Thread regarding State Farm Insurance layoffs

Agree with the last post about State Farm's technology environment. I'm an external with lot of experience doing both short and long-term stints at various employers, and State Farm has to deal with lot of issues that most other employers do not. Working at State Farm teaches one about these things.

For example, State Farm network is complicated. We have multiple platforms, many isolated subnets, legacy Host applications, new technology working with old. Our network is huge by just about any definition.

State Farm tends to break vendor products because of our scaling needs and the amount of data we process.

Most company IT departments are actually quite simple by comparison.

The difficulty at State Farm is that developers may be shielded from many of the architectural decisions by layers and layers of strategic employees. So if one only works at State Farm, they may not have the full breadth of experience as to how and why certain architecture decisions are made, whereas this would be expected knowledge at a different employer.

But then again, lots of companies have simple TCP/IP stacks and far less to learn. So it is manageable.

***Previous poster in fact I DO understand what happened and the fact that you think this could have happened at any other company and gone on for as long as it did with NO RESULTS tells me you have in fact worked at only 1 place your entire life.

Prepare yourself bro, the world of technology outside of State Farm will eat you up and spit you out.***

I guess you missed the post (which was duplicated, mind you) where I said I had misread your post?

I thought you were saying something that you were not, in fact, saying. I thought you were blaming the Systems employees for CDE. I read it again and realized you were blaming the leadership.

For the record, I have worked at several companies. Don't pretend you know me. You don't.

The point I was making was not that CDE would have been allowed to happen at any other company (it wouldn't have), but that it would have FAILED at any company. In other words, it didn't fail simply because our unique brand of Systems employee s---ed -- it failed because CDE was an abject failure from day one.

As far as your comment about the technology of other companies "spitting me out," again, you're wrong. There is this illusion that State Farm is way behind technologically. But the barriers at State Farm are business and cultural rather than technological. They always have been.

And in any case, I've worked at enough different places to know better.

Previous poster in fact I DO understand what happened and the fact that you think this could have happened at any other company and gone on for as long as it did with NO RESULTS tells me you have in fact worked at only 1 place your entire life.

Prepare yourself bro, the world of technology outside of State Farm will eat you up and spit you out.

Never mind. I read the post two down again (the last one was mine) and yeah, I think the poster pretty much does understand what happened with CDE. I read it wrong the first time.

Never mind. I read the post two down again (the last one was mine) and yeah, I think the poster pretty much does understand what happened with CDE. I read it wrong the first time.

The last poster clearly understands nothing about what happened with CDE.

CDE was an initiative that could have been launched at any company anywhere in the world and it would have met the same fate -- the difference of course is that the leaders responsible for it would have been fired most everywhere else.

The things they were spending their money on made it HARDER rather than EASIER to get work done. In fact, the things they spent money on made it IMPOSSIBLE to get ANYTHING done.

Seriously Systems folks? You had all of the $ and externals humanely possible. Hell the buildings were bursting at the seams. People were forced to wfh there were so many people there. Corporate was signing unfathomable checks and somehow you still delivered NOTHING!

But it wasn’t your fault. It was your Leaderships fault. No vision. No outside experience. Complete and TOTAL arrogance thinking they knew best and could pull it off. No level of accountability or responsibility with all that was being spent. All they wanted was to do it, to get it done fast, not have to answer any questions and they didn’t care how much it cost. These Leaders were in their glory days hiring more people and bringing in more and more externals. For years after, these Leaders (some still here and it makes me sick to my stomach) have danced around why they could not deliver on ICP and pivoted from spending money on that project to the next project seamlessly without any consciousness for what they had done or how they were to blame.

I don’t like Tipsord as much as the next guy but Ed Rust let that happen and now Tipsord is trying to clean it up while the titanic is sinking, water on the bow and people jumping overboard. I’m not defending him, he brought Fawad in and still has Pettit at the helm. But stop blaming him for the absolute lack of results and overspending on Technology that has put this company in this position and I would argue 20 years behind the competition.

I don’t think any of us should be losing our jobs. I think the people that over hired and over spent need to go. Because those of us that witnessed this absolute catastrophe and that is what it was a catastrophe know enough to never let this crap go down like it has ever again. Lesson learned. And if they care about this company and it’s customers they will get rid of those imbeciles and do a quick re-evaluation of resources and restrategize. Throwing more people off this ship is not going to keep it afloat. And there needs to be a new captain.

Guidewire and Salesforce. Artificial intelligence. Does the work of people.

"self motivated and driven to provide measurable value without management oversight or leadership."

Those are called externals. Just get externals tied to projects to deliver results and if they don't, they're Done. No long-term temporary externals (really operating as permanent, total oxymoron). But SF can't do this because that would require leadership to actually know what's going on and to plan for what the project's actual scope is. Won't happen :D

And, replace the employees who aren't able to innovate with ones who are self motivated and driven to provide measurable value without management oversight or leadership.*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Good one. Oh wow, that's rich.

Lost millions on failed strategy of ICP/CDE and now out of ideas. Hence, cut excess employees to make up for losses. And, replace the employees who aren't able to innovate with ones who are self motivated and driven to provide measurable value without management oversight or leadership. SF knows management is also part of the problem employees can't do good work. But they also need people with the right skills in the right places. Bloomington can't do that. Hubs provide this - Talent acquisition is easier there. Only corporate will be left in Bloomington, for however long, and hubs will take all other work. They have to reinvent because the baby boomer, easy money train is over. Welcome to the Millennial / Technology world, you're about 10 years late SF. If it's not on your "side", Technology doesn't always improve lives, sometimes it disrupts them. SF is trying to figure out how to profit in a world that will eventually have far fewer insurance policies.

I think Tipsford is running this company into the ground, and is trying to save his job. Anyone that wasn't a yes man around him is gone. He's a one trick pony who only knows the bottom line. We have taken the industry's premier claim operation and turned it into a joke. What was once a great company to work for is a disgrace. I'm waiting on a QTD and don't want to be bitter. The Farm has been good to me for over 20 years and owes me nothing. They gave me a job and paid me well, I came to work and did the best I could. I just have a lot emotionally invested and hate to see how good people have been kicked to the curb, and how they are having all the blood s---ed out of them and then discarded once the last drop is gone. Unnecessary shame.

Really, who the f--- cares anymore. Whether or not I have a job in the near future, the fact that I hate this company will now never change.

Master plan put in motion by Ed Rust for his replacement to fail. Rust will again assume the CEO spot while mentoring his son to assume the CEO position. The Rusts family plan to keep control of the company. My theory!

Beat down the old agent state farm system till it loses big!

Solution high road and blue owl.

State Farm vs State Farm.

We tried to fix it but we couldn’t phase out and replace online. Just my thoughts....

The truth is that this company is still awash in cash.

I work in a big city with a lot of employment opportunities, but none of the companies here are as wealthy as State Farm.

The problem is that State Farm's expense ratios have exploded, so the company is no longer able to generate enough investment income to persist long-term. And when I say long-term, we're talking VERY long term, as it would take the Farm a long time to run out of money even with our current expenses.

So WHY are our expenses so screwed up? One could easily blame decades of poor hiring and firing practices or any number of other things, but the truth is that it was all manageable UNTIL Tipsy, Pettit and others orchestrated CDE and decided to build the hubs.

CDE and the Hubs were the straws that broke the camel's back.

But even with these overloaded expenses, there is no earthly reason for Tipsy to cut the way he's cutting now, with such ferocity and immediacy, given the fact that State Farm is still -- as I said earlier -- awash in cash.

So why the purge? Why this messy process? I mean, this is going to TANK the brand. It already is. Why?

Something else is up.

What about all the advertising and marketing money bleeding the company? Does that even being customers in??

Agree 100% @yex - playing catchup... There will be books written about this strategic failure

We spent the $ and Systems could not deliver.

We spent money making it impossible for Systems to deliver.

We tried to play catch up. We spent the $ and Systems could not deliver.

I think State Farm is trying to be acquired. It's just about the only thing I can think of that explains all the crap going on right now. None of the moves they are making are going to improve productivity or make the company more money -- in fact, the way they are removing experienced resources practically ensures that their brand will be irreparably damaged.

If they are preparing to be acquired, it makes sense that they would want to improve on the balance sheet (even if the reality s---s) and that they would want their team structures to compliment what's available in the acquiring organization. This in particular seems to fit what's happening in systems, where Strategy is being choked out.

I mean, it's either that, or the executives really are brain-dead.

I've seen plenty of evidence that they are, in fact, brain-dead. But as a conspiracy theory, that's not entertaining -- it's just sad.

Company doesn’t make the changes that customers want and need. Therefore losing customers but spending a s**t ton of money on IT infrastructure. We are and have been way behind technologically speaking and trying to play catch up cost us way to much money. That on top of not giving the customers what they want equals the employees getting screwed in the end.

I think by reading all posts, one can surmise that we are expensive,, losing policies in droves and no one bothers to ask front line management what is working, and how we might improve.