The fact is for the past 7 to 8 years Chevron's poor management team has handled every issue or problem with the same answer - HIRE MORE PEOPLE! Now their inability to solve problems, be creative, and delivery on commitments has come home to roost. My observation is that at least 1/2 of the 60+ members of the Management Committee (for anyone who does not know these are the 60+ highest ranking executives in the company) are incompetent in their current position. No wonder there have been so many operational and project execution problems. It is unfortunate that the same thing that so many say happen at the bench level of the company - those who know someone keep their job or get promoted while many very competent, hard working employees do not. The same has occurred at the executive level for the past many years. It all comes down to no accountability individually at the Management Committee level. So now look where that has gotten us. When you realize that several thousand employees should have never been hired the past several years, then factor in the depressed crude price, lack of projects in the coming years and planned asset sales (announced and yet to be announced) from an investor point of view the personnel reductions should be almost double what has been announced. Be prepared for Round 3 next spring/summer!
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Agreed with the first response, about CVX focusing too much time on diversity, affirmative action, sex, sexual orientation, etc.. I survived the cut, but as I look across the barren rows of empty desks where my once full project team worked, I struggle to understand how some of these people made it through the checkpoint. I lost the majority of my high producers, albeit they were also the most expensive salaries. So, now I'm left to operate a group that is short-handed, by people who don't have the experience necessary. I really wish CVX would have avoided using a 3rd party to determine who to cut, as those were based purely on economics and not value added to the company. Sure, I may have had an engineer making $150K, but that individual might have been saving CVX several times that value per year. Looking around, it seems that the diversity/race/sex stuff has given a few of these people a free pass. I don't agree with this. My group will suffer because of it. I'd rather have kept the best people, regardless of what they look like, or believe in.
The mistake they made with the recent layoffs, is they should have laid off the incompetent team leads and managers who made the decisions on the people to let go. Too many of the productive people I work with were let go, and I am now stuck with the slugs who will follow the team leads and managers who only can manage by check lists. My team leader couldn't do my job if his life depended on it, but he has his little check list that all it does is add about 40% more useless work to each project I work on. I have put my resume out there, and will be getting out of here soon.
Anon203407- that's a good one! LOL. We should make a separate thread of these kind of examples! Hey you created work for others, no wonder you were rewarded!
180 is surely not a Chevron employee or contractor. Either this ass was recently canned (thank God) or has never worked for Chevron a day in his missable life. His mentality is a dead give away. Move on, Troll.
The OP has one of the best posts on this board, CVX needs to cut even more dead wood than they are, not less, for all the reasons he/she pointed out. And enough of the posts like the doushe below who posted "The OP agrees with the OP" To start with, buy a clue. there have been many posts in agreement and none negating the OP's post and the post that you assumed could have been the OP was roughly 12 hours later. Not likely. You are on the list to be cut, I take it!!
The OP agrees with the OP. Great.
Agree with OP.
According to our CSOC dipstick, Chevron has over 17,000 documented processes and procedures. The dipstick said it like this was a good thing. Unbelievable.
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Plus cutting out all that liberal feel-good bullshit will double our productivity. Chevron has allowed this crap to get out of hand over the last 15 years.
388, I think paying the highest salaries in the energy industry to attract the highest caliber talent the world will work very well. Rationalize it this way; if Chevron pays a much higher salary than the competition, It's payroll could in fact be far less than the competition. How? It would only require half the employees it would otherwise need to get the same amount of work done. Higher caliber employees cost more, but they out-produce the average worker. That's how!
407: You are right, grabbing a napkin and just mopping it up would have taken care of the spill in 2 mins, but I'm sure that our safety based SOP must have cost a few thousand to complete. This is why we are so deep In the hole and still sinking. Ha ha ha, great example.
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We can't do that. That would require pay that is something better than competitive.
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That is the epitome of what is wrong. I sure hope they did an RCA on that an shared at a lessons learned forum.
What's your CAI? I'll be sure to give you CSOC feedback tomorrow!
One day I was coming out of the coffee area and the guy ahead of me spilled a little water on the tile floor. I could have said, "Dude, mop up your mess" or just grabbed a couple of paper towels and wiped it up myself. Instead I got the collapsible safety cone out of its nifty holder next to the coffee pot and set it up next to the spill. Next I called real estate to send a custodian to clean the mess. Then I went back to my office and filed a near miss report online. My manager had to review and OK that report. Somebody somewhere in ITC management had to count it and report on it because the number of near miss reports was a performance metric which eventually filtered into our CIP metric.
And I was rewarded for this behavior.
True. Story.
Too much attention being paid to diversity, affirmative action, gender equality, work-family issues and a host of other "feel good" liberal nonsense. This is a cut-throat energy industry, not a kindergarten. The sooner Chevron starts heading in the opposite direction the better. In other words; hire the best, steal the best away from competitors, fire under producing employees and contractors, and reward high-caliber work ethics with the highest pay in the industry. Advertise that to the world and it will attract the best people in the world to work for Chevron. Only then will Chevron stock soar higher than ever.