Ford reduced over 200 salary employees during the past 4 weeks. However, purchase service employees and agency employees had no reduction. PS and agency employees are not showing up in the overall head counts, so they are not affected. Ford paid millions of $ per week for using these outside employees and most of them don't have any work to do. HR should be looking into cost reduction for PS and agency employees.
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That's not true, PS and agency were also impacted. They are bringinga few of them back undera new contract, but only the favourite ones.
I know there have been several cullings of PS over the years. I'm assuming they come back, so maybe it's time for another culling.
When a car doesn't run, the only technology needed is a flip phone.
PS=Purchased Services. Also sometimes referred to as Professional Services. For example when Ford buys hardware/software/firmware the company will also sell a PS contract to Ford for technical expertise in installing and exploiting the hardware/software/firmware. The goal is for Ford employees to gain knowledge and become self-sufficient. Alas it doesn’t always work that way. Some PS remain on the Ford te-t in perpetuity. One LL3 makes PS mandatory as he had purchased an s-ton of shelfware (software that was never successfully installed and exploited). So now the PS contract is his “guarantee” that software is installed.
Is this week supposed to be layoffs at Ford?
What is PS?
"unique service solutions"
Is what no car buyer asked for ever
@k0 I don’t recall if Elena had conflict of interest. A spouse of an LL5 who worked for a PS always seemed to have the inside track on what services and software were “needed” and had tailored pitches with Ford terminology and slams on all the competitors we were trialing. When the LL5 was asked to retire, he was immediately employed by the PS.
Never past the stink test.
@k1 They tried that with the ASC and AMC setup 20 years ago. You had Ford IT people reporting to IBM and Compuware management and it was an unmitigated disaster. IBM was ruthless and Compuware was completely incompetent. It lasted for about 2 years before they were thrown our and we reverted back to how it used to be.
Why doesn't Ford Motor replace LL5, LL6, Supervision with AI?
The whole upper management structure and board of directors could be replaced by AI.
Save a lot of money…
Why doesn't Ford Motor replace LL5, LL6, Supervision with contractors?
I seem to remember (years ago, memory is a little foggy) that Elena had a financial interest in PS. I was always being pressed by my LL4 and 5 to send work to PS and always declined because of the exorbitant cost and low quality of their work. I wonder if shestill has stake in this pot.
At Ford. GSR hires contractors and PS to do their work. Get rid of GSR since they are incompetent, then PS will be gone as well.
It's like you hire an electrician to do a project at your house. That electrician hired another electrician to do the the work and charged twice the cost. 😂😂😂😂😂
Well at least you've accepted the fact that you are tone deaf to what just happened with FNV4. "Sweep it under the rug guy". Yes business must move on but should we carry the captains of that failure with us? You'd probably answer yes, and that tells us so much about your level of ignorance on all things Ford.
Being that stup!d must be exhausting. Take a break while the people responsible for the FNV4 cancelation and late call to cancel smoke $100's and wipe thier rear ends with your paycheck. The amount of ignorance you exhibit on this board is exemplary. Congratulations.
Read all these posts. It looks like Ford is going to a toilet tube soon - sooner that I predicted. I wasted 4 years of my life there ... underpaid and abused with most people do not know what they need to do from top to down. Everything was wrong there.
Post ID: @e2+1jy4nck0c
Quality and reliability have their place, but modern mobility consumers are drawn to the latest new technical features and unique service solutions (like what Model e is focused on delivering). It is just the way the market is today like it or not.
@e7 - 💯 on “ PS $200 per hour charge is that the PS companies present their big pockets and expertise as "insurance" if they sc--w up.”
@b9 - I believe I know the project you speak of. I am surprised that is still going on since the snake-oil salesman LL6 retired a couple years ago. The current ll5 must have missed the Ford leadership class on the fine art of blaming a predecessor for overspending and mistakes.
@OP. Agency here. Another clueless m0r0n. If “most of them don't have any work to do”, then GSRs don't have any work to do neither, and the issue lies with management. At Ford, most GSRs relies on contractors to do their work, like @b9+1jy4nck0c said. We non GSRs do most of the work, but there are also some hardworking GSRs, and lazy contractors as well. I know at least a contractor that is FnF, doesn't know sh!t, and has survived the cullings, where good technical contractors were kicked out.
Most contracts for "regular technical positions" don't go much further than $200,000 annually, sometimes less, which is cheaper than many GSRs (salary+vacation+paid holidays+health insurance+payroll taxes+bonuses). Contractors get way less, sometimes below $100,000. Best contractor salaries are "similar" (in the 10-20K range) to the GSR salaries, without the benefits.
Now PS is a different beast. Large support companies used to charge $200 per hour with an annual contract for thousands of hours, $300 per hour for short projects. Of course, the actual worker doesn't see much more than GSRs or Contractors. The idea behind PS $200 per hour charge is that the PS companies present their big pockets and expertise as "insurance" if they sc--w up.
Either way, Contractors or PS, are just technical people trying to make their living and being sc--wed by large companies. Not very different from GSRs, but with the caveat that we don't have severance packages.
@OP Do you want to lay off people? Start at the top, which is the reason why the company is in the gutter. Complaining for what the company pay to people that actually works, instead of complaining for the millions paid to the managers that are sinking the company. SMH.
@dj+1jy4nck0c You are mis-informed. For one Computer Associates (CA) now Broadcom. Billed(s) Ford 250 an hour in some service contracts. Now the PS employee cut wasn’t 250 as CA/Broadcom took their cut. I saw the contracts. Maybe in your area PS contracts pay less? IBM also writes themselves some very lucrative service agreements. I was in a meeting where the LL6 justified the rate by literally saying the PS was doing the work of ten people.
@e1 No one cares about powertrains anymore, reliability durability and convenience aren't important to the consumer so why invest in it?
I visited my old lab in Dearborn recently. It felt mostly empty, with little activity compared to how it was years ago. I didn’t see anyone I recognized, except for one tradesperson who mentioned that most of the current staff are now contract workers.
Trolls arguing with trolls. Neither of you know sh!t
@dj Untrue, are you referring to PS or Agency? What do you think consultants make?
@b9, there has never been a PS at Ford that billed at $250/hour. I can confirm that is BS. The rate is typically higher than we pay internal employees and the agency takes a big cut, But we have not paid that high, ever.
@aw+1jy4nck0c The dirty little secret about many PS is that they are brought in to do the work Ford salaried are unable/unwilling to do. And then Ford salaried claim on their PRs the PS accomplishments as their own.
One specific PS agreement began 9 years ago. It was to be for 6 months and the PS was to train the Ford salaried team. The billable rate for the PS was $250.00 per hour. At the 6 month mark the Ford salaried team (6 people) all claimed they had not been adequately trained, at the 1 year mark same deal. The LL5 extended the PS contract for another year and told the team to give weekly training reports. A new LL5 came before the end of the year and guess what, again the Ford salaried team claimed they had not been trained. The contract extended again. and so on for 9 years and still counting.
All 6 of these people have been loafing since I’ve known them. Ford could actually save money by firing all 6 of them and keeping just the 1 PS.
And BTW I’ve read the extensive training doc the PS put together. The PS even put together videos detailing step by step how to do things as he thought the team might be illiterate. Not a one of them has been viewed by the 6 Ford salaried. It has become a running joke in our department.
@b3 between what?
Just confidently asserting with a cliff hanger as if we won’t notice or feel ambiguous loss
Typical ford bot
Not sure what org you're in, but PS and agency have been hit hard for quite a while already. There's not much PS if any at all. Agency is so minute. Not much of them left to cut. Ya need to know the difference between how they are billed.
PS and Agency are a scam. Millions of dollars spent every year on people that are 1) Held safe from annual PRs, adhering to Ford Behaviors, and since they are hured to complete specific tasks... are free from annual objectives; 2) Are held so safe in roles that their employment in many cases is as secure as UAW. So salary then are left fearing for their jods day after day.. year after year. Let's not forget that many of these people we are paying exorbitant salaries to the agency so they can get a cut and also offer industry competitive salaries to under qualified people that can't get hired direct elsewhere
Time to cut the PS and Agency folks su-king the money out of our Bank... Bye bye...
Fake news.
Also, HR doesn’t care about PS and agency, they are purely finance lines on an expense sheet. HR’s job is to protect the company from HR related lawsuits, not help employees.
“most of them don't have any work to do”
This