Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

No. It was utter self regarding irrelevant sh--.

Everyone enjoy 99 balloons and the gunge session on Friday????

Cisco is going the way of IBM, HP, Dell/EMC and others..... the world needs less tin, it's becoming commoditised; growth rates are single digit and you just need less staff taking orders - whilst the channel does the heavy lifting for sh--ty margins. There are way too many lifers and s----ups in Cisco - it's BS and political correctness over substance and real selling skills. Tankers of that size take a long time to sink - the leadership has been on a downward slide for the last 5 years - no personalities or characters any more. Shame..... all parties come to and end. Get out now the fighting's started.

Haha I remember that's! I thought it was BS when I saw it though. We're all family but I pay myself 2000x the salary an average employee gets.

Any1 remeber when chambers came to London for Cisco Live in 2008/2009? With a tear in his eye said were all family?

Then a few months later we had layoffs?

That broke me - such cynicism in leadership! Almost 10 yers later its the same except tehy dont pretend to like you.

@3yul - the SEM role is the biggest joke in Cisco.

They might as well just give you a spoon and a massive bowl of sh--. This isn't new, it's been the case for years and years. If you're in that position, better dust off your textbooks and get a real job somewhere that might value you.

What is next if you are an SE Manager in UKI. Your're only chance at progression got taken away from you by a hidden secret old boys agreement. WTF. Deadens role anyway which has now just got even worse.

Yeah. but the LR is a false game in UK business. Most of the good people did not get a job again in cisco but those who were arse lickers and female made sure they got another role. Diversity rocks at cisco Uki. All about the female numbers even if u you can't tell the difference between a switch and a router. Fools.

To the Ireland leadership team, trying to mask the stench of LR's with a thin layer of payrises. That was a masterstroke of absolute incompetence. Sure, I'll take your money but don't expect me to be happy about it when we can all see that you've pinched that money out of the pockets of people you have just laid off! That was hugely disrespectful and if that was a ploy to deflect attention from annual layoffs then I'm sorry, but it backfired. You cannot buy morale.

No place is perfect but you can point the problems to the decimation of EBG, those who confuse bullying with leadership, "new people deal" fanatics who think everything's awesome and a very real dip in hiring quality.

Morale has been rock bottom since August and nothing has been done to address it. New hires are nowhere near the 'top 5%' they used to tout - instead just 'industry average' which aligns with most of the perks, working culture and products.

Cisco as a whole used to be something special. It's not any more. The people, culture and technology has all declined and the UK organisation in particular has its fingers in its ears with no idea how to address it.

Sad really - no doubt even more layoffs coming soon as they try to turn around a sinking ship.

UKI was the safe pair of hands outside US & Canada but bad hires and bad uk based acquisitions has led to a bad culture. The old Nds part still stinks and creeks. Most of all it's the fact that the global sales lead still seems to have a hand in what happens at a local country level. Come on there r bigger fish to fry. Latest LR took place with shut down of Swindon office. Chandlers ford not far behind -what a drepressing dump site.

Ireland has descended to a "jobs for the boys" club. Hardly unusual for Cisco but recent managerial and director promotions only serve to reinforce that fact. Even external managerial hires are extensions of the hiring managers making the appointments. Sometimes hard to determine where one starts and the other finishes, such is the intimacy of their relationships. Obviously admission to the 'ol boys club must be properly vetted!

Any dissent from the trenches is quickly weeded out and extinguished with an example made of the perpetrator. It will not end well for them. Your options are simple, either put up with it or get out. If you don't, the decision will likely be made for you during the annual August restructuring. So just stay in line, keep your mouth shut and you'll be fine. The better option might be to get out before the place makes you resentful. Only you know your own limits. Peace out.

It's a disgusting sh-- show at Cisco. Here is the "leadership" from top-down:

• Vile, sleazy CEO with butt-kissing ELT cronies.

• Egomaniacal SVP who desire a larger empire at any cost. Think Game of Thones but with massive killings of employee morale, talent and souls

• b---s---ting VPs who deflect any work or accountability and completely clueless about the realities in their org. They live amongst the "good old boy" club with special circle jerk gatherings. It is this level that is genuinely shocked and furious when their PULSE scores are horrible

• Director/Sr Director whose mission is to be so far up the VPs butt and shamelessly kiss a-- - all while regularly tossing the hard working souls under then and destroying their psyche

Let karma destroy them all. Jail time,public firings or lawsuits for horrifying behavior would be a nice bonus.

@2ero You are right "ol boys and girls" club. Anyone in management with 15+ years service should be systematically ousted as they are old world linear thinkers so they keep doing same thing over and over and over and over and over again, by then staff have changed so they think these leaders are the best thing since the iPhone. The uki theatre has become a closed shop with very few people who collaborate and do anything innovate. It's boring, stale, and new leadership have done nothing to change, trip to Brighton and an external blog post don't cut it. Time to look outside as market is good.

Why is UK&I the only region being shamed? I've worked in several different business units at Cisco, unethical behavior and corruption at the Sr. Manager, Director, VP level is rampant.

If shareholders only knew the level of incompetence... Cisco is merely a 'good ol' boys club'

I have never ever seen a leader who has such a closed door policy, basically shut out anyone who can help and listens to his hareem of women only. WTF. Thing some plate buying it as they felt he was "credible" in Brighton but that whole session was scripted on an autocue for him. WTF. If u can't present on stage at this level you should be a low level RSM at best. He must have photos of the big boss somewhere to get this far.

Firstly SG took too long to rally the troops after what was a big hit to moral when the LR's happened in July/August. He's clearly not the right person for the role as he's still unable to connect with the people like PS did. I think he should be realising this by now and bow out soon.

VPs made things worse when the LRs were happening, by pretending it wasn't and expecting BAU. My VP provided no confidence or solutions as to how to get business done when the people you needed had been LR'd, instead I just got sarcastic comments. I thought capacity planning is a leadership responsibility, clearly they missed that lecture at Harvard BS.

As many have already said the environment has become extremely political, which is typical for a business that is not performing. Also middle and senior management/leadership is dominated by people who have 15+ years tenure and who are in the later stages of their careers. It is a closed group that has the same agenda to milk it for as long as possible. Business results and transformation are second to done enough to not standout and making the right alliances so you stand a chance if you do one day. If you have ambitions of working your way up the ladder, you can forget it at here.

Lastly when the wrong people get recognised with awards it sends a message that leadership don't have a clue what is really going on. I know my VP is very disconnected from the ground troops and his deeply ingrained opinions and prejudices are obvious to anyone who's worked with him.

Anyway let's forget all this as apparently "there's never been a better time!"

For me it was the layoffs coupled with total lack of strategic direction. I had absolutely no faith anyone in the organisation understood the market, understood their customers or had any clue how to take Cisco in to the new world.

When ODs start saying their route to success was commodity selling because they'd run out of ideas how to sell value it was time to leave. Most of the SEs I know are either glorified BoM jockies or doing stuff like EBC presentations whilst the people that matter in their customers go have beers with every competitor.

When will Cisco become a company of just managers? All the engineers are leaving.

Simple question needs a simple answer. A leader who has charisma, communications skills and an ability to get on with people is what is wrong.

Does anyone know what the fcuk the Uki marketing team does? It's never in Bedfont office.

Bozo blogs that NO one reads - wtf. Pls publish stats to prove me wrong. Fire thier a-- and hire folks such as AMs to bring money in.

They never seem to be able to help with anything sales related and are so reactive. Doing crap events that a kindergarten group could better organise.

In many roles, it may now be more productive to work for Cisco as a contractor, rather than a blue badge. Deferred politics. Focus on the work. Complete the requirements exactly as specified. The days of the diving catch to meet deliverables are going the way of needing the exact requirement listed on next quarter's contractor statement-of-work, to then be deferred for a production release four quarters out. Not sure what the answer to it all is. I guess only the strongest will survive. Whatever that means these days.

@1iah very well said. We have them in EVERY UKI office. Typically female, is that a trend??? I know the IRELAND one, the UK one (s) as there are few in Bedfont, are very dangerous indeed and play the diversity card and hide behind I&C banner. Leaders are fools to believe them or are just middle aged men who like the attention of ANY female company. It will get worse as they club together but then also b--ch to each other's so we see cat fights in Bedfont all the time. They s--- up to HR again full of women. The whole STEM and girls in IT is just a rouse to waste money, have tea and cake and generally piss about.

LOL @1hyq. I know of a director PA in one of the Ireland offices up to the same antics. Any photo opportunity, any publicity opportunity, ANY opportunity to self promote you can count on her being front and centre claiming the credit and doesnt care if she takes the credit for other people's initiatives or not. Can clearly see how the system works and is using it to her advantage. There's probably one in every site; folk laugh behind their back but they have the last laugh as they have the ear of the axe yielders and eat at the top table.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Last PULSE survey results came as an apparent shock to management. Either they feigned shock or they honestly have no idea what's going on under their own noses. I don't really buy the idea they could be so clueless but perhaps that's easier than facing up to the toxic environment they have moulded by their actions. Nothing has changed in the interim.

Would agree with previous commenter. People in survival mode and on lookout for something else and regrettably no longer giving 100%. Can't blame them in many respects but it's hard to watch. Needs strong leadership to flip things around and scarce evidence of that just now.

So many great posts to this question. I was going to respond but I just saw something that made me vomit. The little pet of the UKI CEO on twitter showing of her meeting with the ELT!!!! How sickening that she is representing us. What a backstabbing, glory seeking, s--- up. Urghhhhhhh. This is what is wrong with UKI. As if the presentation in Brighton wasn't bad enough she wriggle her way using diversity card to the top. Sick sick sick.

For me it's a lack of direction. I don't know what Cisco represents anymore or what we're meant to be aiming for. So many products that overlap and don't integrate. Apparently a new exciting platform with Spark that is meant to drive the future of our collaboration business, but then UK leadership kill the entire collaboration team?

Personally I think everyone is in survival mode, until something better comes along. I've not spoken to anyone at an individual contributor level that has anything good to say and who isn't actively looking elsewhere.

I can only comment on the "I" part, which itself is a shambles of discontentment shielded by a cloud of smoke + mirrors and no small amount of deceit. "Best place to work" award winner in Ireland? Don't make me laugh. The survey's completed by people on the floor certainly didn't make it all the way to final rekoning and no small amount of gardening performed before submittal. Questionable ascendency to director level in some quarters, promotions based on those most willing to play the political game and nod and smile on que. Any questioning of management team is sure to get you punished by way of assignment to lesser and often unsuitable projects where it is known you might struggle but equips leadership team with the stick they can use to beat you with when they need to - either that or a fast-track onto the LR a naughty list. More effort spent on building a public image than any innovative work as it is more important to be seen to be hip and cool on social media these days than actually building software solutions that work properly for paying customers. Recently hired graduates upping and leaving once they discover it's all just a facade is probably the clearest indictment. Certain managers walk around the place with an arrogance and self-importance that beggers belief. Half the Galway site spend their time rebuilding IM clients from scratch as their previous attempts were so terrible they had to be scrapped, and now working on Spark which nobody wants and customers aren't buying. The other half working on "Cloud" projects where the cadence is you work on something for a few months then scrap that and jump onto some 'more important' project, never actually completing anything and constantly context-switching as they don't even know what cloud they are working on from one week to the next. No projects earning Cisco any actual money of course so busy fools. If you have managed to avoid redundancy in the Dublin office so far then congratulations and keep doing what you are doing.

The one saving grace is that LR only seems to come around once a year at the moment but you know that if you are not playing the political game you are going to be thrown under the bus in September. So all in all probably not too unlike most sites around the globe but maybe not as affected as our friends in the UK by recent detrimental organisation changes whose reign of incompetence hasnt fully reached Ireland of the UK&I yet. Happy St Patrick's day everyone.

The biggest issue is the political situation that's evolved. Mangers and directors are now using the inevitable annual LRs as a stick, not to increase performance but instead support for those in charge so they can continue to drink from the fountain without challenge. As such there is a lot of political games going on at all levels and some of the odd director appointments only adds weight to this argument.

Where do we start? Just look at the leadership appointments, the cuts and departures of "good" people , the communication or lack of.

The boardroom is now middle age white women not middle age white men. Thought this would be good for a gal like me but no . All with experience from the 70s and 80s and nothing motivational to give.

No prospect of progression , no one cares. Run by finance. Who are HR? Political games played by so called directors for resources. Everyone calls themselves a CTO - laughable.

Inner circle rules CEO office, no way in for anyone, door is not open as he proudly says but firmly closed to any new ideas from bright people. Same old same old. Need anymore ?????????????????????????