#culture

The first value listed on the vaunted Solventum mission slide is Put People First. I don't get it. How can senior leadership say with a straight face that they "put people first" when they so obviously do not? They could change it to "Put People at the VP Level or Above First and Everyone Else Second" and that would more accurately capture it. But why lie about it? Why not be honest and say, "Put Stock Price First"? (Bryan Hanson couldn't figure out stock price gains at Zimmer, but we'll set that aside for a second.) Why say you're "transparent" when you're not? Why send a company-wide email announcing a 4-year "Transform for the Future Initiative" six minutes before announcing that initiative on a quarterly earnings call? So many questions. Here's an idea, which I know no CEO will ever implement. What if, instead of creating Transform for the Future Initiatives, hiring more SVPs, and laying off more peons to cut costs and "reallocate resources," what if a CEO did something real and radical? What if a CEO said something like this: "I was going to lay off 2,000 more employees this year, but then I said no. We put people first here, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm cutting my salary, bonus, and stock incentive compensation package this year down to the average Solventum employee levels, and all my direct reports will do the same. Any new hires at the VP level or above in the next two years will NOT get signing bonuses. For example, we won't give singing bonuses like the one we gave to Tammy Gomez that is approximately equivalent to 30 years of the average worker's salary. Also, no more guaranteed severance packages that exceed one year of salary. In other words, we will actually implement the value we hold most dear, and we will PUT PEOPLE FIRST!" Okay, I know this will never happen. I live on the planet earth. But imagine if it did. Imagine how loyal of a following a CEO would get from his or her tens of thousands of employees. Imagine how little it would matter financially to that CEO and his direct reports, all of whom are already rich. He could even ratchet their salaries right back up again after "the year of impoverishment" and no one would care. And in the meantime, he would have gained a cultlike following of people ready to take a bullet for him. I'd argue he would get even richer over time. And most importantly, for one tiny flash of an instant of his career, he would be putting people first. I dare you, Bryan.

I'm sure there's some logic behind getting rid of the best performer on our team, but I sure as he-l can't figure it out. I guess that's why those on top are paid the big bucks. /sarcasm

No company go broke by employees working fridays from home.

It might improve quality and mood of employees.

• Family time
• Work from comfort zone.

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Sure is fun to see all these pics on LinkedIn of Partner Summit. Our fearless leader and the executive minions living their best life while sinking this ship and ruining peoples lives. I hope the steaks at the Golden Steer were amazing.

It’s not entirely surprising to see these results when a company that’s neither growing nor shrinking decides to place relatively inexperienced people into senior roles across different parts of the organization, all at once. From one group to another. The decline in EBITDA and EPS speaks to something deeper — a lack of true leadership, professionalism, and understanding of how to steer a business forward.

What’s more concerning is the culture that seems to celebrate losses — where layoffs are treated as a sign of “efficiency,” masking deeper issues and compensating for poor financial performance. It’s an organization that appears more focused on politics than outcomes.

At this point, the “P” might as well stand for Party — because for some at the top, the rewards keep flowing regardless of results. The irony is that leadership likely recognizes these systemic flaws but continues to indulge in a system that benefits them. In the end, it’s the long-term everything is eroded including their own proposed values.

Honest question, why do you like working at Schwab? There seems to be so much contention about poor management, legacy technology and vast pay differences. What is it that keeps you here? Especially those of you that have been here for so long. Are you hoping for things to go back to the good old days?

Does anyone know how they would check if you are in office? Can I just swipe my badge and leave?

When is Wayfair going to learn that you get why you pay for. We need to stop with all these oversea agents. They either don’t have enough training, don’t care, etc. The majority don’t help the callers and just make matters worse.

At least he has some ethics and the guts to tell the truth.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7389701612849774592?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7389701612849774592%2C7391498545918406656%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287391498545918406656%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7389701612849774592%29

Customer service and technology employees differ significantly from shopfloor workers, rendering the principles of Scientific Management and productivity gains through motion studies irrelevant and ineffective in these roles.
However, Truist, as a service-oriented company, places undue emphasis on the Sapience tool to measure productivity. While this highlights Sapience’s success in marketing and selling its productivity tool to large corporations, it raises concerns about its appropriateness for evaluating service and technology roles.

This company is ki-ling my mental. The inconsistencies between LOBs, multiple booking, originating, and servicing systems for a single loan, lack of accountability for not adhering to policy (changing rules, testing methodology vs behaviors) to manage results, constant turnover, not uploading documents in a timely manner, 1 million conflicting procedures, job aids, and department emails, broken and outdated links, lack of full integration of systems and procedures. I know all of us are waiting for an employee friendly job market so that we can escape chaos.

C suites across the globe have shown their ignorance and that they are simply easily led automatons, just a bunch of flashy salesmans cucks more than anything.

Visier's previous report, Embracing the AI-Driven Workforce, focused more on the human element than you might expect. Credit: Visier

The problem, Derler said, is that most of the management don't actually understand the benefits of AI and how they can be applied. They haven't seriously considered the implications and are merely carried along by the hype.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/companies-are-quietly-rehiring-the-workers-they-replaced-with-ai/ar-AA1PZZIE?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=690dfac1e8bf4af181e1fe44bfa4019e&ei=11

Guess who didn’t make the list?

https://www.forbes.com/lists/best-employers-women/

From those who attended please share your thoughts

but we don’t give a flying ** about your job, you’re just another number. True values of this place :D

Inherited environment, culture of stress, anxiety, uncertainty from Roger, added his own flavor of further uncertainty among associates.

When BME was announced, Rich was dead clear in sharing "everyone's going to be part of this model"

Since he didn't see eye to eye with Bob, he's on his way out the door now.

With the retiring of "squads, scrum masters, chapters", we will definitely see some BS made up titles with same responsibilities.

Why does Fido want to ruin the holiday season for all?

Rent a center has shifted its collection processes for the worst. How you ask? They have taken the attitude that it's better to get something other than nothing at all. Here is an example, customer gets a brand new 85"tv. Makes a $10 online transaction and comes due. Never pays, never communicates with the store. Now the customer is 40 days past due. They are sent an email or text, apologizing for us bothering them ,but wanting to help them. The company then offers a payout settlement of $300 , for a brand new $1000 TV mind you. Customer takes the deal , and can reapply and do it all over again. Now think of that on a scale company wide. Why has profit dropped off, why are collections higher year over year? That process right there. And don't think for a minute that customers don't encourage others to follow this process. Get a brand new ps5 for $150!!!
All the while store staff stays till 8pm everyday trying to hit collection numbers that are now impossible to hit. Thanks to the ivory tower think tank!

Best senior leader you have encountered and why?

I'm not a spiritual person, but I do believe in the concept of right/wrong, good/bad, etc.

There is an evil lurks witihin the Gainwell culture. It can be felt on so many levels through the work day. Whether it be interacting with managers or certain individuals who have some state of power or authority. Even when dealing with peers.

It's the toxicity. People taking from others, but giving so little in return unless there's a direct benefit to themselves. People that can't be bothered or respond to others unless they want something in return.

It's been mentioned about intra and inter-departmental gas-lighting, purposely withholding information for the sake of control or to merely sc--w with somone. You would have thought that would have decreased with NTT taking over operations. But on the contrary, it hasn't changed. In fact, the sickness has started to spread to NTT in some aspects. Possibly because so many of those Gainwell managers, are now NTT managers. Or NTT has to follow Gainwell's wants or marching orders.

I've always seen NTT as being the fall guy. Yes, NTT, come manage our operations. But you have to do so in the manner we require or want. If that be the case, then nothing has actually changed. Gainwell is still making the bad choices and calling the shots, but now they have someone to pass the buck on, to divert attention

For anyone who hasn’t seen “The Truman Show”: it’s a story about a man who lives inside a perfect illusion. His entire life is a TV set. The town, the neighbors, even his wife and coworkers… all actors. They know it’s fake. They get paid to keep the illusion running so Truman never realizes the truth.

The employees in Truman’s world were enablers.

They smiled on cue, stuck to the script, and did whatever it took to keep the show believable. Not because they believed in it, but because it was their job. Because it paid the bills.

Sound familiar?

For years, that’s what we, Xerox employees, have done here.

We’ve watched the numbers collapse, the debt balloon, the rhetoric pile up… and we’ve kept performing.

We’ve called decline “transformation,” losses “investments,” and chaos “reinvention”.

We’ve applauded speeches that we knew were hollow, because the alternative was uncomfortable truth.

We weren’t fooled. We were complicit.

Now the walls of the set are falling down.

Let’s stop pretending we didn’t know. We all knew.

We saw the numbers slide quarter after quarter.

We sat through the town halls, clapped like it mattered, then went back to our desks to whisper the obvious: this company’s been dead for years; we’re just managing the c0rpse.

Why?

Because the salary was decent.

Because it was easier to play d-mb than to stand up and say the emperor had no clothes.

Because survival inside a dying machine feels safer than the uncertainty outside it.

Every spreadsheet, every “adjusted” margin, every fake pep talk… we saw it all.

And instead of calling it out, we became the extras in the show.

We smiled, nodded, and sold the illusion that Xerox was turning a corner.

But the truth is brutal: we helped build the illusion.

We traded everything for comfort, and comfort is what leads companies to de4th.

We knew the business model was obsolete, that “Reinvention” was just branding without any substance.

We heard the excuses: tariffs, macroeconomy, delayed orders, COVID (in 2025?)… and pretended those were answers.

Now the curtain’s down.

No plot twist, no surprise ending… just the arithmetic of brutal financials that don’t lie.

The problem isn’t that management lied: the real problem is that we let them.

We built a culture where truth was optional and optimism mandatory.

We rewarded obedience over thinking.

Every time we clapped at jargon, every time we stayed silent while the company hollowed out, we helped build the lie.

Now there’s nothing left to hide behind.

The show’s over.

Stop clapping.

This is probably the only channel I can say this on. But by God, people. Please get in line with the in-office requirements. 3 days and 8 hours is not that big of a deal. And if some of you lazy people keep looking for loopholes and abusing the system, they’ll come down harder. It’ll be 4 days, then 5. And we shouldn’t blame management. We should blame you.

Leadership was couped by "the West". Legacy BMO employees are treated like garbage by the actively hostile management from "the West" and never considered for advancement.

The management that ran botw into the ground is tearing down all the guardrails that made BMO a stable bank. They constantly lie and gaslight.

Now they're laying off a bunch of people off right before the holiday season. This company has been corrupted by the toxic culture from the West.

At BNY, leadership isn’t something you do—it’s something you post about. In this gilded age of corporate theater, where substance is optional but hashtags are mandatory, BNY has perfected the art of appearing important while doing absolutely nothing of measurable value. Welcome to the House of Optics™, where the louder you are on Teams, the closer you are to God (or at least to a LinkedIn shoutout from someone with “Global” or "Head" in their title).

Let’s begin with the sacred ritual of the Selfie of Significance™. At BNY, no moment is too trivial to commemorate with a front-facing camera and a forced grin. Did you attend a 15-minute “Leadership Listening Session” where no one listened and nothing was led? That’s a selfie. Did you stand near a VP while they cut a ribbon on a building funded by tax credits and the dreams of displaced mid-career professionals? That’s a selfie. Did you walk past a banner that said “Innovation Starts Here” while wondering what your job actually is? Selfie. Bonus points if you tag the Executive Committee member who once waved in your general direction at a town hall.

But the real magic happens in the Testimonial Industrial Complex™, where associates are gently nudged (read: strongly encouraged) to post about how “energized,” “inspired,” and “humbled” they are to be in the presence of greatness—greatness being defined as someone who once said “synergy” in a meeting without laughing. These testimonials are often indistinguishable from hostage notes, except with more emojis and fewer demands. “Feeling so proud to be part of today’s strategic alignment session with our fearless leader!” reads one post, accompanied by a photo of a man in a Patagonia vest nodding at his own PowerPoint.

Leadership at BNY is not measured by outcomes, impact, or even basic competence. It is measured by decibel level and calendar saturation. The true leaders are those who speak the most in Teams meetings, regardless of whether they say anything. In fact, saying nothing is preferred—it reduces the risk of accountability. The goal is to be seen speaking, not heard making sense. Bonus points for using phrases like “double-click,” “value prop,” and “let’s circle back” in a single breathless monologue.

And oh, the meetings. BNY has elevated the Meeting as Performance Art to an Olympic sport. There are meetings to plan meetings, meetings to debrief meetings, and meetings to align on the outcomes of meetings that never had outcomes. If you’re not in at least six simultaneous Teams calls, are you even leading?

Meanwhile, the Executive Committee floats above it all, like a celestial body emitting vague strategic radiation. They are thanked profusely in every post, regardless of their involvement. “Huge thanks to [Insert EC Member] for their visionary leadership!” reads a caption beneath a photo of a hallway. No one knows what the EC actually does, but their names are invoked like corporate deities—part reverence, part insurance policy.

But BNY’s pièce de résistance is its Public Diversion Strategy™, a masterclass in distraction marketing. While morale craters and more layoffs loom, the company unveils a new building, a new partnership, or a new initiative with a state college mascot no one’s heard of. These announcements are accompanied by drone footage, branded cupcakes, and LinkedIn posts with captions like “So proud to be part of this journey!”—a journey that, coincidentally, involves replacing experienced professionals with interns and new college grads who think COBOL is a TikTok dance.

These partnerships are not about education or community impact. They are about labor arbitrage agreements with a side of PR frosting. BNY receives generous economic development credits to build “pipelines” of low-cost, inexperienced talent while quietly offboarding seasoned employees like expired yogurt. The message is clear: if you’ve been here long enough to know how things work, you’re a liability. Please collect your commemorative stress ball and don't let the door hit you in the a*ss on the way out!

And yet, the illusion persists. Awards, merit and promotions are given for “visibility,” not value. Promotions go to those who master the art of Strategic Echoing™—repeating what someone just said, but louder and with a slide. Recognition is bestowed upon those who “lean in” to performative enthusiasm, not those who quietly deliver results. The loudest voice in the room is assumed to be the smartest, even if it’s just reading the agenda out loud.

In this ecosystem, actual accomplishment is a liability. It implies you were focused on work instead of cultivating your personal brand. Worse, it might make others look bad. The safest path to success is to be loud, visible, and vaguely inspirational. Think TED Talk energy, but with less content and more acronyms. Afterall, who started this practice and how has this become the fabric of the Robin Vince BNY culture?

So what’s the lesson here? At BNLie, it’s not about what you do—it’s about what you appear to do. Leadership is not a function of impact, but of optics, volume, and proximity to power. The currency of success is not competence, but curated enthusiasm and PR hype. And the ultimate sin is not failure—it’s silence.

So smile for the camera, tag your favorite executive, and remember: the building may be empty, the strategy may be incoherent, and the talent may be fleeing—but as long as the LinkedIn post gets 100 likes and 450 impressions, everything is fine with the personal brand.

When the only thing that “matters” is quarterly performance, leadership starts trimming everything that isn’t a number that moves the stock. Pay. Comfort. Flexibility. Those are the first to go.

Directors and VPs play it safe. They tighten rules not because they believe in them, but because they’re scared to stick their neck out. Fear trickles down faster than trust ever does.

One of the most overused phrases I have heard at U.S. Bank is “I appreciate you!”.

Word to the wise, stop using this phrase. You sound like an insincere fool. If you truly appreciate someone, show it in your ACTIONS not with empty words. Vampires 🧛.

You feel it, we all feel it. It doesn’t read like leadership trying to build culture.
It reads like control masquerading as culture. When a company actually wants people together for collaboration, the tone is invitation. When it’s about covering themselves or flexing power, the tone is exactly what you would expect from Dell. Cold, absolute, and written as if you’re a dog in a cage.

Kakistocracy is the rule by the incompetent.
That is, those who govern are the least fit to do so, but the most skilled at holding onto power.

5 Rules of Kakistocracy:

Incompetence: Promotions are not given to the most competent, but to the most loyal and ambitious.
Corruption: Those in power no longer work for the common good, but for their own interests and those of their network.
Weakening of checks and balances: Dissenting voices are silenced to prevent questioning of their decisions.
Manipulation: Lies are used to divert attention from failures and to shape public opinion in their favor.
Deceit: Mistakes are never acknowledged. They protect each other and shift responsibility elsewhere. Bad faith and dishonesty are no longer flaws, but strategies.

The reign of the incompetent has a bright future ahead.

A very simple question now all you Lexmark folk are part of Xerox - a warm welcome, or a shock awakening ?

I keep seeing posts on LinkedIn and places that it’s a reset and Fiserv is a legacy company etc, I worked at Fiserv for 9 years and loved the place. What I saw post merger with First Data, is atrocious. The amount of layoffs and the total dismantling of a great company for short term goals should be downright illegal.

Frank is absolutely responsible for where Fiserv’s stock sits today. Instead of building on what made Fiserv great—long-term, recurring contract value driven by core processing relationships—he chased short-term gains. The repeated rounds of layoffs might have bumped margins for a quarter, but they stripped out the expertise and continuity that sustained core revenue for decades.

He never truly understood the value of the core franchise. Instead of strengthening those contracts, he diverted focus to Clover, which is built on shorter-term merchant agreements that simply don’t offer the same stability or lifetime value. That shift toward quick wins and short-cycle contracts is exactly why the long-term fundamentals have weakened.

In the end, he traded durable revenue for momentary optics—and the stock price reflects that.

Mike reads these posts? Somehow, I think he does. Unlike Frank, it seems like it gives him a pulse on employees, better than the survey. Frank used it to find out our thoughts and get revenge

In orgs that reward visibility over results, advancement goes to the safest pick, not the strongest performer… the chosen few keep things calm, nod along, and soothe the people above them…

Real competence can unsettle because it exposes gaps and weaknesses... when u do excellent work leaders are forced to confront how little control they actually have….So instead of building strength, these systems recycle timidity and value loyalty much more than leadership. Once the loop starts each layer shields the one above, and real talent burns out or walks. This is how mediocrity becomes the norm.

Working for this company is absolute he-l. When working in tech you are still expected to sell sell sell. 99% of our continued training is nothing but sales soft skills. The only thing this company cares about is "adding phone lines" if someone has already been escalated up to multiple levels of tech support they don't want to hear about plans or perks or upgrades. The amount of work they expect agents to be able to do is completely outside of reality. There are so many service related issues that can not be resolved by anyone.

Gotta love how the management that got us in this mess are left untouched while the common men are affected.

Prayers for those affected, remain positive... Control your thoughts, don't let them control you. There's light always at the end of the tunnel

The company culture is built on a foundation of distrust, particularly regarding leadership and feedback mechanisms. Pulse surveys are treated as a joke; the promise of anonymity isn't trusted, and employees see no positive change resulting from constructive criticism.

Follow-up meetings feel like attempts to 'brainwash' employees into believing their voice matters, which is made worse by condescending 'family' and 'Vteam' rhetoric.

The most toxic part is that leaders are reportedly penalized if their teams are too honest, creating a system where compliance is valued over improvement. Leadership's communication is viewed as political and disingenuous, and the company feels like a hollow shell of what it once was.

Thoughts on new lp?

Has anyone ever successfully reported a colleague for s-xism?

I’m not sure what route to go but it’s an issue multiple people have noticed.

Is it true Whole Foods is adding in conventional products? using old space were cafes use to be? If so what a move! Get your pepsi and organic quinoa all in one space.

#wholefoodsisdead

I sure hope you've all been doing your JSAs to be in here.