#institutionalknowledge

They tossed out long term employees like garbage. Decades of service gone just like that. Loyalty doesn't count for anything here anymore. They cut the people who actually know how things work. Now all that knowledge is walking out the door. Management only cares about slashing costs, not about who they're losing. It's disgusting.

Do they really think AI can make up for that? Are they really that stupid? (that's a rhetorical question)

I was trying to keep track of friends and colleagues leaving IOL. But, recently it has blown up so much that I had to stop. Sad, but it is the reality.

Imperial will probably show a large net cash positive position next quarter, but the knowledge and experience lost will never be quantified. The cost of development these talents is staggering, and now they being purged out. So very very sad.

https://www.thelayoff.com/h/institutionalknowledge --- You can pull comments that are tagged with whatever hashtag you find. The last line of each post lists the company the post is under. You will see A LOT of large company names under the #institutionalknowledge hashtag. Same idea with this: https://www.thelayoff.com/h/badleadership

Just wait until the AI bubble bursts and companies realize it can’t do half the things they expected it to do, and that in a lot of cases it’s actually slowing people down instead of helping. I don’t know if this leadership is capable of that kind of reflection, but maybe then they’ll think about all the talent and institutional knowledge they pushed out in the rush to chase AI.

A new study investigated the financial impact of AI-driven layoffs. Eighty percent of surveyed executives admitted to reducing staff for AI investments. These companies saw no greater financial gains than those retaining employees. Many sacrificed institutional knowledge and goodwill without detectable returns. Companies using AI to amplify employee efficiency achieved the most significant gains.

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/layoffs-ai-automation-backfire

Remember Elop ? Here is the sequel.

How do you like deliberate ki-ling of mobile networks business by Justin ?
They don’t even pretend it makes sense, just babble about AI hypercycle ignoring all the institutional knowledge how to build RAN products, while middle mangers jumping like monkeys around Justin amplifying the bs hoping they will be spared.
In a year Nokia will end up with no 6G product and no prospect to even regain ability to do one.
Don’t wait, it is going to get worse from here.

It came out in a manager's meeting, and a lot of names were brought up. Many had been with the bank for years and knew how things were "glued" together and were well regarded. There was mild panic about all of the knowledge they took with them, not that executive leadership cares.

"...they've confused efficiency with purpose, growth with meaning, and the elimination of people with progress." - Eric Markowitz

You are so easy to spot... 20+ years in. Has seen every reorg... Uses "back in the day" all the time.. Defend pensions. And institutional memory. Oh, yeah, let's attack consultants and outsiders... And... Always disgusted but not never ever surprised at all.

I'm not an employee, but I do have some experience in slowing down situations many of you are facing at FIS. Please consider passing the following petition around and send it to leadership.

Petition Regarding Outsourcing and reading.Risks at FIS

Purpose
This petition is submitted by concerned employees to request a pause and reassessment of the current plan to transition internal roles to Cognizant through a rebadging arrangement. The intent is to highlight significant operational, financial, and strategic risks that have not been adequately addressed and that may materially impact FIS’s long‑term stability, service quality, and shareholder value.

1. Operational Risk and Service Continuity

Critical knowledge concentration
Many of the impacted employees hold deep, specialized knowledge of FIS platforms, legacy systems, client configurations, and regulatory requirements. This knowledge is not easily transferable, and in many cases is undocumented or context‑dependent.

Vendor turnover risk
Cognizant’s staffing model relies heavily on offshore labor and short‑tenure project rotations. This creates:

• Higher turnover rates
• Frequent handoffs
• Loss of continuity
• Increased onboarding and retraining cycles

These factors directly increase the likelihood of service disruptions.

Client‑facing exposure
FIS operates in a highly regulated financial environment. Any instability in support, development, or incident response increases:

• SLA breach risk
• Regulatory exposure
• Client dissatisfaction and churn

The outsourcing model introduces new layers of dependency that may not meet the responsiveness or expertise levels clients expect.

1. Loss of Institutional Knowledge

Irreplaceable expertise
Many employees being rebadged have:

• 10–25+ years of experience
• Historical knowledge of system evolution
• Deep familiarity with client‑specific customizations
• Understanding of undocumented edge cases

Once transferred, this knowledge becomes fragmented or lost entirely if employees decline the offer or leave shortly after rebadging.

Knowledge drain after Year 1
Industry data shows that vendors often replace rebadged employees with lower‑cost offshore labor after the initial transition period. This creates a delayed but severe knowledge collapse that companies often underestimate.

Impact on innovation and modernization
Institutional knowledge is not just about maintenance—it is the foundation for:

• Modernization initiatives
• Technical debt reduction
• Platform stability
• Long‑term product strategy

Losing this expertise weakens FIS’s ability to innovate and remain competitive.

1. Morale, Retention, and Cultural Stability

Morale decline
The rebadging announcement has already created:

• Anxiety
• Distrust
• Reduced engagement
• Increased attrition risk

Employees who remain at FIS are questioning long‑term stability and career prospects.

Retention risk among critical staff
Even employees not directly impacted may begin seeking external opportunities due to:

• Fear of future outsourcing
• Loss of confidence in leadership
• Perceived devaluation of internal talent

This creates a cascading retention problem that extends far beyond the rebadged group.

Brand and talent pipeline damage
FIS’s ability to attract and retain top technical talent is directly tied to its reputation as a stable employer. Large‑scale outsourcing erodes that reputation and makes future hiring more difficult and more expensive.

1. Strategic and Shareholder Risk

Vendor dependency
Over‑reliance on a single vendor increases:

• Cost escalation risk
• Contractual lock‑in
• Reduced internal capability to evaluate vendor performance
• Vulnerability during renegotiations

Acquisition optics
While outsourcing may temporarily improve short‑term financial metrics, it can also:

• Signal instability
• Reduce internal capability
• Increase integration risk for potential buyers

This may harm long‑term valuation rather than improve it.

Long‑term cost vs. short‑term savings
Historical data across industries shows that outsourcing often:

• Reduces costs in the first 12–24 months
• Increases costs in years 3–5 due to vendor rate increases, turnover, and quality issues

Shareholders deserve transparency on these long‑term impacts.

Requested Actions

We respectfully request that FIS leadership:

• Pause the current rebadging process pending a full operational risk assessment.
• Provide a detailed impact analysis covering service continuity, client risk, and long‑term cost projections.
• Engage employees in a structured consultation process to identify alternative cost‑saving measures that preserve institutional knowledge.
• Commit to transparent communication regarding future outsourcing plans and workforce strategy.
• Evaluate hybrid models that retain critical internal expertise while leveraging vendor support where appropriate.

Closing Statement

We submit this petition in good faith, with the shared goal of protecting FIS’s operational integrity, client trust, and long‑term competitiveness. The employees who built and maintain these systems are not obstacles to efficiency—they are the foundation of FIS’s success. Decisions that affect the company’s future should fully account for the risks outlined above.

Why does the leadership keep doing this? What's being achieved? We lost two of our most valuable team members today. I've only been here for four years, they both had 15+ years with the company. I don't understand how you just decide to get rid of people who are so important for the future of the company.

Somebody should tell Mike institutional knowledge is a thing.

We spend decades learning how to do this work. Layoffs can erase all of that in a day. That's going to hurt us eventually.

We've been losing so many people for so long, especially the talented ones. If leadership came up with the perfect plan right now, we couldn't implement it. We're past the threshold. We've lost the capacity and the institutional knowledge to pull it off. That last big push was our final shot, in my opinion. And we blew it.

Experienced folks are leaving the company! Lots of retirements. We better hang on to these folks so we can leverage the learnings built up over time. Mentoring new employees is another reason. AI is NOT a substitute!!

Are they so stupid to think AI or somebody in India or wherever can replace that?

With the implosion of the FIS contract handling the TA known as Project Condor, the take back of CS will be completed soon, date uncertain, due to the remaining Retirement and Shareholder skills being serviced at FIS until after the tax filing deadline. They are waiting to be notified by FT that they have the staffing trained up to take all calls. So far, they don't. The panic is spreading, hiring has been haphazard. Workday's AI tool has not been successful in capturing the applications of all tenured staff wanting to come back. Many have received rejections. Managers do not have the capability to retrieve their applications leaving many in limbo. The entire five year drama has cost FT highly experienced/knowledgeable staff to other companies. A TA that was operating efficiently was outsourced to save money. The whole thing is FUBAR.

I know it'll happen over three years, but getting rid of over 3k people is an overkill, in my opinion. This will affect the company in ways the leadership apparently is incapable of envisioning. I'm just wondering what'll happen when they realize that institutional knowledge is key in our work.

I've lost my best people consistently over the past two years. I understand that talent comes at a cost, but eliminating it is strategically unsound. We're not just watching institutional knowledge disappear, we're dismantling the very core that holds teams together. Leadership may see short-term savings, but this criterion for cuts will end up costing us far more.

AI can't compare to the lost institutional knowledge. I'll be here with popcorn the day everything starts going to he-l and leadership finally realizes that.

I’ve been here over ten years, and I’ve witnessed a growing carelessness in selecting people for layoffs. Whatever criteria they claim to use, the reality is they disproportionately target the people who hold the institutional knowledge, understand the work inside out, and are critical to their teams. The complete loss of any long-term perspective by leadership, who have been driven purely by short-term incentives, is a fascinating and depressing spectacle.

Verizon is about to find that out the hard way, when outages become the norm.

Cutting roles that deal directly with clients and partners is especially short-sighted, but it won’t stop there. Even the so-called “mundane” jobs carry institutional knowledge that doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet. The idea that AI can just step in and replace people is laughable. AI can barely function without constant babysitting, and it certainly can’t replicate judgment, context, or experience. Every role has its unwritten rules, workarounds, and hard-earned skills. Throwing all of that away and hoping to replace it with cheap offshore labor, half-baked automation, or nothing at all isn’t strategy but laziness and greed. And in the long run, it’s one of the most expensive mistakes a company can make.

Before, we were one team. Its true. When the rubber hits the road, just about everyone was concerned about pitching in and making the bank better.
When I was laid off, I can share, some of my coworkers reached out. They were concerned. It was touching. Seriously. Some I'd known for many years. And they are the ones I miss the most. I miss being in the midst of solving problems, fixing things, and making the bank more efficient. Frankly, many times I was working against the BS administrative overhead that was put in front of me. I was blessed with managers who cared, knew my name, and valued my work. The new regime? NO. They don't care. They don't know. They brought their buddies from Citi, JPM, (you fill in the blank). None of them care, and they never will. So, my personal feelings remain. I miss what we were building just 5 years ago. I miss my peers over the past decade. I miss giving value to an employer who, until recently, valued my skills.
I'm older and have excellent background and skills. And before anyone says, YEAH BUT I GUESS NOT! since I was laid off.....LOL you have no clue. Layoffs are not based on skill, longevity (ok that one maybe) and this board is full of stories with institutional knowledge holders being let go. Wells Fargo is simply getting rid of EVERYONE that is older, knowledgeable about the bank's systems....and hiring 20-25 year old's from other countries who have faked their education. Does it matter? NO. Because I, like others held hands and tried to teach them. Then I was discarded. Wells Fargo is not an American company any longer. Most of the major banks aren't either. They are multinationals who's only goal is to MAKE MONEY at whatever cost. Do I feel bad? You bet. Wells Fargo was part of a bank that got its start as Norwest Bank and First Union. These were good banks. They grew based on their service. Community involvement. Local employment. All that is gone now. I mourn the loss of what was once a great American institution.

Some people might see that as a positive, but anyone who understands how crucial institutional knowledge is knows it’s a huge mistake to wipe out an entire generation of employees who helped build this company from scratch. The experience and history they carried cannot just be replaced overnight.

As always. That’s why we’ve been shedding competence, experience, and institutional knowledge like there’s no tomorrow.

When new leaders join a company, the first question they should ask is simple:

“What was already known, and what was already attempted?”

Without that context, accountability turns into retroactive blame, punishing people for outcomes they never had the authority to change.

Too often, long-standing structural issues are well known internally. They’ve been raised repeatedly by those closest to the work, but when prior leadership failed to act, the problems compounded. Calling that “lack of ownership” misses the reality, it’s an organizational stall point, not individual failure.

Strong leaders know the difference. They can tell who’s been quietly pushing to fix systemic issues versus who’s been coasting. They take the time to distinguish contribution from compliance, ensuring that institutional knowledge isn’t discarded in the name of “fresh perspective.”

I’ve spent years trying to drive meaningful change, often against inertia. But it’s difficult to stay motivated when leadership seems more focused on appeasing the next layer up than on fixing the foundation. If decisions continue to be made in haste, without understanding how we got here, the risk is simple: we’ll lose the ability to sell the products that actually work while chasing “new initiatives” that generate noise but not revenue.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t care, it’s that those who do care stop believing anyone above them is truly listening. Learn to identify them. Empower them. Protect them. Do that, and you might just build a team capable of winning again.
If not: good luck, and adios.

All those years of hard-earned know-how just vanish overnight. Some leave on their own, some are kicked out. The new hires mean well, but they don’t have the background to keep things steady. You can’t replace decades of knowledge with a two-week onboarding. It’s scary seeing how fragile the whole system really is.

COP will soon layoff significant numbers of hardworking and skilled personnel with significant institutional capacity and knowledge in its efforts to become as per McKinsey Focused Future Proof….
What does this new COP really look like and at what cost?
Or are the management consultants correct in that COP is rudderless and need of institutional retooling.

execs came up with a brilliant move... let's cut the people with decades of experience, the ones who stopped the place from collapsing every time a vp brought in their latest tedtalk strategy. cause (obviously) performance has nothing to do with institutional knowledge...... it’s all about how fast you can say synergy on a teams call.

genius - really. this isn’t lazy cost cutting at all.

it’s bold visionary leadership that looks at a spreadsheet and thinks.

wow what if we swap a skilled person over 50 with two new hires who need six months of hand holding and a manager on top. now thats pure efficiency. even better, let's call it innovation, or transformation. just don’t dare call it what it actually is.

dumping the people who actually know what they’re doing so the earnings call feels a little less cringe...