. It can be for the reasons that fall into "corporate/office politics" category, or nepotism, or immigrants vs natives or... you name it. Same things that you can observe in case of promotions/raises. There are some parts of organization and some managers/directors that are fair and square, and then there those that are not really cool.

Your manager should own up, not make out that she wasn't involved.

I did.

just stop it. I've been at Cisco for 15+ years and dodged literally 15+ layoffs already and I can tell you the folks that are deemed to be important in a group never get laid off. Why? its because the manager is consulted every single time to make sure folks who are critical to keep the business going are safe from layoff decisions hence "the list". Once again the higher up guys like directors or VPs do not know who's important only managers know this so you would be crazy to think managers are not involved in the process.

@1ciu+1r8DeHc5 .. ?? so that means you were not involved! I know from a current manager, that he was not consulted at all for this LR round. He had to layoff well performing talents just because they didnt lick the a.. of the director. Why should a manager layoff the performing talents?? And I am talking about young people. This just results in more work for the manager so no sense.

Hey - don't you think they use AI nowadays? Let AI analyse the data, and give them a list of who to can. They already use it for who to interview for new candidates. Why wouldn't they use it to let people go? The world will just keep getting more heartless.

As a current manager I can attest that we are involved in the process and it's never fun. What we dont know often until last minute is if our team is going to be impacted and the number of employees being targeted.

Who made the decision? Just curious who made the actual decision to pick me for the LR in my group ? My manager was in tears when telling me and it felt like it wasn’t her choice, but I’m not sure…

Is that true? Most managers and directors at Cisco are unbelievably cold and heartless, even close to psychopath. They just don't care if their staff should live or dxx.

Perhaps your manager was just acting or pretending... If your manager is a woman, she can, you know. Women are so good at acting. They can easily shed fake tears.

As for your question, HR is the decision maker of LR this time. Not your manager. Not your director. Managers and Directors were just ordered to notify those employees that have been selected by HR.

As an aside, there were a couple of times when my second level manager became my first level manager and I quickly learned each time the second level manager had no clue who I was or even what programs I worked on. If you made a dashboard light go red for the five minutes higher level management happened to be looking during a year that's the basis on which they will judge you.

managers are NOT consulted! absolutely not. I'm ex Cisco manager and was loosing great talent in LR's learning about it sometimes minutes before them. I wasn't also the one who broke the news to them (director did). All I could do was to be there for them as much as I could. This experience taught me to never again be a people's leader in Cisco

Bullsh-t. In my experiences, the manager is always consulted. How the he-l is the VP knows what the individuals are doing at work or even what projects they are aligned with if the managers are not consulted. Only your manager knows what you do at work, VPs do not know this. Your manager rank you on a list and that list is then given to VP/HR. Both the VP/HR will choose who to laid off based on that list from the manager so again your manager has a huge impact on the decision. Don't be fool into thinking your manager has nothing to do with it.

It’s typically the director who may or may not ask for their mangers’ input on the decision. It’s then signed off on by the VP. They usually get given a dollar amount that they need to cut (10-15% of fully burdened cost and they’re told if it has to be OPEX and/or COGS, Blue and/or red badges). I’ve see high contributors get cut because cutting them meant saving 3 offshore contractors.

There is an excel "business case" that a leader has to complete. The metrics are what decides who is impacted. Some LRs it's the managers, some it's the directors, some it's the VPs. Just depends on the area which needs to be impacted.

Post from TheLayoff.com

I am under 30 and I got LRed.

Top dollar down oldest employees.

During performance reviews/talent assessments I praised these employees and there was nothing negative.

Perhaps you have not praised them enough for their salary/age/grade?

Perhaps it was "generic" praise without backed up data?

Managers were not consulted. I have no idea the reason or logic that I had to let go of high performing employees. During performance reviews/talent assessments I praised these employees and there was nothing negative.

They give you names and a script. I have no faith in this company.

VP picks the individual people? Ours is new in the role and doesn’t know any of us, yet picked who gets laid off?!

... based on data received from managers (rating, salary, project, age, ...). A excel sheet does the calculation which a VP signs off.

OK, I just made that up. That's basically what previous posts say, though ... and if these are accurate you probably don't need a long-time VP to make layoff decisions.

Does a long-time VP know individual engineers? Ha, I doubt.

In my case I know it was the Country General Manager.

This round the decision was made at Director and VP level and was purely based on reducing people in high cost locations...not performance. The ranking lists had very little to do with it

Regards

Sr. Manager

VP picks the individual people? Ours is new in the role and doesn’t know any of us, yet picked who gets laid off?!

VP made the decision in my group. Whoever was assigned to areas that haven’t been deemed to be of top importance is who was let go. Absolutely ridiculous because the work to all areas will still continue.

VP level decision .

The manager rates you. Whether you are the bottom 5% of your team and where you rate in grade matters, along with the business need. Stack ranking without calling it that so HR can cover their legal rears. There is always a ranking of where you are, a decent manager should also compare to the grade expectations too. Otherwise you have a gr12 doing gr6 work thinking they are teflon when in fact a gr6 can do the same work at 50% of the cost. Sorry, but it's not all cut and dry out of the managers hands like most want to make it appear.

I had to lay someone off once and I was not consulted. It still bothers me. Anyway, it all came down to cost, location. I think the decision is taken away because otherwise that would be even harder.