Thread regarding Siemens layoffs

The “artificial prosperity” created by shortages, the OOH driven by excessive stockpiling orders, and the pressure WHB has continued to place on distributors in order to maintain sales performance have been recurring issues over the years. Meanwhile, the margins left to distributors by FA and GMC have been squeezed to the limit.

Cross-regional price dumping remains a persistent problem, and there appears to be no effective mechanism to address such practices. This naturally raises a question: does Jasmine lack the willingness or ability to tackle these issues, or does WHB still retain significant influence behind the scenes?

At this point, PA MI products seem to be among the few areas where frontline sales teams still have some degree of control. Yet controversial figures such as XJ continue to enjoy the trust and support of LSG. Many employees find this not only puzzling, but also both ironic and disheartening.

I’ve been translating some of these Chinese posts. The truth is that the workplace issues faced by colleagues in China are not unique; employees in other countries and regions experience similar problems to varying degrees. At the end of the day, this is a German corporation run for its shareholders and executives, not a company that belongs to you or me.

@1by I couldn’t agree more. The compliance department seems little more than window dressing, and SGES feels like a box-ticking exercise. Otherwise, how do you explain why so many employees from China and the United States choose to speak out anonymously here?

People are simply venting their frustrations here. Does management really pay attention to these discussions? Do they care about the working conditions and well-being of frontline employees in the U.S. and China? Judging by their actions, the stock price appears to be their only real concern. Many employees feel that this mindset has become even more evident since DI began being led by a UK-based management team.

It seems like everyone is sale employee. I wonder how much this round of layoffs will affect SW. In SW, it doesn’t feel that bad

After watching yesterday’s DI China TAM, I couldn’t help but reflect on where we are today.

TAM has jokingly been referred to by many as “The Achim Meeting”. Ironically, that nickname may actually represent a positive sign. Headquarters is making a serious effort to become more involved in what has long been a black box known as DI China. To some extent, this also reflects a lack of confidence in the previous management model.

For years, Siemens DI China operated like a closed empire centered around WHB. Behind the polished presentations and glamorous narratives, many uncomfortable realities were carefully concealed. WHB built what was once considered the DI China empire, but today that empire is showing deep cracks and signs of decline. Some of the people who contributed to these problems still occupy key positions.

The current organizational culture and working atmosphere have deteriorated to an alarming level. SGES, in particular, has become something of a joke: when problems cannot be solved, the people who raise those problems become the targets instead.

There is no shortage of middle managers whose capabilities are far below the responsibilities they hold. Yet through political alignment and skillful upward management, they continue to secure their positions. Employees are constantly subjected to pressure and manipulation, while these managers endlessly glorify their past achievements. At the same time, they remain detached from the front line of the business, offering no meaningful guidance or strategic direction. Their understanding of the business is close to zero, their involvement is close to zero, and much of their decision-making resembles little more than armchair engineering.

Another example is the increasingly questionable management practices surrounding special pricing within PA. XJ appear to have benefited disproportionately from loopholes and irregularities in instrument-related pricing policies, while the system itself lacks sufficient transparency and accountability.

What DI China needs today is not more slogans, PowerPoint presentations, or self-congratulation. It needs accountability, transparency, leaders who understand the business firsthand, and a culture that rewards competence rather than politics.

Otherwise, no amount of restructuring or headquarters intervention will be enough to reverse the decline.

It is exaggerate to say that hundreds of employees are resigning everyday, but it is true that the attrition is strong and the best employees have left over the past 2 years. And so far, they are just replaced with interns or very young people out of their degree and who were struggling to find a first job. But without seniors to lead the activity, it is doomed to fail. It is also true that the nepotism is rampant in this company. In the US the managers are young people in their 20ies and sent from Germany. They have 0 experience in management, at doing business, and just basically knowing how things works in the US ecosystem. There was an infamous case in Technology where the young manager was the daughter of someone from the board or something like that.

Anyone from the Digital industry Software division can give an view on how are things there?

Move on!! Everyone is resigning in the United States. They know layoffs are coming. Siemens is a mess of a company.

We must stand together as people and not let these CEOs and Nepotism throughout our countries dictate the future of our financial well being. What these appointed leaders are doing to us is wrong on all level. All for the profit and alignment of there luxury lifestyles while we the people suffer. Enough is enough and we must have enough integrity to stand up against this corruption. Siemens has extorted massive amounts of profits for over 100 years through the government alignment and private sector exploitation. We can no longer stand for big companies dictating our well being and need to take a stand as a global economic movement to stop this once and for all. If we continue to feed this system the system will only continue to fail us. No person for that matter should have to sacrifice their mental health and well being for these people who care nothing about anything except profits and financial gain. Enough is enough and we must stand together as a whole to put an end to this system of corruption and capitalism at the expense of our hard working and dedicated lives.

Try working in the US Branches. They are littered with horrific managers who have no right being in management positions. Employees are resigning by the hundreds daily. They know what's coming. Trying to get ahead of their careers instead of letting Siemens destroy their opportunities. It's beyond disappointing.

No more manufacturing in China and no more slave labor in India and South America. United we stand against this German regime. We must stand up for ourselves. Enough is enough.

China is not in support of Siemens

This is a satirical community, but after the jokes, does any Siemens management actually see this content? Whether Siemens genuinely cares about voices from all regions and frontline employees is questionable. The annual SGES survey is inflated—employees are afraid to speak honestly because they believe their feedback won't make a difference and fear offending senior management. Therefore, it's doubtful whether Siemens truly values authentic input.

I sincerely hope that YXN can drive a truly meaningful organizational reset.

I am not sure whether colleagues overseas have heard about the long-standing internal rumors surrounding certain recently departed senior leaders. These unverified but widely discussed rumors involve questions around overseas assets, sources of funds, and potential compliance concerns. Whether these rumors are ultimately substantiated or not, the company should not simply ignore them. The very fact that such rumors have persisted already shows that employees have developed serious doubts about the integrity, transparency, and accountability mechanisms surrounding senior management.

A responsible organization should not respond by asking employees to remain silent, nor by treating every question as negative emotion. It should respond through an independent, transparent, and serious compliance review, and provide the organization with a clear answer.

If YXN truly wants to rebuild trust in the China organization, the starting point must be the most fundamental issues: clean up unhealthy legacy management practices, break down small circles and relationship networks, rebuild credibility in leadership appointments, and restore frontline employees’ confidence in fairness, rules, and professionalism.

Let's see.

As a frontline sales employee in DI China, I feel I also have to say something.

The people who suffer the most, carry the heaviest burden, and are drained the most are always the frontline employees at the bottom. Corporate strategy keeps changing, organizational structures are repeatedly adjusted, and management talks about transformation, collaboration, and growth in meetings. But in the end, all the pressure is passed down layer by layer to frontline sales. We are the ones who carry the targets, visit the customers, defend the prices, and clean up channel conflicts. Yet when there is credit, it may not belong to the frontline; when there is blame, it almost certainly lands on the frontline.

What many frontline sales colleagues feel today is that management is becoming increasingly disconnected from the real market, while the people below are becoming more and more like exhausted execution machines.

In particular, at the Sales Channel level, there have long been concerns among employees regarding compliance and interest relationships. Questions about whether certain Sales Channel Heads may be involved in non-transparent benefit arrangements, unfair allocation of channel resources, opaque position appointments, or even rumors of “buying and selling positions” are no longer just isolated private complaints. They have become concerns increasingly shared by many frontline employees. Whether these rumors are ultimately substantiated or not, the company should not continue to avoid them. A responsible organization should conduct an independent, transparent, and systematic review of channel governance, customer ownership, leadership appointments, conflict-of-interest declarations, and the flow of related expenses.

What is even more discouraging for frontline sales is that some managers occupy key customers and critical resources while pushing higher targets and more complicated internal processes down to the grassroots level. How are customer resources allocated? Is there fairness across regions? Are channel interests transparent? Why do some people hold premium customers and key projects for a long time, while those who truly run the market and carry the targets can only passively accept the outcome? Frontline sales are not blind to these questions. We understand what is happening. Many people simply do not dare to speak up.

As for regional SAC and Vertical functions, many frontline sales employees currently see their actual support value as very limited. In theory, these organizations should help sales connect resources, solve customer issues, drive industry breakthroughs, and coordinate products and channels. In reality, however, they often function more like management interfaces that collect assignments and chase performance: asking for data, plans, visit records, pipeline updates, forecasts, and PowerPoint slides, while rarely helping the frontline solve the real issues around pricing, delivery, technical support, channel conflicts, and customer progress.

What frontline sales need is not more templates, more meetings, or more reporting formats. We need support that can actually land. We need people who help solve customer problems, not people who only sit in the back office and chase results. We need people who coordinate resources, not people who only ask us to update spreadsheets. We need people who take management responsibility, not people who simply push all pressure to the frontline.

The dissatisfaction today is not because frontline sales are unwilling to fight, nor because we are afraid of pressure. Salespeople are never afraid of visiting customers, carrying targets, or facing competition. What is truly disappointing is this: when internal resource allocation lacks transparency, leadership appointments lack credibility, support functions fail to provide effective support, and management only knows how to push tasks downward, the morale and trust of frontline employees are gradually exhausted.

If the company truly wants growth, it should first return to common sense: respect the frontline, protect fairness, clean up the gray areas, and provide real support to those who actually create business results, instead of continuing to make grassroots employees pay the price for chaotic management, imbalanced resources, and an organization that keeps spinning in circles.

This is sad what they did in China and South America. Massive exits in US as well. People have had enough

@10d I heard that in the USA in Princeton, about 15 years ago Siemens used to be so successful that the building was full and they had to spill over into another building next door. Today it is a shadow of itself, half of the building is closed, the rest is split between Healthineers (that is no longer Siemens) and a couple of interns haunting empty spaces. Everybody left or got fired, at the exception of the "leadership", people with a "Head of Something" title but leading nothing in practice. It seems to be the same situation in India and China. At some point, does the ultimate goal is to close branches without doing a mass layoff but just a slow rot?

India has rejected building more
Siemens infrastructure. 20,000 layoffs is just the beginning

You are correct that China has suffered immensely as well as South American offices and United States. The German leadership is awful and antiquated mandates from India and other less fortunate and developed countries is a testament to the extortion this company continues to exhibit. Europe has been a driving force for years however the managerial hires and nepotism within this organization is horrific. A shift in focus away from the employees and what used to be a genuine company to work for has exposed some valuable truths that Siemens is a solely for profit company that will cut as many employees as possible at any point in time just to level set shareholders interest. Long gone are the days of loyalty and integrity which are now just part of the past. The leadership of this organization has gone far away from industry and employee focus to nothing more than dysfunctional greed. This is very sad because the company has had some amazing people pass through its doors over the years which are now in power positions of competitive companies. Bad leadership all around from corporate to branches to vendors. Just sad

I never expected to “meet” colleagues from other parts of the world in this way. As a former employee from CS in China, I feel it is necessary to speak up and add a few words.

What we are discussing today is not merely another organizational adjustment, nor just changes to a few positions. It is about long-accumulated issues within parts of the China organization concerning management culture, leadership appointments, employee protection, and compliance governance.

First, I sincerely hope the current management team will learn from the painful lessons of the past. Years ago, a deeply tragic incident occurred in RNE CS. At that time, an engineering colleague was reportedly pushed into a forced role transition and placed under long-term high-pressure management and severe psychological stress. The colleague eventually suffered a serious mental health crisis and passed away. According to long-standing employee recollections and internal discussions, this incident was closely associated with the management style of the then section manager, JHH. It has also been widely perceived that JHH continued to hold a management position afterward due to his relationship with the then GM, WB.

May the deceased rest in peace. But this incident should not be forgotten by the organization, nor should it be quietly buried by time. Regardless of the full causal chain behind what happened, the company should at least reflect seriously on several questions: Should any manager be allowed to use “transformation,” “performance,” or “organizational needs” as justification for prolonged high-pressure, humiliating, or psychologically coercive management? When an employee shows clear signs of psychological risk, did the organization fulfill its duty of care in time? After such a tragedy occurred, did the company conduct real accountability, a serious review, and establish mechanisms to prevent similar incidents from happening again?

This is not about reopening old wounds for the sake of it. It is about learning from a painful precedent. I hope the current management team will not repeat the same mistakes. No organizational transformation should ever come at the cost of employees’ dignity, mental and physical health, or even their lives.

Second, there have long been employee-level concerns regarding project outsourcing and potential conflicts of interest within the former CS organization. In the past, there were many internal discussions suggesting that certain projects may have been outsourced to companies connected to individual managers, potentially creating non-transparent benefit arrangements. If such concerns are substantiated, they would not only raise questions of management ethics, but also serious compliance risks.

Therefore, the company should conduct an independent, serious, and transparent investigation into any potential interest relationships involving the former RNE CS manager JHH and the former CS GM / RNE GM WB. In particular, the investigation should systematically review project outsourcing, supplier selection, conflict-of-interest declarations, approval processes, and the personal compliance conduct of relevant individuals.

I do not want emotion to replace facts, nor do I want rumors to replace investigation. But if a multinational company truly values compliance, employee protection, and organizational trust, it should not avoid these long-standing voices. The responsible approach is not to ask employees to remain silent, but to respond to accumulated concerns and doubts through transparent investigation, clear conclusions, and genuine accountability.

The problems in the China organization were not created by one department, one employee, or one transformation. They are the result of years of imbalance in management culture, insufficient checks on power, ignored frontline voices, and compliance concerns being downplayed.

I hope the company will face these issues seriously. And I hope colleagues who are still in the organization will no longer have to suffer harm that no individual should bear in the name of “transformation,” “management pressure,” or “organizational needs.”

I am an employee of Siemens Digital Industries in China.

There was a time when the seven letters of “SIEMENS” represented industrial excellence, professionalism, long-term thinking, and engineering culture. They were also a meaningful source of pride in my professional identity. When I joined this company, I believed I was becoming part of a century-old organization that respected technology, rules, and talent.

Today, however, I have to be honest: my emotional attachment to these seven letters is rapidly fading. What has replaced it is deep disappointment, helplessness, and even frustration.

This is not the result of one isolated incident, but rather a systematic disappointment caused by the continuous deterioration of organizational governance, management practices, and corporate culture over time.

First, since the implementation of the One Tech transformation in FY26, the organization has been operating for a considerable period of time with unclear direction, blurred responsibilities, and chaotic execution. A transformation should have brought stronger collaboration, higher efficiency, and sustainable growth. Instead, it has often felt like an organizational experiment lacking clear top-level design and a practical implementation roadmap. The China management team has failed to provide consistent, stable, and credible guidance on the future business model, organizational boundaries, and execution priorities. Policies and instructions have frequently changed back and forth, often lacking internal consistency. As a result, frontline teams and employees have been forced into a prolonged state of passive adaptation and repeated rework.

Second, internal factionalism and small-circle culture appear to have become increasingly prominent. It has become harder for employees to believe that appointments to management positions are primarily based on capability, performance, and industry expertise. Instead, they increasingly appear to be influenced by previous career networks, internal relationships, and management preferences. Taking the China Vertical organization as an example, the current Vertical GM YDH, previously held management roles in RC-CN across MTS, CS, and MC. Within the current Vertical structure, there are 12 Vertical Heads in total, including OP. Among them, seven have backgrounds in MTS, CS, or MC, which highly overlaps with YDH’s own previous career path. What is even more concerning is that some Vertical Heads appear to lack deep industry experience in their respective sectors, yet continue to hold critical leadership positions. Regardless of the true reasons behind these appointments, this has at least created a strong perception among employees that internal circles and insider networks are being prioritized. Such perceptions seriously damage organizational credibility.

Third, some managers seem to care more about personal achievements, reporting optics, and short-term visible results than the real needs of the business. They often rely on pressure, criticism, and emotional management styles to drive teams, while showing insufficient respect for the market, customers, products, and the practical difficulty of execution. Many so-called strategies and initiatives are disconnected from real business scenarios and are difficult to implement, yet employees are repeatedly required to spend significant time preparing materials, revising slides, and supporting management presentations. People are being drained by ineffective communication, formalism, and image-driven projects, while the time available for creating real customer value and business results continues to shrink.

Fourth, the once highly effective Vertical organization, which used to stay close to the market and connect customers with business units, is gradually becoming a ruthless PowerPoint production machine. It no longer represents industry insight, customer breakthroughs, or business growth in the way it once did. Instead, it increasingly functions as a tool for management to demonstrate visibility, package strategic narratives, and report upward. Employees are trapped in endless rounds of slides, templates, scoring systems, reviews, and presentations, while the direct connection between these activities and real orders, customer value, or business growth becomes increasingly unclear.

What is truly disappointing is not that the company is undergoing transformation, nor that the business environment has become more challenging. Every company goes through cycles, adjustments, and painful transitions. What is truly disheartening is this: when a company that once took pride in engineering spirit and professionalism begins to make employees feel that rules are no longer clear, capability no longer matters, real execution is no longer respected, and loyalty and passion are constantly being exhausted, the collapse of trust has already begun.

I used to be proud to be part of Siemens. Today, I only hope the company can seriously reflect on what it is losing. It is not merely losing employee morale; it is losing the most valuable foundation of any organization: trust, confidence, and long-term fighting power.

After seeing a post from a colleague in China, I feel compelled to follow up and express my support.

I believe that colleague’s feelings are not isolated. The original poster may be from the Vertical organization, while I am an employee from the Domain side. I would like to add a few points from another perspective.

First, many colleagues in Siemens Digital Industries China, especially those in Domain and Vertical, probably share a similar sense of exhaustion and disappointment. We are not against change, nor are we unwilling to accept organizational transformation. On the contrary, under the current market environment, we understand that the company needs to transform, and we are willing to embrace a more efficient, more collaborative, and more future-oriented organizational model.

The real problem is that transformation should not become a high-frequency, repetitive, and unstable management routine.

Behind every organizational reform, there are often countless rounds of reporting, endless revisions of materials, repeated discussions of limited value, and many management initiatives that are difficult to implement in practice. Frontline employees are forced to spend their energy on repeated “redefinitions,” “realignments,” and “re-reporting.” The time that should be spent on customers, business, products, and the market is constantly squeezed, while the internal communication cost keeps rising. Over time, employees are not defeated by business challenges; they are drained by repeated and ineffective internal disruption.

Second, the perception of favoritism and internal small-circle culture among management is no longer a secret at the employee level. More and more people have begun to believe that whether a person’s position is secure, or whether they can be promoted or protected, may not depend primarily on capability, performance, or professional experience, but rather on how close they are to key decision-makers.

This is a very dangerous organizational signal. Once employees start to believe that relationships matter more than capability, the foundation of trust within the organization begins to erode. What is even more concerning is that there have been unverified rumors internally regarding possible non-transparent exchanges of interests or position arrangements in certain Sales Regions. Whether these rumors are true or not, management should not ignore the deeper issue behind them: employees have started to seriously question the fairness and transparency of leadership appointment mechanisms.

Third, from the Domain perspective, there are also clear mismatches in some product management roles. Some people responsible for product management do not seem to have sufficient understanding of the products themselves, customer application scenarios, competitive landscapes, or technical details. A product manager should be a key connector between the market, customers, sales, and R&D or business units. In reality, however, some roles appear to be more focused on passing information, organizing tables, and preparing presentations, rather than driving business growth based on real product understanding.

When product managers do not truly understand the products, sales teams cannot receive valuable support, customer issues cannot be effectively fed back, and market opportunities cannot be accurately identified. In the end, what suffers is not only internal collaboration efficiency, but also the company’s competitiveness in the frontline market.

Fourth, the Partner management function has not yet truly achieved effective governance over the Partner ecosystem. Issues such as cross-region dumping, pricing disorder, and unhealthy competition among channels have not been clearly contained. In many cases, rules appear to exist and processes appear to be complete, but when it comes to actual execution, there is not enough enforcement power or deterrence.

If Partner management cannot maintain basic market order, the damage will not be limited to one region or a few sales teams. It will affect the health of the entire channel ecosystem. In the long run, this will continue to weaken customer trust, undermine pricing discipline, and place teams and partners who follow the rules at an unfair disadvantage.

Therefore, what I want to say is this: the dissatisfaction among employees in China today is not simply emotional venting, nor is it resistance to company transformation. Quite the opposite. Many people still care about this company and still hope that Siemens can return to being an organization that respects professionalism, rules, and real execution.

The real issue is that when organizational transformation loses rhythm, leadership appointments lose credibility, job responsibilities lose professionalism, and channel management loses discipline, employee trust is gradually consumed.

And once trust is exhausted, no grand strategy, no polished PowerPoint deck, and no inspiring slogan can truly motivate the team to move forward again.

Siemens Research is turning to sh-t after they started dissolving some groups. In the hay days Siemens Research did some really good work. It seems like new toxic management still thinks this company is a software company…

The company is awful. Check global ratings they have fallen consistently year after year for past 15 years. Terrible leadership and management all around. Plenty of other companies to work. Siemens failure is that it continually remains focused in oversaturated industries rather than branching out. They have been living off their service base and gouging customers for years. Now with oversaturation of competitors their price points are exposed and they can't retract their business strategy. So they decide to cut people to level set the books.

Orlando GM just quit! The office is awful.Even vendor channel partners want nothing to do with Siemens Material. They priced themselves completely out of the market. Way too much competition in Building Automation. They can only hire young naive college graduates because nobody with any experience and knowledge wants to work for Siemens. The overall company leadership is terrible with zero experience or strategy. Blind leading the blind for years just living off an eroded service base of margin which they can't capture anymore. To salvage their shareholders they plan to layoff 20,000 people. Sad and awful but that's capitalism and the world we live in.

As expected

That's a lot of people. They did this in 2008 after GFC 16000 layoffs. Someone at the top knows something is coming globally.

Our office is a ghost town in Boston. Only 40 year old GM and 2 admins come in 2 times a week. Over 30,000 sq feet of office space wasted. Nobody is ever in the office. Morale is terrible and has been for years. Reputation in our industry is awful.

@a2 Last year, even the CEO of Siemens USA did rage quit. You would think that for a CEO role, there would be a transition, with an announcement of the departure of someone, with a couple of months to hand over the role to the new one, etc... But no, I think she did a LinkedIn post on a Monday morning to say that she was starting a new CEO role somewhere else. Wow. It was saying a lot about what is boiling internally...

It took Siemens many months to find a new CEO for the USA, and that person seems particularly unfit for the role, being a lawyer with absolutely no engineering or business background in the US. Like they didn't find anybody else?

This is sad but true. This company has been seeing resignations every day from all areas. A combination of AI and years of bad leaders. Awful news but was coming for a very long time

Managers are resigning daily! Check LinkedIn for announcements nationally and globally