With the massive cuts and loss of so much talent and are we setting ourselves up for complete failure in the not so distant future? Accidents are already sky high and we haven't completed the understaffing measures completely. Guess Mike doesn't care about his legacy and wrecking a historic company.
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@dm Ken Derr and maybe even Dave O'Reilly. Dave had the guts to routinely have lunch in the cafeteria with the employees!
@cg Ken Derr was the last of the best!!!
@cr You are 100% correct. This is not a strategic reorganization meant for long term organizational survival. It is meant to achieve market metrics at all costs. The numbers will look good while the corporate leadership is bailing out of the plane door with their parachutes. After the afterglow of the infusion of the metrics wears off, the residual cracks in the airframe will start to show. Unfortunately, the O&G industry is in decline and finding experienced people in a couple of years to fix the aging airframe while in flight won't come easy or cheap. McKinsey doesn't see or plan for this, as they were only paid to make the company hit the market metrics. The management that sanctioned this reorg will be long gone despite selling us this reorg on the "accountability" phrase. The incoming management is comprised largely of Horizons era engineers who have only been interested in collecting participation awards and never delivering anything tangible. Short term prognosis looks good, long term is not so good. For those of us without parachutes, we should consider looking for a safer plane ride. This place is getting too sketchy to trust the livelihood of my family on.
I think most people responding here don't fully understand the COMBINATION of current objectives, time horizons, and who is in charge. The CEO has a short-term horizon and isn't setting up Chevron to be a long-term winner -- he is setting the company up to look like a winner over the next 3 years. Why would he do that? Because MW wants to trigger short-term performance triggers and maximize compensation to be able to walk away with as big of a money bag as possible. Multiple rounds of layoffs automatically reduce company's OpEx, boost P/E ratios and move the stock price up. Hess purchase automatically plugs the hole associated with the low reserve replacement ratio (it automatically goes up from 88% to 100%). In the long term (5+ years), the company will experience declines in quality, safety, performance, etc but that will be the problem for the next ELT as the current people will have left with golden parachutes triggered by prior short term achievements. Boing 2.0 analogy is valid here....
@az I remember when CVX brought in a CEO for Microsoft and said, that they wanted to run CVX like Microsoft a software company. For the last four years, they have dismantled the Chevron brand, to the extent those of us that had worked a good part of our lives there, did not notice the company. This last layoff joke, I cannot tell you the number of people that said, "it was not the company, that it was" and that is absolutely the truth. John Watson charter was one of the best in contrast to the present circus.
@bc "We are running in that direction fast!" You mean "they".
@by "The deep cuts, loss in knowledge and using outsourced labor is the recipe for disaster that will reflect terribly on ELT and shareholders easily will abandon the company." They are censoring comments on this forum in favor of Chevron. I could not agree more with your assessment and it will likely be taken down the by the end of the day.
Op here, I absolutely dont want accidents and major issues for Chevron either. We are just running in that direction quickly and haven't learned from other companies failures. The deep cuts, loss in knowledge and using outsourced labor is the recipe for disaster that will reflect terribly on ELT and shareholders easily will abandon the company. Unfortunately the poor leadership won't hurt MW and Friends as they will bare minimum take a golden parachute and more likely will have retired already.
@OP unfortunately I agree with you. Wouldn’t wish accidents on anyone, but I think that’s where this is headed.
@az Relying on cheap Indian labor thats not qualified to do the job and getting rid of talented employees just to "stay competitive" aka appease shareholders for short term gains is absolutely wrecking the long term of the company. Boeing's cost cutting was very profitable for a while and then long term it caught up with them and became a disaster. We are running in that direction fast!
@az layoffs are not about efficiency or competitiveness. It is a way to purge employees especially older ones and appease the board and other stakeholders. It is a strategy to end long term employee’s in hopes to avoid paying pensions and other benefits.
That’s a bit dramatic. While no one likes seeing talent walk out the door, strategic restructuring doesn’t automatically mean we’re heading for disaster. Every major company evolves, especially in fast-changing industries, and sometimes that means tough calls on staffing. The goal isn’t to “wreck” anything, it’s to adapt and stay competitive. And let’s not pretend Mike’s just casually tanking a legacy brand; leadership has to balance performance, innovation, and sustainability, even if it’s unpopular in the short term.