After a nearly 20 yr career and 1s and 2s my entire career, I was laid off. I was well known as a top performer across the firm. Folks, its not the company doesn't care. They don't care and honestly never have. Ever since Phil 2.0, the trend has been towards becoming more IBM and quantity over quality. Years and years of bad comp resulted in having to make market adjustments several times in different high cost regions to avoid excess attrition. Millions and millions are being spent on cloud, AI, and security solutions, many of which don't pan out because they weren't properly evaluated and require expensive and demoralizing projects to roll out yet another "solution". In addition, sr leaders in finance stated that several hundred K in savings isn't a big enough number to break out in the P&L to ensure the business line gets credit. In short, FDS makes and has plenty of money is able to afford making multiple back to back poor decisions and absorb the costs.
If you listen to the public earnings calls, they are actively pushing more and more of the business to low cost centers.
Here is a question from Shlomo Rosenbaum: "And then just again, the Centers of Excellence, you've got 68% of head count over there. Is that kind of peaked out over there or is that another lever that can continue to be pushed and where does that max?"
Answer Phil Snow: "The Centers of Excellence, we have great employees there. I think the question is, just can you continue to go up the value chain in terms of what you do in those locations? So we're always evaluating our people and location strategy. And I think we've all learned in the last three years that there are even more options open to us than they might have been in the past. So overall, I'm very optimistic about what we can continue to do to drive efficiency and drive the top line through more product."
Phil, Linda, and Helen are united on the strategic effort to continue to shift more HC to COEs. Phil is not quiet about his love for the COEs. So while the talk is all about layoffs (which cost a lot of money in the short term), employee recognition programs, and snacks, its all a red herring for what is actually coming. Some have chosen to ride it out and essentially quiet quit, others are hoping it will get better. Whatever your position, good luck and thanks for all the fish
This is too good to stay buried in replies. The original is at @eime+1rbSPGnY.