Thread regarding Honeywell International Inc. layoffs

Everyone will stop working for Honeywell at some point, right? How many do you think will stop working shortly after Dec 15th to recieve their matching funds but not lose out on a match for their further contributions? Probably not that many. Plus people looking for alt employment may well avoid 401k contributions and just stick it into their IRA (since same difference taxwise except you control your IRA).

So considering the above dobyou really think the extra .75% is going to make up for your last year at HON when you find a sweet job elsewhere halfway thru the year and lose the match on your contributions YTD? Doubtful given the average time working for am employer has been steadily declining and is around 4yrs (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I was very surprised that retiring employees will get no 401K match for the last year worked unless they decide to do it in the last 2 wks of a year. This is not the American way. 401K's were setup as a vehicle to support retirement. This policy needs to be tweaked.

We finally got valuable information in a TAM call. First time ever. Our HR person informed us that everything HON is doing is legal. The past match reduction from $1 to 60 cents and now the increase are all legal. Including that at any time before the actual deposit they can reduce or increase or zero out the match. Basically since the match is not yours until the actual deposit they can change the amount to anything including ZERO!!! HR honesty for once. So loyal employees could get rewarded with zero in January

Honeywell is now leveraging the US employees the same way they leverage their vendors. Push the terms out and increase the turns in cash. The big difference is that the vendors will ultimately be paid. As an employee, it's a crap shoot. Maybe you get paid, maybe you get a RIF.

Hon gets a big US tax break, they use that cash to fund an $8 billion stock buy back program and then uses those shares to fund the 401K match once a year.

Can we expect a spike in HON share prices somewhere in Q4 only to take a dive sometime in Jan 2019?

I ran the numbers with biweekly contributions of 6% match over 1 full year and the 7% year-end match is better as long as the market does not go up by 29% or so. If the market went up 30%+, The biweekly 6% would have been better. Since the average S&P annual return is 10%, we should benefit from this.

Obviously, a 7% biweekly match would have been even better.

Tip off the NYT - Power in numbers. More of us who raise attention, more likely they will change course

https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/news-tips/

And wait for February message that they are taking away your iPhone and expect you to go out and buy one, pay the monthly fees, and register it with HON so they can have you work for free and have you cover the costs. Yup. Great place to work. Where you pay to have HON bother you at night and on weekends

Since the match is made in company stock, you are at the mercy of the stock price on December 15th or 16th (whichever day they use to create the liability). You do not have the opportunity to move or rebalance those funds during the year as well as getting the compounding effect. There are so many scenarios as to whether you will get more or less, you really can’t guess it. But it will be cheaper for HON due to rif’d, retiring and “I quit!” employees. This saves cash for HON.

Moving the match to end of year is an extra kick in the pants for employees who get RIF'd. Now they are without a job and they don't get the company match for that time period. Another black-eye on Honeywell in my opinion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/your-money/beware-of-the-end-of-year-401-k-match.html?ref=business&_r=1

Everyone knows this plan excretes less shares to the employees because of the discrete rounding down that occurs with a mid year departure. Simplistically (with up or down swings or dividends) you need to be here 6 years to break even on an end of year departure to get the benefit of the extra one percent they are offering.

What's there to even debate? Clearly this is a downgrade and everyone with half a brain sees past the bs propaganda.

You leave or get riffed and end up with 0 match. If you stay you get the match but no compounding on it. Whatever way you look at it it's worse than before.

typo. case 2 . allows you to move the match to other funds.

"now give a higher amount to those that remain with the company" What higher amount you talking about? I said is getting the 7% year year end better than doing 7% bi-weekly match?

Case1: Hon stock goes up all year long . The biweekly you end up with more shares at year end since the match earlier in year is buying more shares. Where as in following Jan the set amount 7% is buying shares which are higher in price in Jan.

Case 2: Hon stock dropping all year long . Then you lose with bi-weekly IF you keep the stock all year . With the bi-weekly pay you can more the stock to other funds.

Just spin. Company matched up to 8% during downturns in the past and was successful. It's not an increase. Only those who were with the company prior to 2008 know this. Even Bossy kept the 8% during hard times at Allied Signal. He recognized paying great employees above the average was the best way to retain an above average work force.

HR’s job is to defend management. It has nothing to do with the cliche “people are our greatest resource”. The loyalty statement about the matching says it all. They are not going to change the environment,so retaliation on folks leaving is what they are going to do. Leave ASAP.

"But my basic models says minimum 6 years to see better returns". You tool, your money continues to grow within the 401k regardless of whether or not you work here. The return is better every year as long as you stay working at Honeywell.

If those posting actually thought about what is happening for just 30 seconds they would realize that all Honeywell did was shift the company match dollars that they used to give to everyone and now give a higher amount to those that remain with the company. Those that remain benefit, those that leave before December 15 get killed. They are rewarding those that stay. I don't have the data nor do I know how to do the calculation but I would gamble big on the fact that this cost Honeywell nothing and they are just taking the good will credit of increasing the match and saying that they gave something to their US employees as a result of trumps tax plan.

Keep in mind they are not increasing the match %, they are merely returning a percentage they took years ago and now spinning it as an increase. The fact that you don't earn till end of year, you could lose what you did have if you left the company during the CY. Loyalty is the carrot...however I would say 20+ years with the company already demonstrates loyalty.

Where is the extra match? I say compare 7% yr end with 7% bi-weekly.

Well then it is not a “benefit “ increase and it is a neutral play. So call it what it is: smoke and mirrors.

This is hard to calculate exactly because you have to make assumptions about market performance. But my basic models says minimum 6 years to see better returns. The reason is that it's not 7% match. Its 7% or 0%. If you leave the company for any reason earlier than 6 years than you would have been better off with the old plan. That's my napkin calculation, that make sense?

Keep in mind that you are not just comparing pay period contributions vs the end of the year. You are comparing pay period vs getting a higher match at the end of the year. The extra match makes up for the difference.