#favoritism

People getting title promotions after being here 6 months. Many others that are dedicated people that have been here for decades and never getting a title promotion. Favorites and cronies get these promotions.

Is this really happening? Not that I don't think this leadership is capable of it, I just never witnessed it myself.

My direct manager got promoted with zero training and no real leadership skills. I was micromanaged on minor tasks, while big project decisions went unchecked. Communication always felt passive-aggressive, and any mistake I made got used against me in performance reviews. Favoritism ran rampant. People who constantly flattered the manager got all the praise, while those actually performing well were ignored. And he's now in an even higher position. Make it make sense.

No more hiding and evading RTO. The policy is the policy for one and all. Firstnet or Fiber, 5G or Gwiz, time to move has come and gone as all will be on Friday 1/16. The exceptions and favoritism end in Cohen and Leggs orgs so bye bye teachers pets who join the breadlines like the rest of us. The smug untouchables now lose their favored nation status and will get a reduced severance down to four months. A few have already been given a heads up. Other’s will get notified next week before the official notice comes. Sad but central plains and midwest are not hubs and people have had years to move and they did t. Not fair and now pet status ends.

Why are some employees consistently protected, no matter what they do?

How does an executive assistant become a learning advisor in GOA?

In Tampa or NY it feels like entire teams are dominated by one group, and Indian managers/directors mainly hire and promote people from their own circle. It creates a closed-door environment where others don’t feel they have a fair chance. It’s frustrating and sometimes feels like the American dream is slipping away because opportunities aren’t even accessible to fellow Americans. This is the greatest exploitation in American history.

It feels like some groups and communities tend to form close circles and mainly support people from their own background, and this sometimes extends into workplace dynamics as well. When this happens, it creates an impression of favoritism and makes the environment feel less neutral or inclusiveness. Even from projects to consultants to promoting some one to a director. The biggest exploitation of our dreams.

I’ve accepted that I may never get my old role back — that’s part of how corporate reorganizations work. But what hurts isn’t losing the job. It’s how it happened.

I was RIF’d despite strong performance and ongoing contributions, while some “eliminated” roles were quietly backfilled almost immediately. Even my own position, is now being filled again. Saving the favourites. That doesn’t feel like a business decision — it feels like a leadership decision.

When merit isn’t the driver, trust breaks. Employees begin to wonder if favoritism or toxic leadership played a bigger role in who stayed and who went. In a company this large, that’s dangerous. Without accountability at the SD level and above, a culture like this can take root at the market level and eventually hurt the entire organization.

This isn’t about wanting my job back — it’s about acknowledging a pattern that shouldn’t be ignored. Unfair layoffs don’t just impact people; they erode the foundation of the company itself.

I am typically not a fans of unions, but I think it’s pretty hilarious if the North Slope field staff unionizes in response to the continued incompetence and favoritism displayed by company leadership.

How is the "new & improved" rating process going for my fellow managers? Nothing like robbing Peter to pay Paul. How is this not a process filled with managers playing favorites? It is the most subjective process ever, and the end result will be a demotivated team after finding out their coworkers got a portion of their raise.

Worst. ever. Management. Operations.

Harassment, favoritism, nepotism.

Tax management is ruthless. The income tax group used to be where a new hire can enter into the company and advance. Then they migrated work to BA. Then they brought over people from BA for jobs limiting opportunities for US employees. Those brought in from BA then become managers and protected their own in rankings. All the new hires brought in have quit or been PIPd.

Think about that. This BA Management klan ran off all their new hires. They are either terrible at identifying talent, terrible at developing people, or clearly bias in their assessment as the only people that remain are their friends.

It’s happening all over. Look at the announcements and the amount of jobs coming to the US. They aren’t developing US employees, they are developing GBC as a priority and will follow the same pattern of protecting their own. The manager that brought over the person from GBC won’t admit their mistake so they are protected and become managers eventually. They need to show GBC that opportunities really exist to get out of India or Argentina or Brazil.

If you are US employee you are at a huge disadvantage. This company doesn’t want you and doesn’t care about you. When you’re working late covering your incompetent management, remember that. Log off and go enjoy your life. Don’t worry about getting a low ranking for choosing not to work late, you were going to get a low ranking anyways. And if you weren’t, the salary increment isn’t worth it and the future career opportunities aren’t there.

Based on my experiences in Australia, bonuses are not merit based but essentially based on how well you get along with your boss. They can make all your hard work and outcomes achieved throughout the year meaningless. They dictate your year end review and also what salary increase and bonus to put forward for you.

I think they also play favourites as in a way they have a certain budget to work with for the team. Give more to brown nosers and less to associates they don’t like.

Lesson - at a company like this, it’s not about producing grade A product and being a grade A colleague. It’s about kissing A.

After many years at Verizon, this layoff opened my eyes to some hard truths. Many of us worked weekends, late nights, and emergencies to make the network successful — but it took the company only minutes to cut us off. In certain regions, decisions were extremely unfair. Poor performers were kept because of friendships, while high performers were let go simply because we focused on the network more than politics.

I’m disappointed in how favoritism outweighed merit. But I’m also grateful for the experience — and very excited for the next chapter. Verizon underpays, and now I know my true market value. Sometimes a closed door really is a blessing.

Though Verizon was one of the dream company to work for but like many of us I thought the same, worked there for more than 14 years and gave it all. Weekend work and a tons of after hours work to make our customers happy. The company literally took 2 minutes to make me a stranger. On the good side Verizon Underpays you and I realized it more when this VZ bubble broke, I realized how much I am worth of.
In some places very poor decisions were made where poor performers were kept since they were friends with the bosses and good performers were let go just because thier focus to make the best network and $u-k up to the boss or bosses boss.
In the end Im grateful to what I got but excited for the new chapter since it will pay much more than this $hitty company was paying
Request to higher ups to please review certain regions and ask why poor performers were kept when they had multiple HR complaints against them and failed in thier previous roles, friendships/ favouritism?

I’ve been here long enough to see how everything revolves around the same tight circles. If you’re not in their little social crew, you’re stuck watching others get pushed ahead. It makes the whole place feel small and predictable. I’ve stopped expecting anything fair from the system.

It’s painful to watch how SAP continues to generate massive profits from the North American region, yet when layoffs happen, NA employees are the first ones targeted. The organization expects returns from NA but doesn’t reinvest in the region by protecting jobs or creating opportunities. Instead, the only real job security seems to exist in Europe and lower-cost countries, purely because of cost advantages.

This double standard feels like hypocrisy. Many high-performing employees across the US and Canada have been intentionally targeted. Several German managers have knowingly set NA employees up for failure, only to replace them later with far less experienced individuals in Europe people who often lack the maturity or capability to handle the complexity of the roles they’ve inherited.
What’s even more disheartening is the lack of empathy displayed by certain HR manager (who shouldn't be managers) in Europe. Many of leader's got downgraded their role to 2-3 times lower but still talk as if they own SAP. Don't have little to no shame to resign and leave the company. They deliver polished speeches during town halls about ‘family’ and ‘support,’ but the moment real, difficult questions are asked, they become defensive, vindictive, and punitive. Employees who speak up are often singled out and slowly pushed out through a toxic environment.

There is a clear pattern of favoritism, retaliation, and deeply unethical behavior happening across the HR space. These actions are not only damaging careers they are eroding trust, culture, and the very integrity the company claims to stand for.

How is it even legal. I don’t care about race or anything. But somehow these people have not gotten the message. Favoritism being paid to their own kind??? How is that even legal????

In the email about lp they also talked about this new director role. Is ej finally gonna stop pretending gp is about anything other than how much you kiss up? Some of the partner jobs are less scope than some of the dl's so guess if you have a big job but you aren't on the favorite kiss up list you get to be a "executive level" director now? nowhere near the money but all the work while they hire a gp over you who you have to tell how to do his job.6 years this place keeps going down

3M has been one of the biggest examples of nepotism and favoritism in terms of career growth i have ever seen. How many cases are there of a vp’s nephew getting regular promotions or an execs son or family member becoming a vp? Too many to count!

I haven’t been here very long, but have had nothing but issues since I started here. The ageism, cronyism, favoritism, nepotism, s-xism is off the charts. Sprinkle in widespread ineffective management who do not give a sh-t about developing out your career if they view you as a challenge…yep, this is corporate he-l. Suggestion for survival is to completely disconnect your identity from what you do here, if you haven’t already. Good luck.

Over the past year, I’ve watched some of the most hardworking and impactful people on my team be let go. At first, I didn’t understand why morale across the organization felt so low... but now I do (sigh)

It’s hard to stay motivated when it feels like merit and dedication don’t matter. The people who consistently overdeliver, who take ownership and push projects forward, are the ones being cut. Meanwhile, others who do the bare minimum remain and often get the credit.

So if performance and impact aren’t the criteria for layoffs, then what is?
Is it tenure? Favoritism? A random lottery? Because from where many of us stand, it certainly doesn’t look like the decisions were based on contribution or capability.

MST home dispatch tech use and abuse company assets. They drive 100K-200K bucket trucks to their home and back to their home garage everyday. Big V8 6.3 L engines use a lot of gas and insurance on top. Also, with MST high pay and only have .5 job per tech a day per tech how is that saving company money and liability.
There are rules to follow when joining home dispatch program. Following the rules helps save gas and time and wear and tear on a vehicle used to drive to work and to home. But MSTs abuse this program from driving to the garage every day and dispatching at the garage. Making a stop at the grocery store to grocery shop in the company vehicle before driving home. Not closing your last job at the job site and instead, drive home and being still dispatched on your work ticket and then closing the job when you arrive home. I follow the rules, and I do not want the home dispatch program to go away because of MSTs taking advantage of the abuse. Also, MST managers are favoring many MSTs and letting the home dispatch MSTs do what ever they want. STOP ABUSING THE HOME DISPATCH PROGRAM YOU MSTs. You know who you are...

Politics over work
Preferences over people
Too much favorism

Such mind set allowed to grow Arista

All DC leaders should be fired in next layoff

I want to understand how much control a Sr director or above has when it comes to saving their favorites over people who actually work?

I know atleast 5 people in my org who got hired because they are related to so and so leader in one way or another. You can tell how bad they are at their work.
They could not even get hired based on their own capabilities.

"Posting here on behalf of an employee who is working at Fid India (as this website only allows posts from within the USA)."
I am an L6 Principal Engineer in India and have spent the last 12 years at Fidelity, working across three different BUs. Over time, I’ve noticed a steep decline in the caliber of senior leadership at levels L7-8 and above. Their primary concern seems to be hosting “visitors” from the U.S.; the moment such a visit is announced, they go into “alert mode,” preparing PowerPoint slides, arranging floor walks and roundtable sessions, and coaching employees on exactly what they should or shouldn’t say. Most of this preparatory work is pushed onto individual contributors like me (L6 and below), but when these visits are deemed “successful,” managers usually receive all the credit—often in the form of a single congratulatory email or LinkedIn post from the visiting executive.
In prioritizing these presentations and visitor-focused activities, actual project work suffers. Those who create slides, manage schedules, or organize events are favored for promotions, while employees handling core technical tasks remain overlooked. Compounding this issue is that most senior leaders sit in Bangalore, leaving those of us in Chennai perpetually at a disadvantage.
Many of the managers in these tech teams either lack technical expertise or have allowed their skills to lapse, preventing them from contributing meaningfully to real project needs. Instead, they rely on strong presentation and communication abilities to secure positive performance reviews. This system rewards non-technical individuals, resulting in a leadership structure that is often incompetent and self-perpetuating. As a result, genuine technical contributions lose value, and the focus remains on “partner visits” and superficial, India-specific initiatives instead of substantive, technology-driven goals. This pattern holds across all BUs, with some business units experiencing even worse conditions.
I respectfully urge visiting executives to encourage senior leaders to focus on more meaningful work instead of devoting excessive effort to superficial presentations. Many of these orchestrated events offer minimal benefit and consume significant time that could be better spent on genuine product or project deliverables

This is a passionate expression of frustration stemming from discussions with colleagues who have either been encouraged to seek new positions at SAP or are anxious about facing such a situation themselves, particularly within our European context.

A visit to the internal job portal reveals that most job postings seem to cater to specific individuals rather than genuinely opening opportunities for all. Common issues include unnecessary educational requirements, irrelevant experience criteria, location restrictions despite team distribution, and a requirement of very high German language skills or travel demands. It often appears that hiring managers have predetermined candidates in mind, using the recruitment process merely to appease the Betriebsrat, which leads to a cycle of favoritism and inflated salary increases for those already in the loop. This situation leaves little hope for our European colleagues who are being pushed to find new roles, as many of these misleading job ads will likely force them out of the company instead.

In my own area under MA, we've seen several individuals rapidly ascend the ranks or switch teams multiple times, often with significant salary boosts, highlighting the disparity in opportunities.

What can we do to improve this process for those facing job insecurity at SAP, especially when the available positions seem to favor personal connections over merit?

Hopefully this is for the best as I have seen first hand that they are laying off people with years of service to keep their family members hired. Human resources really needs to be investigated for hiding the truth with NDA's and not letting people speak.
#NYPCORRUPT #NEPOTISM #DEI #RETALIATION #FAVORITISM #HARRASSMENT

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-executive-moves/newyork-presbyterian-ceo-to-step-down-after-14-year-tenure/

But we all know none of them will be affected. You all know who I'm talking about. People who barely do anything but are really good at a-s kissing and yes manning. I'm sure every team has at least one of them, and they've been here forever despite contributing the bare minimum. And they'll still be here after this round is done, while some great employees will be gone. Sad but true.

How is it team gets favored nation and can work from Guam and its Hunger Games fort rest of us for parking and desks? My team drown in first wav and lost quality but these headfaker harbors deadweight wearing Hawaiian shirts and drop sand from there flip flops for monthly checin?

It’s very sad that you have workers that actually work and then you get team leaders that benefit from their work. Families that work there and cover up their mistakes and blame others because wrong or right family is first in this work place. Investigate who works or not and who should get promoted.

You do your best, put in the hours, deliver results, and still get ignored while someone who spends lunch gossiping with management gets promoted. It’s disgusting. I’m done wasting energy trying to prove myself to people who reward bootlicking over competence.

I left that job shaking my head. Worked my tail off with a master’s, got crumbs for pay. The person who replaced me had no degree and got a huge bump just for being friendly with the boss. Makes you wonder why you even bother doing things the right way. Education means nothing when favoritism decides everything. I'm glad to be gone. It took me a while to find something else, bit now I actually like my job once again. That place nearly destroyed me.

MST home dispatch tech use and abuse company assets
MST home dispatch tech use and abuse company assets. They drive 100K-200K bucket trucks to their home and back to their home garage everyday. Big V8 6.3 L engines use a lot of gas and insurance on top. Also, with MST high pay and only have .5 job per tech a day per tech how is that saving company money and liability.
There are rules to follow when joining home dispatch program. Following the rules helps save gas and time and wear and tear on a vehicle used to drive to work and to home. But MSTs abuse this program from driving to the garage every day and dispatching at the garage. Making a stop at the grocery store to grocery shop in the company vehicle before driving home. Not closing your last job at the job site and instead, drive home and being still dispatched on your work ticket and then closing the job when you arrive home. I follow the rules, and I do not want the home dispatch program to go away because of MSTs taking advantage of the abuse. Also, MST managers are favoring many MSTs and letting the home dispatch MSTs do what ever they want. STOP ABUSING THE HOME DISPATCH PROGRAM YOU MSTs. You know who you are...

BEHIND DOORS DEALS MADE JOBS GIVEN TO OL BUDDY SYSTEM AGAIN AND AGAIN , THEY GOING NEED HELP AND WONDER WHAT HAPPENED NOT BASED ON CAPABILITY !!! THANKS FOR GIVING US A OPPORTUNITY LIKE THE REST! Ol Well

Leadership acts like they can't be bothered and then if you point out any inconsistencies. It only matters if the right person points out something. They play favorites constantly.

Just have to share how a talented, skilled associate with a stated goal of promotion was passed over for someone with far less talent, skill set, respect among her peers etc.

Why - 2 reasons - She speaks her mind and doesn't blindly agree to every stupid idea and process ( not in line with core values as you may know). And her recent failure to meet ridiculous metrics - due to mentoring a new hire. Meeting metrics - the sole gold standard to MEET expectations

Just found out this site existed and had to get this off my chest - what a weak leader we are stuck with. Choose a lackey, anger the majority of the team, and prove to everyone how sickeningly toxic this place is. My notice is coming - I can't stand it anymore and neither can my peers.

As a mid 30s product lead I am tired of watching the same lifers get promoted while teams drown. If the company wants to move forward they should stop protecting folks who add nothing and hire people who actually know modern tools and care about outcomes.

Is favoritism by your manager common in your teams? Its happening in mine, and is very frustrating because the manager decides to defend this one team member by taking their side all the time. How do you navigate such situations?

After quarter over quarter of underwhelming performance for the last couple of years (often spun internally as positive performance or intentional, i.e., "pausing to propel" or "slowing down to speed up"... insert corny cliche here) and stalled hiring demands, Gartner execs made the decision to lower their prized TA capacity. Mind you, this is a function they always yammered on about keeping well above the demand as their competitive edge -- clearly, that's no longer the case.
Like others have posted, the layoffs impacted roughly 10% of the current TA team globally - from talent sourcers and recruiters to some in middle management. I believe more are coming if performance doesn't drastically improve in the quarters ahead.
The round one layoff selection criteria are arbitrary at best from the names of individuals I know who were impacted. I speculate they used the talent "9 box" (google it - lots of employers use this tool) that leaders were asked to complete earlier in the year to identity who got the axe, but that's purely my speculation. In the future, if additional mass layoff rounds need to happen, I believe they will eliminate those outside location strategy (don't worry I'm sure exceptions will be made for Obert and his directs).
Favoritism runs rampant across HR and the TA space. Have you seen the movie "Mean Girls"? Then you know what Gartner HR is like at the top -- Robin's executive leadership team doesn't get along at all. Same goes for Obert's direct reports -- all backstab each other and talk sh-t any chance they get. Hand to God.
What concerns me for the remaining TA team is the company's future outlook. For anyone still there, you know how difficult it is to get anything innovative done -- hoops to jump through, politics, etc. Like others have shared on this platform, there are MANY senior leaders who have been in role for YEARS that need to be able to innovate and quickly pivot. At this point with AI and other resources available for free or at a fraction of the cost of Gartner, it's like turning around the Titanic. They need a quick, effective reinvention and ability to differentiate themselves on the market. It's going to be tough to do -- not impossible, but tough -- and will take time which is not on their side.
For those able to do so, here's an exercise: check out how many across the company are showing as "open to work." It's staggering.
All the best to those in TA impacted as well as current survivors. Godspeed.

It was asked if Imperial would consider work from home arrangements for those who are not able to relocate. The answer was a resounding NO - as the Company values collaboration which is most effectively achieved through face-to-face interaction. What a LOAD of crock!! Collaboration can be achieved in many diverse forms, Imperial just wants to micromanage because they don’t trust their employees! Everyone knows they allow that set-up on select people (the “favorites”)