According to two sources I have in HQ, there will be two more layoffs in the next few weeks. Expectations for the first are March 15. IT will be heavily affected. Ultimately, there's word that management want to get IT down to 500 people. A lot of people think that's impossible, but there's an expectation of drastic changes coming. We shall see.
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I heard IT as well as buyers,copywriters and designers in the near future. Anyone else heard this?
I work at Hoffman. I have heard that consultants are slashing everything in order to save money and of course that means layoffs. They closed all open reqs which was around 200 jobs then had the last layoff a few weeks ago. Now I'm hearing there will be another 100-200 laid off at the end of this month. My team is stretched so thin as it is, I can't imagine what this next round will do to the company.
Do you know when or what the nature of the second one will be? Thanks for letting us know.
Thanks for the early warning. Pay schedules are being adjusted next week too which is off, something is up
#ithelp on Pebble gets the same result literally every time. Someone responds, in broken English, asking you to clarify every single thing you already described. Then they open a ticket. Then they close it an hour later and call it resolved. It never is.
As someone who had insight into multiple IT areas, this is going to be a mess. Sears does not have off the shelf software, they are actually still rolling out new custom built inventory software (which of course directly layers over at least 2 legacy systems that I know of, and probably many more subsystems) additionally even things like their marketing software has been modified so much that it's barely recognizable for most people.
Hell, even the internal portal team was screwed because they were already overworked and understaffed and they got shuffled into bureaucracy of having to request access and submit change requests to offshore resources that didn't have experience in the setup.
As Sears has done many times before, they are trading experience for low paid bodies, and typically the time lost and the ultimate results are substandard which result in a net loss. It was my understanding that TaTa Consulting Services was replacing many IT positions (which started last year) it looks like Sears saw the result they were looking for, without looking at the entire impact... and they liked that dollars were saved, and decided to look no further.
There is a time and a place for outsourcing IT, and I agree that some outsourcing is needed. That said there is no training on how to utilize outsourced resources, you have no subject matter experts, requested changes can have massive impacts on downstream systems, and the level of service is wholly based on tickets closed, not tickets closed correctly, or resolutions provided. Compound this by the fact that the entire ticket system is unnavigable, that creating a ticket in the wrong category means you are told that its the wrong category and it gets closed... and if you ask what is the correct category, the response is that they don't know....
Offshore resources only work if you have the domestic people and resources to manage and direct them. There is an old joke of a programmer and his wife..
Programmers wife asks him to goto the store, and buy a loaf of bread, and if eggs are on sale, buy 12. The programmer comes home with 12 loafs of bread. .... well this is what will happen on a massive scale due to the incorrect interpretations of the offshore resources.
I've personally had to stop an offshore resource from sending out 10s of thousands of emails per day to multiple people, because they misread a requirement.
Good luck Eddie, I'm sure you will still find ways to make money out of this, a company can thrive for 100 years before meeting a bloodsucker like Eddie to s--- the life out of it. Let the poor company die with some dignity, instead of dragging its zombie like husk around saying its going to all be great. This is like some sort of twisted version of "Weekend at Bernie's"
"management want to get IT down to 500 people. A lot of people think that's impossible,"
Not when you outsource it, and then it can go even lower
I was IT outsourced 3 times and ONCE I even helped in outsourcing my job - when a company starts using standard, off the shelf, hardware & software the outsourcing becomes a no brainer and IT just becomes an expense "again" ( as in the 60'ss - 70's computing era ) and ANYONE fortunate to remain just becomes a customer service person
The people I know only know HQ.
Store level too? Or only HQ?