My manager isn't engaging with the team at present, I pinged the other day and not even an acknowledgement
Not joining daily calls etc
Are there changes coming ?
16 replies (most recent on top)
@qt Hiring a 35-year IBM veteran with deep roots in engineering and large-scale sales indicates that we want to compete with the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce in the data-governance space, but I think this is a huge mistake. We need to get ready for more chaos starting in April.
We are betting our future on a very specific niche: Agentic AI. Unlike standard AI that just answers questions, Agentic AI actually does things (e.g., executing workflows, managing data governance). Not sure what companies will try this on mission critical systems and given how buggy software is this is destined to fail.
@qn
Or Non-core business will be sold off and the rest acquired by a large software house with the resources to salvage (definitely have to rebrand) the core offerings.
Everything will change on April 20th with Ayman. My guess is that he is a transformational CEO knowing he will be out of the job in 2-3 years when OpenText gets acquired.
@OP I am out of the loop, but now is usually the time of year when Sales are being told to put anything they can into pipeline at the highest value.
This fictitious pipeline is then used to justify headcount. This annual trick might not be enough this FY.
By the sounds of things, someone is definitely getting the boot, who is the question.
@ev
For Open Text the answer is 100% yes. The likely region is US. Why..because it is low hanging fruit...easy to fire people and is more expensive to hire here.
The reason there is no internal communication with specifics, (who, when, where etc) is any manager/director/SLT/ELT has literally been threatened with their jobs if they so much as breathe a word. Most of these leaders frankly don't have the skill or maturity to continue BAU so they stop engaging altogether with their employees (particularly those on the layoff list).
Yes there will be layoffs. From an investor perspective your company (my former company) has been mismanaged to an extreme and sadly painted themselves into a corner. Only a massive firing and/or ultimately a bankruptcy filing will get them out of it.
Please just do the best you can in the meantime.
One thing I would suggest is take any and all personal information off your laptop. Open Text will cut you off 10 minutes after you have been notified. Particularly numbers/passwords etc. that you may need post layoff. Also (again if I were you) I would immediately stop contributing to your 401k. You will get more in your paycheck now (and) when your severance checks arrive..It may sound ridiculous but I was able to stash that cash for 4 months..(and) able to access it immediately without a withdrawal penalty from Fidelity. Just a suggestion. I have 40 years and 3 layoffs of experience, so some lessons were 'hard learned'
Good Luck to all my former colleagues.
@jack, lots of waffling there
My question is are layoffs coming ?
@cr may the odds be in your favor
thats very normal in opentext during trimming season. PMO will be spinning weird projects. Existing projects will be paused. Teams will be moved or reassigned. Directors/VPs will be asked to reduce team on active projects and move team those fake projects. PMO and Project managers will kick start aggressively on those dummy projects. Will say its all important and verbally approved by Shannon Or Muhi, just need CEO/? approval. So we can do.
Those team members will quickly hand off their pending tasks on hand to other members and move to new projects. There will be lot of optics and party on office to show that the new project is aggressively needed. And then all of sudden you see your team mate is missing.
And yes, after new CEO come you will see lot of shuffle on VP levels , and following months Directors and so.. and during shuffling you will noticed few cards are missing.
Just sharing my 20 years in OT
@bk is that confirmed or just a guess ?
@OP Trust your gut. After a while you can start to connect seemingly unrelated things. After half a dozen or so layoffs it starts to become pretty obvious. Not anything specific, but ya kinda develop a sense about when something is up.
Just my 2c
The next round of layoffs will not be individual contributors rather the management layers. Anywhere from managers all the way to some ELT members.
Then the new CEO, Ayman will bring in new managers and his network of folks.
That’s why managers are going quiet.
@as normally yes.
If your micromanaging manager suddenly goes dark, that's a concern. Way more likely something is up then trust/personal growth on their end.
My manager hasn't set up goals, hasn't had any 1:1s with me in 6 months :) The writing is on the wall eh. I get the sense everyone is waiting for something. No direction from above, no meaningful work assigned. New CEO in a month, the question is whether they will clean house before he starts or after.
@OP it means trust.
When all your higher ups start joining every meeting, that's when you know that doomsday is coming.
@ag are there layoffs coming ?
@OP
I think you know what's up, you just don't know who.