My floor lost a lot of valuable colleagues. A lot of people who had been the backbone in terms of experience and technical knowledge were let go. I’m hearing and reading that in some cases ageism reigned supreme, while in others layoffs were all over the place. I just don’t understand what it is that they want to achieve with this round beyond lazy and simple cost-cutting.
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Ageism is Real at Ovintiv and in Corporate America. They recently hired two dozen new engineers, and they proudly post on their internal website. It's the the perfect DEI photo. Not skills, but skin color first. Next, they lay off 25% of the workforce, most of which are over 50. It appears DEI is very important, but ageism isn't. But of course ageism costs them money, but DEI saves them money, in the short term. To Support DEI and not ageism just dilutes the value of the DEI cause.
My sympathies are with the people that got exited last week. The ones I had worked with had been loyal soldiers of the company, many for multiple decades. Most of them marched to the orders they were given without complaint, were good teammates, and cared about the health of the organization. None of them were even remotely accountable for the mess that ECA/OVV has been in for close to 10 years. None of them had made capital allocation decisions or were responsible for the "strategy" of the company. The current ELT and SLT need (but won't) to take some accountability for the messy bureaucracy they have created and the resulting inefficient work that results. Instead the hierarchy remains, the senseless, non value add and repetitive tasks remain, the excess comp at high levels remain. The prospects for the company will not change as a result of this round of cuts, nor the inevitable next round, as long as this group are calling the shots. The only outcome that will occur under this management team is the eventual sale to a cleaner and better managed organization.
The company is not stretched too thin, there is just so much completely unnecessary work, but thats what happens when in a top heavy organization. Just look at how many thousands of hours (literally) go into forecasting, outlook and review. How many have to review and approve - and that’s even before it lands on a VPs desk. Then it’s round and round and round again before it gets to the EVP! And it’s all because so much message control is required to spin the story. If underlying results and performance were really as good as promoted, this endless cycle of review wouldn’t be necessary.
I find it interesting that compensation per BOE was higher than our peers when everyone is stretched too thin, no postions are backfilled, and our peers seem to average better salaries and benefits for their employees.
If compensation is too high according to shareholders, it makes me wonder where the money is going.
As for the butchering yesterday, two thoughts:
- it was a complete knee jerk reaction. A short term fix for a long term problem. It wasn't done with tomorrow in mind. It will surely wreck efficiencies and innovation - two things the execs love to point out which translates to one person doing the job of two or three on average.
- How dare a company take a work force that is already too thin and struggling with work/Life balance pick off people at random just to improve their appearance. People do not matter here at all. Heck, the jobs people do don't matter, as long as they get done. We are no more than chess pieces, if even that. The C-Suite has forgotten what it was like being a grunt or even middle management. I have no confidence in leadership and it was proven yesterday that my tenure means absolutely nothing to the powers that be. I know my team strives to put people first and provide what is essentially customer service to the other groups we interact with. I wish leadership did the same.