If you are hard working, dedicated, and, god forbid, experienced and skilled, your chances of ending up on a chopping block are significantly higher. If you are basically one foot in the grave, meaning approaching 50, it’s a given that you will be targeted. Not to mention that you are a prime game if you have specific skills which are in demand and you are adequately paid. If you are one or any combination of the above, you are guaranteed to be gone next week (or for however long layoffs will last). Cisco, like many other companies, are going for mediocre or below average cheap labor, because they don’t care about products, services, clients, employees, and overall performance. They only care about the performance of the stock.
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I had a DEI manager say on a team call that they were removing all the white dudes from the team… and HR said there was nothing wrong with saying that.
The decision on who to layoff can seem a bit random since multiple factors affect the decision.
The official, legal answer is that the business you are part of has reduced opex and your job has been eliminated, meaning it is a business decision independent of your performance and your manager does not have much say. This is actually what you are told when you receive notice.
This is definitely the case when whole groups go but in most cases it is a subset of the group is impacted who perform the same roles as others being retained. Then there is a management decision on who goes.
In this case, your relationship with your manager is important. Often, the manager will retain the people they feel will most benefit their own career.
In some cases this is based on performance.
In some cases this is based on project. It may be less painful to get rid of someone doing support or infrastructure than someone working an important customer facing project with revenue. Also, managers may be responsible certain projects but assign people across even more projects. They care most about the people assigned to the projects that they are most invoved in.
Visibility is a factor. You are more likely to be let go if you are remote, work offsite or just not that noticible to the rest of the team. If you are not visible, you do not have a big impact on morale when let go.
In some cases, this is the relationship between you and your manager. You are more likely to go if you do not get along with your manager, criticise them, make them look bad and do not carry out their agenda. Of course some managers deserve negative feedback but that is a small consolation when you are out of a job.
Sometimes it is based on seniority. Easier to get rid of someone new than someone around a long time. Though if someone is a new college hire, or very recent new hire in general, they often get retained since it is too soon to judge.
Sometimes it is based on the manager's perceived impact on the employee being let go. They may take pity on someone who will have a devasting financial impact or someone who would face deportation. Also, there are some that want the LR package and volunteer. They may also perceive someone older and approaching retirement leaving soon anyway. This is the manager's attempt to be nice but these particular reasons are definitely not proper.
Another bad reason is looking at shared life experience. A manager may be more like to retain someone like themselves or someone who went through the same career process like coming in through the visa process.
There is a legal process of balancing under 40 year old workers with over 40 year workers. This can benefit either age group based on the demographic of your team. However, these numbers change when laid off workers apply for other jobs inside the company. The younger workers do better on finding new jobs inside the company so more older workers may ultimately get let go.
I worked for a large company a wont name (in case Chuck is reading this) and they did a big layoff of an entire team that I was in but I had just changed to a new role in a different group. Anyway they laid off the whole team I had left and gave them a fat severance as long as they agreed to stay for 3 months and train their replacements from India. It was originally going to be done with the replacements working from offshore and then it changed and they brought all of them here along with their families. A good friend who was on that team and in his late forties had a massive heart attack and died at work about 30 days into the transition Im convinced from the stress of it. Great guy with 3 kids kicked to the curb for bullsh-t decision making based on the company greed and lack of any caring or loyalty to the employees. Exactly the same as this. So yeah it should be an option to sue the fu-k out of them not that it would go anywhere in a country that no longer has any good sense or justice. Corruption and crime is all that seems to be rewarded these days.
"once again, its not Cisco who decides who to laid off. "
Not if your whole team is offshored.
once again, its not Cisco who decides who to laid off. Its always your manager who rank you on a list. If you're the favorite child or in good relationship with your manager, you're safe and will not get picked. It does not matter if you work hard or a high performer. If your manager doesn't like you or like everyone else in the group better than you, you're a goner if he/she has to pick who to layoff in the LR. The best chance to avoid LR is to be a higher performer AND have a good relationship with your manager. That combination always keep you safe from LR and that's why you have people who are still here after 25+ years without getting LRed
… he knows of your angst and worry for your loved ones whilst working for the money loving satan that US capitalism has …
We have marxists posting on this site now?
Is this Toxic Timmy Wąłz?
...experienced and skilled...
Cisco has never had this in software so fire away.
Cisco, like many other companies, are going for mediocre or below average cheap labor, because they don’t care about products, services, clients, employees, and overall performance.
Cisco paid top dollar (think stock over $10M total at a time when $50-75K/yr was a good entry level salary at a regular company) for incredibly bad software. It turns out with the right management you can get exactly the same bad performance from much lower cost people. It also turns out that when your competitors hire those overpaid people their quality is often poor as well.
They only care about the performance of the stock.
Anyone in business knows what you sell has to be at least marginally effective and creating perfection isn't cost effective. Cisco like most ongoing companies live in that middle space and as you mention, for the stock price, tend to operate on the low side. In general routing and switching Arista is the only company both eating Cisco's market share and generating far better operating margins. They had the advantage of starting 20 years later, they hired people who know about developments in software in the past 50 years, they weren't dragging along Cisco's massive technical debt and their product line is smaller and more focused.
Those saying you can probably sue, chances are good you signed an arbitration agreement and suing is not a choice.
Don't invest your time in a company that wouldn't want to invest your money. If you were investing in stock, would you put Cisco at the top of your list? It's a gut check everyone should go through. Losing money is painful. Losing time is unrecoverable.
Don’t be so sure, I’ve seen them wipe out a money generating team only to scramble to hire them back.
Then having a Cisco LR on resume should be considered as a noteworthy credential because that would mean you were a genuinely talented employee.
Id bet money that theres some type of disclaimer on the severance that says you wont sue. these decisions are likely being made against the law based on age, s-x, nationality and many other means that are all wrong and illegal they clearly arent based on merit.
I cant even count all the tech job news articles where people get fired and replaced and have to train H1B's and even recently I think it was Oracle CEO said they throw resumes in the trash for white dudes. Welcome to corporate communist america.
In my experience this is accurate -- we had some people impacted last round that were huge assets to the team. The rationale behind these is somewhat baffling, and I've been here long enough to see through Fran's virtue signalling.
My sisters and brothers, keep the faith. Have no fear, Jesus will keep his eye on you. Oh yes, he knows of your angst and worry for your loved ones whilst working for the money loving satan that US capitalism has become in recent years. He sees all things, he sees into your heart so take heed of him! Keep your eye on the great prize, believe and have faith! Love to you and your loved ones and may you be blessed.
Carefully selected, kind of like coffee beans. Reminds me of the bean counters. Keep reducing the "cost of business"will play itself out, especially since there is no way our customers would not stop buying....right?
This is unfortunately true to some extent. I don't know about you guys, but I am less concerned about layoff itself, but more disappointed at myself knowing that after all these years I am still on the chopping block and waiting for such things.
Time for a change.
Good luck all
I’ve see many IC male workers over 50 get LR’ed. Some of the smartest and hardest workers.
Also if youre - Not LGBQWERTY, White, Male & Based In USA