Perhaps Chuckie and company could learn something from Amazon. I'd suggest some of the condescending posters promoting age discrimination on this site could too, but I think they are beyond hope.
https://m.slashdot.org/story/326805
My favorite line is the quote from Amazon CTO Werner Vogels "There is no compression algorithm for experience."
Ahem, https://gblogs.cisco.com/uki/how-to-get-the-best-value-from-an-ageing-workforce/
Notice how that blog is from 2016 and has zero comments. It's from a person at Cisco, but has zero management support behind it.
Personally I think if people stay in the same job too long then rightly or wrongly their is a perception that they are time servers.
What's wrong with serving time? As long as you do your job productively, don't waste time, and keep your skills current, why shouldn't you stay in the same job for more than 5 yrs? My only promotion potential was upwards and I can't manage people. I have NO DESIRE to manage people. I'm not a people person. But I am a problem solver with technical skills and I worked hard and stayed busy with real work, not make work to look busy. Now, I'd still doing the same job, for better pay but less time off, just at a different company. Guess I'll stay here 3-5 yrs and go somewhere else.
Me thinks you're all missing the point. Cisco is not growing, they're going backwards. The business strategy is to cut costs, not to innovate and grow. They used to be great at acquiring and integrating companies, now they don't because they don't value the people or process that those companies bring. The economy is good. Tech companies are doing well. Cisco isn't and it's their own fault. It's sad to see but that's the reality. A once great company is not a great company any more.
The overall truth perhaps is the system itself is broken, the only reason the country didn't bankrupt itself after 2008 was because the dollar is the world currency, so let's just print some more! We're all really just chasing virtual tokens of "currency"; and then emotionally valuing ourselves based on how much of the arcade tokens we have hoarded compared to others. Truth is none of it matters, so take what you need to get by, and let the rest of the financial mumbo-jumbo "I am wortg more" psychoanalysis fly out the window. Someday none of it will matter, for each and every one of us reading this thread.
Generalisation on/
The over 45s came out of the jobs-for-life generation and half-expected the same. They believe that loyalty cuts both ways and are often motivated by more than just money/benefits. They are happy (relatively) to stay in one company. However, long service brings its own rewards so they are expensive resources.
Those of us well over 45 who entered the workforce shortly after Reagan took office and turned the country from the world's largest creditor nation into the world's largest debtor nation saw the loyalty thing end over a third of a century ago. It's no great surprise that 401Ks and the advent of mass layoffs became reality in the same time frame. Perhaps you were mistaking us with the over 95 crowd who were the first in the post WWII era to be blindsided this way.
The fact that Cisco has been acquisition driven since 1993 means the bigger campuses are often centered around a lot of start up activity so there is room for people with talent to easily move around. With far better opportunity nearby one has to ask what kind of person wants to follow the horses in the parade with the shovels and buckets regardless of age?
While we're at it, how do kids who came up through Java only programs produce nothing but Spaghetti FORTRAN? Good FORTRAN programmers still in the 1960s would look at this code with a sense or horror and the rest of the world has advanced dramatically since then.
There is clearly a difference between the over 45 workforce and the under 30s. Neither of which is good for the long-term well-being of any large corporate, not just Cisco.
Generalisation on/
The over 45s came out of the jobs-for-life generation and half-expected the same. They believe that loyalty cuts both ways and are often motivated by more than just money/benefits. They are happy (relatively) to stay in one company. However, long service brings its own rewards so they are expensive resources.
On the other hand, the under30s entered the work place post the dotcom crash and during, or in the aftermath of, the 2008 financial crash. They know there is no job-for-life, they know there is no loyalty from the employer. They are often motivated by material things. They seek rapid progression and have no qualms about switching company to get it. The consequence is that it is extremely hard to retain them. The only practical way to do so being grade promotion and pay rises.
In either case you wind up with an expensive workforce, just that one churns more and one has more experience. Take your choice.
Of course, the rot started when we saw people as assets (Human Resources) rather than people (personnel).
This is not just a Cisco problem. Any large, traditional, employer faces the same problem, whether it's GM, Exxon or PG&E. I've yet to see a management team deal with it satisfactorily.
...are, or were, good at innovating internally or leading large, complex development projects. That's why they were promoted.
No. If you are a PE in your 50s and you don't have a rudimentary understanding of what "scaling" is you never knew what scaling was. The same goes for 100 other basic skills where the first principles haven't changed over the lifetime of the company. It turns out plagiarism and tantrums don't produce product which is why Cisco has to keep acquiring its way forward.
So what do senior technical staff do in the absence of internal development budget? Fix bugs? Add features?
There has always been a massive budget. The vast majority is going to bug fixing because the company has very poor development skills. Your VPs say all the added process hasn't improved quality and yet they formally state they won't take any action to correct that situation which is why quality has been Cisco's "biggest problem" for decades. The management leadership is as incompetent as the technical leadership.
No ageism at Cisco? You have to be kidding me. Well maybe technically true since the ageism is demonstrated by making sure that those over 40 are systematically made to not be at Cisco.
What gets missed by all of those talking about "hot new relevant" skills is that much experience is transferable. Technology is the easy part. Knowing how to systematically solve problems, identify risk areas, design for reliability and security, and apply solutions to the real business issues are skills that live forever.
In my new job I just had a really sharp guy on my team tell me that without my guidance he never would have completed a deliverable because I was able to quickly understand the real issues and cut through all of the nonsense. This was in an area that I had zero experience with 3 weeks ago.
I can say with first hand experience that compared to when we were figuring out how to make client server work back in the stone ages this cloud stuff is easy. Holy carp. You have self contained containers, dynamic compute scaling, virtually infinite storage and automated redundancy at the push of a button. Hell you even have devops pipelines to force people to do static code checks.
Yes, great post.
There's another perspective on this: Someone who has reached (via promotion and not via nepotism / acquisition / external hiring) GL 11, 12, 13, 89, 90, or 91 (those being, in order, Tech Lead I, TL II / SW 5, PE, DE, and Fellow) are, or were, good at innovating internally or leading large, complex development projects. That's why they were promoted. Yes, their paths may have been made easier by a mentor, or a friendly VP, but reaching that level took time, during which the employee grew up.
Large, complex projects require budget. When is the last time anyone saw a large, complex internal development project funded and carried forward to completion? There is a ton of money for acquisitions and spin-ins, but not so much for internal development.
So what do senior technical staff do in the absence of internal development budget? Fix bugs? Add features? If you are a VP or Senior Director and have a headcount limit to enforce, it doesn't take deep management skills to figure out that a GL 8 might fix a bug or add a feature (pick your fraction) as effectively as a TL II, at a vastly lower cost. So why keep the TL II? That they happen to be over 40 or over 50 is a coincidence.
I saw lots of opportunity for innovation and product enhancement, but it was obvious that the chance of funding internal development was zero. I wasn't surprised when I got the meeting invite, nor do I regret it happening... Rome was big and it took a long time for it to burn.
The people with fresh ideas and up-to-date skills are managed by the deadwoods. Guess what tends to happen?
Just let this dysfunctional ship.
The difference is AMZ has the prestige to hire older folks with real skills while at Cisco the 40+ crowds most are just dead weighs collecting paychecks. It sounds harsh but I have had the unfortunate experience working with these dirs., sr dirs. VPs who barely have any technical skills, love big talk with fluffy ppts, and more interested in financial engineering than developing anything worthwhile. The ineptitude starts all the way from the ELT (age 40+) on down. Call it age discrimination if you want but at this point Cisco needs people with fresh ideas and up-to-date skills young or old.
Personally I have never seen any ageism here. Its mindset, skills and attitude that count if you want to get on.
Hmm it's amazing how when I got LR'ed that nearly everyone who didn't have the correct mindset, skills, and attitude was a white male with grey hair. Maybe that is what causes grey hair- not having the correct mindset. Tell me that again when you are 55+ and get walked out the door. Dope
The Amazon article is interesting.......but have you noticed a trend in the older hires? They have a "name" (ie inventor of Java, savior of Netflix, etc). Call me back when Amazon, Cisco and others show that they are hiring and keeping high quality older employees who don't necessarily have a name (which is the majority). You can keep yourself 100% relevant and up to date past the age of 40/50/60, but not have a brand name.
It's called "Trust"...
For many "old-timers", work is/was more about culture, loyalty, and simply making something complex work simply, and then to scale.
For many, sure the money is/was nice, but it never was really about the money primarily.
You can call this complacency or "old-timer" work ethic; but like a relationship, when people grow weary of letting their guard down to commit to give who they truly are, the relationship suffers and is never truly maximized to what it could have been.
Ultimately it's about the bottom line. Older workers are more expensive both in salary and benefits as well as opportunity costs. It's a fantasy to think any company "treats older workers as valued assets". When the current massive tech bubble crashes you can bet older workers will be jettisoned faster than you can imagine in favor of cheaper foreign workers.
That is a great article. But what about those who have just tipped 40? Or 50? Those people are NOT part of the ageing population. They are vibrant and valuable. And they are being dismissed and no longer viable candidates.
I but green bananas and will continue to do so for the next 35 years. EASILY.
Both good articles. Although the cynics that work at Cisco and who post on here will no doubt dismiss the Cisco article as propaganda. Personally I have never seen any ageism here. Its mindset, skills and attitude that count if you want to get on.
Good article. I don't think there is any age discrimination at Cisco. If people want to stay at Cisco a long while they need to take ownership of their own development and career opportunities. Personally I think if people stay in the same job too long then rightly or wrongly their is a perception that they are time servers. Cisco is great for personal development opportunities and for lateral and vertical moves. Folks should take advantage of it.
Ahem, https://gblogs.cisco.com/uki/how-to-get-the-best-value-from-an-ageing-workforce/