Heard from 2 independent sources (i.e. Supervisor and above) now that the number of people not opting to relocate to Edmonton is much higher than what Management anticipated. It will be interesting to see how they handle this!!
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@35h in the meeting the hinted that they already know that and already build that into their plan/projection somehow.
@34r in reality at least 1/2 of that 70% is just riding it out for either
A) trying to get RSU
B) longer runway to find a new job
C) work in Edmonton for 1-3 years to get a pension
in SVP transformation update, they mentioned that 70% are willing to move
It’s a wonder they didn’t move the whole office to Winnipeg to get even more people to quit. We have operating facilities there too and it would be more central between Canadian hubs.
Even the airport doesn't want to be in Edmonton
@21d no one saying any city is better than another simply based of population. That's just you mixing up your bias/hate/dislike of India into the discussion.
@1x9 There's a billion people in India, it must be 1000 times better than Edmonton. You should move to BTC.
@1pc well there's 1 million people calling Edmonton home, so some people definitely doesn't agree with you.
No need to p-o p-o on Edmonton, if you hate it that much just say no and let the person next to you take the job.
Edmonton is such a far step down from Calgary it might as well be Fort Mac/Sarnia. The high number of people turning down relocation supports this, as much as current and future Edmontonians don't want to admit it. Few people are going to willingly accept moving their families and living in Edmonton for the remainder of their careers.
For those considering the move: think long and hard beforehand. IOL will continue to cut personnel in the coming years, and your alternatives in Edmonton are far fewer than in Calgary.
@1j0 your post shows that you have no clue at what's going on around you.
@1j0 ok Calgary is better than Edmonton, but comparing Edmonton with fort Mac and Sarnia is just non sense bull cr-p.
Pool of workers might be smaller in Edmonton but in the end it will work out for the company. There are hundreds of Good enough/qualified people happy to work for Imperial in Edmonton.
It su-ks for all of us little employees, and the company might limp along for a few years but it will all work out in the end. For all of us who don't see the future in Edmonton, we should just take what you can, fight that severance for at least 1 month/yr, do fake yes or whatever and move on.
Yeah you're smarter than the people that dreamt this move up.
@1h4 Moving the HQ from Calgary to Edmonton threatens the long-term profitability of the company. Your willing talent pool reduces by 90%, forcing you to hire bottom-of-the-barrel optionless workers, or offshore every role physically possible (aka the current plan). The CEO's job is not to maximize short-term share price, it's to protect the dividend, which is XOM's primary goal as well. Otherwise IOL would sell all three refineries + Kearl tomorrow for cash and forego the future cash flow.
No one chooses to live in Edmonton. Half the non-Calgary IOL workforce only stays with the company for their path to (or back to) Calgary. Any other belief is peak delusion.
Imagine if Suncor made a similar decision to move their HQ to Fort Mac. Who would ever choose to work for them? Only the desperate and the defeated. Which is why Suncor would never be foolish enough to do something so clearly not in their company's best interest.
XOM has no clue about where people actually want to work and live in Canada and wouldn't care anyways. DW would move all of IOL to Sarnia if Ontario taxes weren't so high.
Doing the right thing for imperial is doing the right thing for the share holder. Period.
Lower cost and raise share price is the ceos job, accountable to the shareholders.
He's not doing the right thing for employees.
Rich Kruger wouldn't have allowed these horrible decisions to go forward, which is why he no longer works for XOM. BC and JW are hollow puppets, they didn't/don't/never will care about what's in IOL's best interest if it runs contrary to DW's orders.
Strathcona County should reject any proposals that place more offices within the refinery fence line. There is zero justification to put non-refinery personnel in harms way. They belong in an office building in Edmonton or Sherwood Park. Frankly the additional vehicle traffic in/out of the refinery alone should be a deal breaker for the county.
@1dn
Oh I agree 100%. This decision wasn’t made on JW’s watch. It was made by Darren Woods quite some time ago and it probably only made it as far as Brad Corson up until JW took over. I’d guess most of the decisions were steered by analytics companies that ran all the statistics for leadership to base the layoff numbers on. Companies that would’ve had to sign NDA’s and that can keep sensitive issues more private than Imperial ever could. If this was all handled in house by our crack team of “experts” it would’ve been leaked a lot early than the 3-4 weeks that it was.
@1es While I wish that would happen, but I think it’s pretty apparent John actually is an Exxon sycophant. He may be the Imperial CEO but he is also an Exxon company man, and always has been. If his higher ups at Exxon tell him this is what is in Exxon’s interests, that’s the only thing he is going to try to look out for.
@1dn while this is true, John (and the board) are paid handsomely to not drive the company into the ground. It’s actually their job to do the right thing for Imperial. Yes we all know corporate separateness is an absolute joke (and no Canadian regulator seems to GAF) however, John needs to put his big boy pants on and start acting like the Imperial CEO and not an Exxon sycophant.
@gk One other thing that everyone needs to remember is that, counter to what the IOL management committee says, this whole transformation idea came down as an order from the one and only Darren Woods, and that similar transformations are happening in multiple countries around the world within ExxonMobil, which were all announced more or less on the same day. Every single person involved in this on the IOL side, from the IOL management committee downwards, is just executing an order from Darren.
While it probably isn't ideal for them to announce this transformation before having alignment with the county, let's be honest, status of discussions with Strathcona County weren't going to be a reason to hold up ExxonMobil announcing a worldwide transformation program. Darren Woods doesn't care, it's John's problem to figure out how to make this work with the county.
@gk Not saying that I think the rumour about the permit is true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did only just start discussing the permit with the county. If you talk to anyone who is in anyway involved in managing this transition, it's clear that there really wasn't much of a detailed plan or work done aside from the powerpoint slides they shared up front. Everyone involved right up to the senior management level has been flying by the seat of their pants since September 29 because there is no detailed plan really, and there's a good reason for that. The more they worked the plans in detail the more people they would have needed to bring into the loop, which just increases the risk of info leaking even more than it did.
Strathcona County should be asking a lot of questions about the safety of the current Admin Building occupants... any expectation to be allowed to move even more people in is the height of hubris. No more blank cheques for IOL!
@gk actually from a very good source that’s on the project team….strathcona county flat out said no to the proposal they saw a week or two ago….yellow box on satellite image.
@a2
These are all baseless rumors. First of all, the City of Edmonton doesn’t deal with building permits for the refinery as it’s located in Strathcona County. And second, do you believe Imperial just walked in to the county office last month and asked for a permit?? This transition to the refinery has been in the works for at least a couple years. I don’t believe they got to this point and have now got issues with building permits. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised, but I don’t think this is the case.
They don't care. They will just keep hiring from further down in the barrel.
I believe it’s team dependent, but I’ve heard similar. Some groups like drilling and subsurface have low to no people willing to go with several people already quitting and going to other companies. I think the company was overconfident in some areas, which will be costly and time consuming, though I’m sure they don’t care.
Also hearing rumours they are having troubles getting a permit from the city of edmonton for the new building expansion, something to do with being in blast radius? Any one have any details on that?
Is there any surprise.