Why would ELT put everyone on high alert, give an extra month of salary, keep everyone guessing while working on LR list, announcement made to the whole world on August 14. Is it just the management inefficiency or other real reasons behind. This has never been done this way so what’s the surprise ahead. What else can they get away from. Will VPs, Directors included once awards get completed? When are dominos falling 😯
22 replies (most recent on top)
Pure speculation on my part, but as one poster mentioned “they weren’t prepared”. I suspect they got caught flat footed when the Splunk merger closed quicker than planned. Originally the Splunk merger was expected to close the end of the 3rd calendar quarter.
This round exceed market expectations,so the stock raise and they are not ready.
After bonus awards work is completed, VP and Directors are in queue to get blasted out for their shiity work in destroying their teams. Finally accountability where it deserves most.
Gaining or losing tax credits
Having gone through the outsourcing of work at webex years ago and entire segments of customers went to a vendor and the day notices went out, the phone lines, customer data, etc had already been set up/moved over so there was no interruption for customers.
Remember when the LR notice is given, you are expected to stop working. If large swaths of business are going offshore, everything needs to be in place to pick up the work on the other side. A lot of work is being done in the background far beyond the list of who will be give notice.
The ELT didn’t start the “get your lists together” process early enough.
Why? Because they didn’t want people to know, so employees would work hard all the way up to the last day of FY24.
This 9/16 is not special at all. ELT just not have the final list ready, big guys still fight for save their buddy and chop others.
Cisco actually had quarterly LR recent years. After 9/16/2024 there will be 2/15/2025 .... etc.,
The longer you keep people on edge; the more people pull their own plug through retirements & quits. It's a multiplier to layoffs.
Guys..I will tell you the real reason. We absorbed 8000 HCs as part of Splunk acquisition. And, now 4k were reduced in Feb and additional 4k need to be done by next year March. And, till March Cisco will show growth in balance sheet YoY due to Splunk.
Next year Q4 will be YoY slump again unless G2 came with a magical wand. And that sets the stage for Q12026 layoffs
This has never been done this way so what’s the surprise ahead.
Actually, it has. More than once. Under Chambers, reductions were announced months ahead of time. '08 & '11 were big ones that come to mind. Under Robbins, there was the one in '20 or '21 when they announced that they were going to inform people that their roles were "at risk" and allow people to take a voluntary separation, or try to find other internal roles and if they couldn't find one, they'd be laid off.
Probably because it had to be announced to stock holders and they need planning time.
They've managed to plan ahead many times before. Why is this one different? After Chuck took over in '15, the first LR under his leadership was announced during the earnings call and US workers were notified the next day. Only their negligence this time prevented the list(s) from being ready ahead of time.
ELT being busy partying 🍻🥂in Paris Olympic and ignoring critical business.
And, that, is in my opinion the most reasonable excuse for why they weren't prepared this time and "needed extra time to figure out what they needed to do, or whatever the excuse was that Fran said in the last Cisco Beat.
The delay is more typical than not and often a demoralizing time. I do not recall a layoff other than last February where it got done on the day after the financial report.
Again, see the comment above about Chuck's first LR in '16. There were many instances in the following years.
I agree with the person that wrote the delay is related to first notifying the stock holders and needing time to prepare the list.
Otherwise, the knowledge of an upcoming lay off becomes insider information.
This makes no sense. 1) they can prepare before the announce and execute the next day. 2) They made all the VPs sign NDA for this, so that the insider information would NOT leak. And yet, it did.
There is always a first time. Aug 14 announcement was needed to account for LR funding ($700 - $800 millions in FY25, Q1 that ends on Oct 26 - how will LRs meet this timeline is still a huge gap), but why no formal list worked before this date, like all previous LR, few times a year. I can only think of ELT being busy partying 🍻🥂in Paris Olympic and ignoring critical business. One month of extra turmoil will come back to haunt Cisco leadership and the hard working IC people.
I agree with the person that wrote the delay is related to first notifying the stock holders and needing time to prepare the list.
Otherwise, the knowledge of an upcoming lay off becomes insider information.
The delay is more typical than not and often a demoralizing time. I do not recall a layoff other than last February where it got done on the day after the financial report.
Seems to me that the date of the layoff is more widely known than it typically is.
Working theory is that G2/J2 wanted a month to confirm whatever ideas JD had cooked up.
After debate perhaps?
Probably financial. Almost always is. They want everyone off the books by mid-March, so end of q3fy25
This was discussed clearly on the Cisco Beat last time and then numerous times on this board
OP is not interested in the official reason, but in the real reason, i.e. wants to hear conspiracy theories.
The start of the NFL football season. Everyone is doing their fantasy football drafts right now
What do you think genius ?
Probably because it had to be announced to stock holders and they need planning time. They weren’t prepared so now a month of productivity is gone!
And the answer from this id--t is? Sorry, he forgot 😀
Wtf is wrong with you???? This was discussed clearly on the Cisco Beat last time and then numerous times on this board