For active layoffs happening now, it’s probably too late. For others, how do you survive at a company like Nike for more than a decade? What tips or tricks do you have?
38 replies (most recent on top)
@13p That’s horsesh-t. You cannot stay at Nike very long if you don’t retool yourself over and over again. The problem is the person who demands that their team use only the tools they know how to use because THEY don’t want to learn anything new and be exposed as a fraud.
I keep reading the title of this thread without the word "off"
Keep drinking the kool aid and telling yourself that if you do all the right things then you will be __.
There is no place like Nike…
Refuse to learn or grow yourself, refuse to work with and grow your team - play the game to keep yourself safe and you’ll be able to fly under the radar and skate on through to retirement.
Wow some of the worst advice ever on here and those are the ones getting likes. Get out if you cant handle the vibe!
Best advice...do your job well, be easy to work with and don't back stab or undermine good work. Celebrate the people around you doing well and quit whining on the layoff (and anonymous public forum that solves nothing).
A Nike old-timer who I used to work with once gave me this sage advice: “Find a crack and fall in it.”
@db who hurt you?
Be good at your job and make sure leadership knows it
Brett Favre it and refuse to train anyone on anything unless it is required of your job. If it’s unsafe politically to outright refuse, simply mislead as much as possible. Protect what you know ruthlessly and don’t share anything with other teams. As soon as they have what they need from you, just one more person to recommend that you are no longer
Get promoted to the executive leadership team and then you have a job for life, no matter how the company does or how low employee morale becomes!
This is the way.
make less than 50k a year, be willing to work 12hr days or more and be a social butterfly. If you make more than that, are not in the social culture and only work 8 like a looser you will be hit
At this point, It’s simple COGS/OPEX cutting. If you’re plus 60% of your pay range and haven’t explicitly pledged allegiance to the right leader, it’s too late.
have a vocal fry
dye your hair blond
overpromise and under deliver
brownnose and say everyone is amazing
pretend to be interested in sport and sneakers
line up another job, get laid off and laugh to the bank
no small feat, but oh the timing would be epic!!!!!
the other idea is, get another job, then volunteer for a layoff, take pto before giving notice, to extend the chances.....still a gamble, but could work!
Sadly you’re just a name on a spreadsheet. If you’re at the top of the pay grade you’ll be high property to release. All the managers that have a damn left to save their souls from crushing under the toxic environment.
Do they have the like-me bias training in Tech? Would that help at all?
@ba
you are toast
this is the soceity we are in right now until it collapses from its own debt
@af
the 80s called
it wants its soceity back
Kiss a-s + backstabbing work the best. If these two didn't work then change your pronounce to they.
Good luck my friend.
@OP Just don't age :)
@ak lol, most of my reports are boned then. I am near the top of my pay band. I despise my peers, they're also ran su-k ups. So arrogant to everyone but I have them kissing a-s to leadership. My brand is competence, and everyone else hates that. I am hoping to get a severance package out of this.
@ad it's not who the company wants to hire, but the leaders of the org. In tech it's be Indian. There is a whole cult of employment if your Indian.
@b2 to be fair, being attractive probably does help. I wouldn't know though
@af that's the recipe for getting laid off. Look around you, nothing but toxicity.
It's basically a lottery. The less you make the easier it is to stay. If you are at the IC level, your direct report won't even know until the decision is already made without them.
Don't be at the top of your pay band, especially for multiple years. Don't take a promotion to a position that you know is complete bullsh-t. Don't stay in the same role for more than 5 years, especially if you are < 30 comp grade. Don't be a recent joiner. Don't stay with a manager that doesn't know how to network with leaders and potential leaders.
This. 8 layoffs later, still here. Takes 30 seconds to do. It’s not illegal, and there is no policy against it.
The past half dozen layoffs have been run by a consulting agency’s excel sheet.
If you lost the lottery your only hope is to have a politically connected leader willing to stick their neck out for you or have another leadership team eager to sn---h you out of freefall.
All scenarios rely on charisma and your broad social image. That’s just how it is. The only people that have any idea about your works actual quality and quantity are your peers and they’re as powerless as you.
Is there tribalism? Absolutely. But there’s nothing you can do about it. If your senior leader exhibits any signs of that behavior you should have been hopping teams last year.
There is some reasonable advice in there. But it certainly isn’t going to work on its own.
What’s the most unhinged and still ~legal kind of stuff you are doing? Or have witnessed be successful?
@af This person hasn’t paid attention to their surroundings and oozes of naïveté
@af and then still get laid off.
- Don’t be a number on an excel sheet. Get your face out there.
- Make a good first impression on your skip. It’s probably the only time you will meet them.
- Don’t be toxic
- Don’t make others’ jobs difficult
- ALWAYS be helpful to nearby teams regardless of personal pain. Look for win-win solutions not just personal wins. In 12 months when your position is eliminated their leadership will be selecting 1 of 30 people for the only opening in your entire department.
- Work on visible high priority (business’ priority, not your priority) things, regardless of their actual difficulty or workload
- Be attractive, or at least clean & well dressed.
In short. Be kind, competent, and always help others (without regard for immediate personal benefit).
Go into your workday profile and select anything but white male.
Be the race or gender that the company wants to hire or promote more of.
Be Indian..dont be white.
@a8 This is the way
It's not what you know, it's who you know. Manage up and su-k up. Be great at storytelling whatever the fu-k that is, never mind if you can do your work or not. Create complexity, fudge and create fear, uncertainty and doubt so you can look like a hero or heroine when you can come in with some clarity.
@OP Quit