Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

don't put your energy into ideas you think are junk innitatives.

this is also a big one. There are many, many high-level director types that have no real responsibility that like to generate all sorts of initiatives which they will claim credit for. But you will do all the work for it. These initiatives go nowhere, produce nothing, and are simply self promotion for the directors involved.
Stay well away from these types—because their projects will never get recognition for you; will detract from your day job; will have impossible timelines that have already been promised to someone else and have zero budget and resources.
Ask me how I know

Be a DIE box they can check. Don"t be over 45-50, male or make too high in your job grade. Your manager has no say so if you check some of the wrong boxes you are out.

Never go over your salary mid-range, you quickly become a target.

There is some kind of weird interaction with this and Cisco giving you a promotion with the statement "be warned, you now rank lower relative to your peers" which would put you in a lower salary band relative to your new peers.

I haven't seen anyone mention it here in ages, but at one time Cisco had a grade threshold such that anyone above that grade was not eligible to apply for another internal job if they received a layoff notice. Is this still a thing?

Here are a few more ideas:

1. Be an easy employee for your manager. Managers get some say, so if you don't bug them much, find work to do proactively yourself, and stay off their radar - they'll probably dislike someone else more than you, and put up their name instead.

2. Find key innitatives to be in. If your software or area is outdated, get out as soon as possible. Don't bother doing work that isn't important, unless it's for your leader.

3. Know a lot of folks - 4 friends messaged me in the last LR that they were impacted 3 of them all found new spots inside Cisco. If you have a decent Cisco network you can still get into a different team if you are LRed.

4. Have valuable skills - most of Cisco lacks technical skills, gather some that your team needs. Managers won't lay off folks they need.

5. Keep managers and dotted line managers happy. If you have several sets of work to do, but one for a manager - do that one first and ignore the other pieces. They aren't going to hear about that bit of data you needed to get your co-worker (probably).

6. Don't rock the boat - I've seen people fired just for saying "I don't think that will work" or "this will lose us money" or expressing the complexity of something. Just nod and smile, then don't put your energy into ideas you think are junk innitatives.

7. If you don't have much to do, hide. Sign up for all the "ally" innitatives, training meetings, and team hello's - even if you never attend (makes your calendar look full and busy). Be quiet and unobtrusive - saying simple thanks in meetings or some worth-while content, but don't take up all the airwaves with junk (those people are often fired first because they prove they know very little). Do a good job on a few important things and keep people from noticing you (too much) (unless you really want to try for the management track). Try to get some connected recognitions once in a while to prove you're valuable.

8. I'd avoid RSU's (and try to get salary instead) RSU's make you more lucrative to fire.

9. Never go over your salary mid-range, you quickly become a target. Stagger your requests with your manager between salary, then grade promotions, then salary, etc.

10. Make friends, it's more uncomfortable for managers to fire teammates that everyone is going to be upset about losing. Plus if you're doing a little work on every innitative, it makes you look more busy and important.

(Not a manager myself, just seems like these things have worked)

Be as close to revenue creation as possible, and always exceed your number. Be the indispensable link between the paying customer(s) and the company.

Absolutely.

It doesn’t matter They will show you the middle fingers eventually

Be as close to revenue creation as possible, and always exceed your number. Be the indispensable link between the paying customer(s) and the company. This goes for Cisco and just about any other job in the private sector.

Perfect? Nope. You can still get fired. But sure is a lot better than being an expense line item desperate to prove your worth.

PM also very safe and easy to work on at Cisco.

Adding to @1bmi+1s3Ay1Ae

6. If you don't have a high level champion for your group or larger organization

I don't know what it was like in SJ but at the remote sites they'd pick someone in management at any level and lay off them and everyone underneath them.

To @1yqw+1s3Ay1Ae, see above. Directors have been laid off, and in some cases outright fired. VPs tend to escape into other parts of Cisco.

Adding to @1pxs+1s3Ay1Ae

Desperation can eat you alive, and if your career isn't growing it's dying. If OP slacks as they are asking their career will die faster.

I sincerely believe that having a strategy to stay in Cisco as long as one can is a huge mistake. Instead, the best strategy is to leave Cisco as soon as an opportunity comes up. Many of the smart NCG and RCG have already figured it out.

When there is a layoff, it has nothing to do about performance or how you try to stay under the radar. There are very specific factors that go into play. The order of these was once different, but they all play the same.

1. Where is your pay in the pay range? If you are below the midpoint you are more OK. If you are high up in the pay range, the work can be done by someone below the midpoint.
2. If you went job hopping during the low availability of tech workers commanding salaries 20-50% above normal pay range, you are a target.
3. Now back to the typical things, white male near or over 50
4. If you do not have a permanent brown stained nose from your manager.
5. Not part of the Agenda-of-the-Day groups

Work hard, achieve hard (something thats different, you know that!) and publicize it!!
Also if you have a toxic management chain (they do exist in any large organisation) then move out of that ASAP! It wont matter how hard you work for those crews, you'll never get promoted unless you are best mates.

Also focus on your own skills and CV and manage your OWN career!
No manager will truly do that, as quite often that means finding a new role outside of his organisation or outside of the company...

Or if you are management and diplomatically gifted (or can learn that game) then by all means aim for Director - above that level people arent subject to nearly the same LR pressures...

become a brown nose expert

I 100% agree for "Become a manager",
We all getting old, old and expensive then LR'd.
But manager age doesn't matter and not consider expensive. Use people under you to do your work. Manager takes it all !

Don’t be that guy. You don’t need to show anything to anyone. They all know but understand if they show off they will have to do the work.

That guy who knows everything got laid off a few years ago.

Become a manager. Managers don't lay off managers.