Confirmed today 10/15/20 that Pacific Life Lays Off over 300+ people from their workforce which started in the IT Department on 10/14/20. This company continues to show that is has no more loyalty to it's long term employees and it all about itself.
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Most of the people laid off were people with 20 years experience with the company. Found out they started hiring remote out of state workers with lower salaries a few months later.
All PL friends. Make no mistake. Our wonderful Executive Leader CS was a big fish on the pole, hook, line and sinker of Accenture back in 2017 to pursue a 20 year old strategy of outsourcing to save some money. Hence they knew in 2018 who was getting let go, who was needed temporarily to onboard the new offshore team and the very few they thought were needed long term.
So keep this in mind, our IT leaders have known and worked on this strategy knowing that we would be let go all these years. Each person was calibrated and your east coast IT Leader (let’s be honest, more like middle manager) was brought in to execute the plan that was already devised. So all the while getting us to say nice things about he company on video, etc.
Do NOT TRUST LEADERSHIP. And all other departments not yet impacted, rest assured your day is coming. Next step will be to see PL’s commercials change to the comical LIMI the EMU, or maybe Flo. Good luck.
This cluster f*ck speaks to how simplistic upper Management’s work must be. They put a Sales Manager in charge of IT. He was replaced with a manager who admits to letting go MORE PEOPLE THAN HE WAS ASKED TO then wonders why his name is now an insult.
A manager is a manager is a manager. An inexperienced offshore contractor is not a programmer. No matter how much “bright shiny new Talent” they have.
FOMO driven garbage Reply # 22 was spot on. Digital transformation, Agile, scrum master, innovation, data driven, strategic sourcing, KPI, and other new age high on silicone valley tech bro Kool-aid jargon shoved down our throats just so we could all get laid off in the end.
Stop with the toxic positivity. If you found out you had stage 3 cancer you wouldn’t damn well want someone telling you, “oh at least you have advanced notice, oh it’s only stage 3, oh there are new cures around the corner, oh Bill from investing had stage 4 cancer you should count your blessings. These are the best severance packages In town Bob! My advice. Stay in your own G damn “swim lane”. This isn’t your fathers lay-off, there are not “new opportunities around the corner”. Some of these people may never have jobs like this again. “Oh Pacific life cut me loose, Mass mutual picked me right up for a 150k plus sign on bonus.....not gonna happen in the 2021 job market.
I was laid off last year and looking back now that the brainwashing has withered away I can see clearly. I stayed positive all the way through. To those who survived STOP the toxic positivity because when it’s your turn and they decide hey, finance department, is a finance department, is a finance department, we aren’t a finance department company so we’re working with partners who are. You and 100 of your peers are given notice it feels like a 24hrs GI virus that lasts for 42 days instead of 24hrs.
The company founded In California can’t lay off it’s California workers fast enough. I guess the Omaha strategy wasn’t good enough. Nope the workforce has to come from overseas body shops now.
Management of PL,
Why don't you guys go back to using a true anonymous system of sending in suggestions for improvement within the company? If you did that, do you think you would get nothing but "I love PL" or "how proud I am to work here" comments you see all over the company intranet? (The amount of gaslighting here is almost cultish.)
No, the truth is moral is at an ALL TIME LOW. You chose a horrible time to let people go. PL took the Trump tax breaks, the pandemic emergency and this desire to replace IT with outsourcing and just said "let's move!"
Now it seems that everything is going to sh*t. What did you expect? Phase One was a comedic mess. I'm sure the genius' in Lynchburg will save you from the inevitable.
Lastly, Dawn T. has been responsible for some of the most expensive failed projects in the company's history. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars spent on vanity projects that amounted to nothing. But you wouldn't know that because she only fails UP the ladder, bringing with her all of her sycophant cronies (just get on her good side folks, you will be here forever!) Don't worry folks, eventually one of her projects will succeed!
You can’t train experience. PL will never again win a Dalbar award.
Ineffective IT management resulted in knowledge silos.
All that customization we do to provide services to BDs? SMEs laid off with no cross training. Another brilliant idea Shadler.
The transition has started and the one thing that PL is going to miss and regret is that the IT folks that have been here with PL for many, many years actually give a sh*t if PL is successful or not. Now that we are all talking to our replacements, I can honestly say "good luck PL", you went from having a team of dedicated IT folks to mercenaries that could care less if Pacific Life is successful.
Outsourcing IT was a great idea... 20 years ago. Once again, PL execs like Fat A– Sudbeck pitch a scheme to save money which results in terrible execution, increased cost and poor customer service. Do you think she took any accountability or responsibility? Hell no, she’s still filling up on red beans and rice!
The senior leadership of Pacific Life was duped by a big consulting firm. They convinced Carol Sudbeck that the IT spend was high compared to completion due to the high cost of talent in Orange County and that outsourcing IT was the only direction. In come the one trick pony Lynchburg team from failed Genworth, who’s only claim to fame is 20+ year old IT model of outsourcing. So now we have a company and business units so accustom to top shelf service being transitioned to a sub standard support model with the hopes that Carol can save a few bucks for the board.
The real failure in this company is the executive leadership who has neglected the most important aspect of the business for decades; its IT function. This function has proven to make or break company’s in the recent past and executive leadership is taking the company backwards in the time of IT. They need to invest and develop their own people in order to drive the company to the next level and more importantly to stay relevant in an industry that has yet to see its true disruption. The belief that a third party will “care” about your success as much as a dedicated and loyal staff is naive and misplaced. The board should turn their direction to the highest ranks to really evaluate whether they have the right executive leadership team to guide the company into the future.
Schadler and his loyalist Lynchburg team have destroyed the culture, moral and commitment that once existed within Pacific Life IT. And make no mistake, anyone left, they are still lying to you and you too will be gone at some point. So milk the pay check while you can, expose these outsource providers for their incompetence, get further educated on current technologies on the PL dime to position yourself for the next opportunity and hope that you too can get a decent severance when your time comes (enhanced severance package days are gone). Good luck my friends, we will all find a new “home” that appreciates and value us.
At the start of the pandemic, the CEO made a big announcement to the company essentially saying "don't worry folks, we have plenty of cash and we are prepared for events like this"... fast forward to now. If you value working for a company that doesn't LIE to their employees, CONSTANTLY (seriously, been here over 10 years, and these guys NEVER tell you what they are planning) then don't work for PL. If you only knew how many id–tic IT meetings we have had to sit through as the unicycle riding leader pontificates on the future of Insurance and how we are positioning ourselves to be better leveraged... whatever.
Imagine taking over a FAILING insurance company and putting the people that ran that company into the ground in charge of the IT at PL. Well, that's what we have folks.
As an employee with tenure it is frightening how weak management’s plan is. The head of IT draws a box with four rectangles and thinks that’s revolutionary. “Your managers will figure it out from here”. His laundry list of ideas have already been tried and failed under previous mgmt.
Let me get this right, no chance for a bonus and I have to work weekends to cover for the folks you let go. Way to motivate the team!
Chandler and Cheatwood are “effing” id–ts.. Taking a great company like Pacific Life and spiraling it into the ground.. I hope you mo–ns realize that you have just set the progress for IT back by 15yrs..
The company purposefully combined the outsourcing initiative with a “reduction in force” so that it would be reported to the public as a move they “had” to make due to the economic downturn.
The IT outsourcing was announced almost 2 years ago. It is a strategy to eliminate American jobs and replace with cheaper offshore resources. That’s it. It has nothing to do with the current economy. To make it worse, Senior leadership chose to follow through on this outsourcing in the middle of this pandemic. Talk about caring for their employees. Shameful greed. And stupidity in putting the IT organization in the hands of folks in Lynchburg who were acquired from a failing company.
So sad to see a great company like Pacific Life make these moves. The Senior Leadership team including Jim Morris, Dawn Trautman and Carol Sudbeck have put their confidence and the company’s future in the hands of leaders acquired from Genworth. Hmmmm - how was Genworth doing before the acquisition? I think they were in pretty dire straights financially. Good luck...
Employees that are left will tell you how bad IT has gotten over the last year - so why not make it worse? These are also good excuses to get rid of older employees and women who have issues working with management types who are still there only because of their ability to flatter Shadler. Him and Cheatwood will get their golden parachutes in a couple of years when the contract with Cognizant is over and PL has to rebuild. Keep in mind when you vote this year - this was apparently funded by the trump corporate tax breaks.
Once again PL lays off hundreds of loyal and dedicated American employees right before the holidays in order to give their jobs to India - with the added insult that you have to train your Indian replacement or you don't get a severance package. Thanks Carol Sudbeck and Mike Shadler! What great people you are!
The senior-most IT leadership at Pacific Life has always been bumbling and pathetic. Now it is brutal and un-American too.
While waiting for RSD mgmt to begin our town hall to the assistant’s screen saver could be viewed. It was the photo of JC getting to meet the Rolling Stones because Pacific Life sponsored their last tour.
That was money well spent.
The part that bothers me the most in all this is at Pacific Life there was always a chance you could be rehired next year in a different role or division when things got a little better. Everyone deserved a chance. In today’s Pacific Life they will just fill the spot with a contractor/outsource/offshore.
Ever since they purchased Genworth they picked up the old GE Jack Welch riff-n-replace management style. Stop hiring over educated think tank types and outsourcing the rest. You are not a government research program, get over yourself.
Is the plan for RSD to sell off only the Fixed Annuity business? Or is RSD divested in whole?
Another sad milestone for Pacific Life.
IT management is slowing be replaced by the cost cutting team of Cheatwood and his Lynchburg buddies. The decline in quality of work continues but somehow Pacific Life's SLT continues to support him. He's able to continue to pull the wool over Jim Morris and the Board of Director's eyes. They have painted themselves into a corner where their ITSS effort is too big to fail. So instead of admitting their mistakes and course correct, they are doubling down and digging a deeper hole for themselves and the company.
Good luck PL trying to get your IT house in order.
It is now a sinking ship. The 5th floor old white men’s club making this decision has no understanding of how work gets done.
Anyone know the layoffs breakdown between full time vs. part time/contractor? Also is something happening to RSD.. are they planning to spin off that division or something?
They went from having one of the top IT departments around to a bunch of paper pushing useless contractors who do busy work all day long. So sad.... The new CIO is the only one who needs to go.
The brains they lost over the last few years will take them a decade to rebuild!
It was pretty spineless the way it happened. A project update meeting was scheduled, hijacked, and termination notice was delivered.
Looks like I dodged a bullet. Working for weak and ineffective leaders like that is a worse fate.
A piece of you know what company! They should all get fired!
At least 69 employees laid off were from the retirement solutions division.