Thread regarding 3M layoffs

3M GSC Wroclaw- A Long story "Short"

So, finally, it happened.

First, I want to thank Piotr S. for doing what almost nobody else had the courage to do — breaking the silence and speaking the truth. In that moment, you showed more humanity, more integrity, and honestly more leadership than an entire room full of executives combined.

But maybe expecting anything else was naive.

What can you really expect from a CEO and a C-Suite whose success is measured by stock price and shareholder applause? When your stock-based compensation is worth $7.1 million, finding ways to squeeze another 5-6% out of the stock probably feels more important than the lives of the people behind the numbers. And apparently, one of the easiest ways to do that is simple: sacrifice employees. Works like a charm.

And just like that, a 10-12 year organization disappeared.

3M GSC wasn't perfect, but it was built by thousands of hours of hard work, dedication, late nights, friendships, shared struggles, and people who genuinely cared. Overnight, it was dissolved. Why? Nobody really knows. We were told it's a "transition."

God, these people love transitions.

I'm already imagining the next shareholder presentation:

"Expanding AI capabilities."
"Driving efficiencies."
"Transforming the operating model."

Corporate bingo at its finest.

Then came the management communication. Pre-recorded videos. Carefully scripted messages. Smiling faces. Words that somehow lasted several minutes while saying absolutely nothing.

People left those meetings still wondering:

"Am I staying at 3M?"
"Am I moving to Genpact?"
"Why me?"
"Why not someone else?"

No answers. No transparency. No logic.

Just confusion.

The most impressive achievement of the day was probably making thousands of people more confused after a communication session than before it.

A place that grew, evolved, and achieved things people were proud of. Today, we're left with leaders who seem more interested in protecting themselves and pleasing their bosses than protecting their people.

The irony is almost painful.

Some of the people being pushed out today are literally in Warsaw representing 3M at Women in Tech.

Others are leaders in Pride communities.

Others spent years building Employee Experience programs, WLN initiatives, Belonging Teams, clubs, events, volunteering activities, engagement campaigns.

They were the smiling faces in the videos.

The people holding the 3M logo.

The people proudly telling everyone that this was a Great Place To Work.

Seven years in a row.

LOL.

What a joke that slogan feels today.

Many of those same people are now being told they no longer belong.

Years of effort.

Years of loyalty.

Years of believing the company values.

All erased by a spreadsheet.

Management keeps telling people what they think their managers want to hear. Managers tell leaders what they think leaders want to hear. Everyone protects themselves. Everyone avoids uncomfortable truths. The cycle continues.

And the people at the bottom pay the price.

Today many of us feel less like employees and more like livestock being traded between corporations. Packaged up. Sold off. Handed over. No ownership. No accountability. No one willing to stand up and say:

"Yes. This was our decision."

Just another transition.

Another restructuring.

Another corporate success story for the next earnings call.

So with that, goodbye GSC.

Goodbye to the friendships.

Goodbye to the memories.

Goodbye to the culture that thousands of people spent years building.

Whatever happens next, nobody can take away what this place once was.

May the memories never fade.

❤️ Goodbye.


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| 12 views | | 37 replies (last 44 minutes ago) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1ktsv2vsx

37 replies (most recent on top)

@hp For sure, and why I tend to disagree with @e4. I think Inge was fully pulling financial levers long before MR, and innovation was already on the way out.

Buybacks indeed:
https://www.michelezanini.com/the-unsticking-of-3m-how-a-pioneer-in-innovation-lost-its-edge/

IMO 3M's decline is heavily a result of trying to monkey with financial measures that true innovation and growth would sustain naturally. Make awesome products, people buy them, sales, profit, market share, etc. go up -> stock goes up.

But they want to skip all that and just play with layoffs, to squeeze "growth" from 50-100yr old commoditized products, overhype the impacts of things like SAP and musical chairs (A3M), or proclaim some new way to predict success and avoid failures.

Just look at what they say vs. top line. Annual reports tout growth and innovation and awesomeness. Yet 3M was a ~$31B company for years and years. Blip to $35B... "It's the playbook!" Back down to $32B? "Couldn't be anything we did, just those pesky headwinds!"

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Post ID: @ht+1ktsv2vsx

@d2 Don't forget the $17B in debt Inge took on to buy back 3M stock at it's highest point in history to watch all that money go POOF into thin air as the stock price fell in 2020.

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Post ID: @hp+1ktsv2vsx

Being a leader in a cult like Pride is nothing to be proud of. "Years believing the company values". You are a F O O L

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Post ID: @hn+1ktsv2vsx

@OP I am sorry you and your team have to go through this uncertainty and upheaval. I was one of the 1200 in St. Paul in 2023 that the company sacrificed on the altar of "stockholder value". Stay connected to your colleagues and support each other any way you can. Hoping for the best.

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Post ID: @hm+1ktsv2vsx

@he

I think the concept worked so they will take this to the next level and go to India which is a much lower cost country

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Post ID: @hg+1ktsv2vsx

Funniest part? The money saving GSC concept wasn’t working so a consultant blew smoke up the rear ends of executives who actually believe that relocating to India will be a smashing money saving success. Yet again the consultant laughs all the way to the bank.

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Post ID: @he+1ktsv2vsx

@gz you’ve missed the point! Of course companies move and create different processes, it’s how this sh-t company communicate to their employees, a pre-recorded video is a total disrespect to our people, the callous way we handle these situations needs to be better. I sometimes feel ashamed to be of this company.

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Post ID: @h5+1ktsv2vsx

@dn

I know it is controversial but all of the jobs in the GSC were historically done in other higher cost countries. Mostly US for Costa Rica. Su-ks that this is going on but the GSC people took other peoples jobs…with the race to the bottom for lower cost countries, this is not surprising

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Post ID: @gz+1ktsv2vsx

@b3 700-750 to GP 500 to 3m PL

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Post ID: @gc+1ktsv2vsx

@cj same happend 2Y ago when healthcare was transfere. 1Y in GP than layoffs

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Post ID: @gb+1ktsv2vsx

@g1 I asked a colleague in CR and all they could tell the name of the org was changed to GBS. How many are affected with a transfer to Genpact?

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Post ID: @g9+1ktsv2vsx

@g1 eventually the entire GSC model would be scapped. Similar to A3M model. Both were failures.

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Post ID: @g7+1ktsv2vsx

There are people in CR affected, they are asked to move to Genpact by Aug 1.

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Post ID: @g1+1ktsv2vsx

CR could be next
Followed by PH last

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Post ID: @fj+1ktsv2vsx

@et only Poland right now...

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Post ID: @fa+1ktsv2vsx

@ej is only Poland closing now?

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Post ID: @et+1ktsv2vsx

We are seeing those earlier implementations from consultants dismantling

Advanced 3M- failure and scrapped
GSC models- Poland first to scrap, remaining two watch out

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Post ID: @ej+1ktsv2vsx

@d2

I was witness to the Inga T and MR eras in enough of a leadership position to see the effects of their reigns. Whatever one might say about Inga's financial maneuvers, R&D was still healthy and engaged enthusiastically with division developers. It was under MR that only financial considerations were important. That's when developers were made to focus on the very short term, with little outlet for new technologies/products. Again, the CFO had somehow entranced Mikey into the same money mentality. And that upper mgmt could correctly pick the winners. What id*ots.

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Post ID: @e4+1ktsv2vsx

@OP I was there when you were created, talented people eager to learn and be part of 3M, I am so sorry that this great organisation is being dismantled in this way, for me you should of been the future of 3M, I don’t understand. 💙

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Post ID: @dn+1ktsv2vsx

Thanks to inge&mikey financial engineering the stock price now is still a far cry from its peak region $260. Many have seen their retirement equity shrink in astonishment.

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Post ID: @dd+1ktsv2vsx

@ae You're not wrong, but I see MR as the face of the hollowed out shell that Inge handed off to him. Don't let Inge off the hook for squeezing year after year, letting innovation decline, and hitching his whole reign to SAP and utterly failing (not deployed even 10yrs later, much less the promised $500M/year savings).

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Post ID: @d2+1ktsv2vsx

@cx this had started in R&D sometime back. It is getting worse.

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Post ID: @d1+1ktsv2vsx

@cx This post summarizes how many of us feel. The toxicity, micromanagement, ki-l or be ki-led management style and more is ruining (or has ruined) 3M. A company is built on it’s employees. Employees are the foundation of a company. If you destroy employees the foundation and everything falls.

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Post ID: @cz+1ktsv2vsx

3M Leadership:
You are breaking your people.
Talented employees who once gave their best are now burned out, bitter, and disengaged—surviving instead of creating. Micromanagement has strangled autonomy. Bureaucracy smothers speed. Layoffs have left survivors carrying crushing loads with zero loyalty left. Trust is gone. The spirit that built 3M is dying.
This toxicity is on you. When people become disposable costs rather than the heart of the company, you don’t just lose productivity—you lose the soul of the organization.
Stop managing numbers and start leading humans again. Cut the layers. Restore trust. Protect your people before the damage becomes permanent.
Your best talent is already leaving. The rest are quietly giving up.
Fix it—before it’s too late.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Post ID: @cx+1ktsv2vsx

Suggestion: Sabotage

Don't transfer the knowledge to India correctly, make mistakes, take extra time, call extra meetings, require extra approvals. There are a thousand ways for each person in a GSC to make this go badly.

A lucky few will get lucrative contracts to fix the mess created. The rest will get the satisfaction of a little revenge.

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Post ID: @cn+1ktsv2vsx

@cc then Genpact (after some) time will probably lay off those people, by moving processes directly to India :( this what's happened with around 100 of people transferred from Becton Di-kinson into Genpact in the past :( Meaning, if any company starts cooperating with vendors like Genpact, the direction is one and only :(

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Post ID: @cj+1ktsv2vsx

@bn that's the catch. The employees are transferred, not laid off, to Genpact. The other group's contracts are terminated and offered a re-hire by another 3M legal entity, from Warsaw, not Wrocław. The company known as 3M GSC will no longer exist, which means if someone doesn't sign the contract with 3M Poland, they go directly to Genpact. I've hoped for the last 6 months to be laid off with a severance package and an insurance payout so the misery will stop and I could move on to a different place but noooo first drain all resources to transfer knowledge to India or to have additional perks removed and wait for this pile of sz!t to burn to ashes.

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Post ID: @cc+1ktsv2vsx

They didn't deserve you! This story is exactly on point! Best of luck

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Post ID: @bx+1ktsv2vsx

I am so sad for my incredible friends and colleagues in the GSC. Stay strong, as an earlier comment mentioned- they never deserved you.

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Post ID: @bs+1ktsv2vsx

What is genpact

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Post ID: @bq+1ktsv2vsx

@bh wow that's 1,200 employees impacted. Hope those who transferred out have received some compensation.

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Post ID: @bn+1ktsv2vsx

@b3 approx 500 people will be moved to 3M Poland, 700 people to Genpact

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Post ID: @bh+1ktsv2vsx

Does anyone know what is the total employee count in Poland GSC impacted by this?

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Post ID: @b3+1ktsv2vsx

Feel sorry for all the folks at the Poland GSC. I am part of the LEX team from US and had wonderful experience with all the colleagues from Poland. Genuinely hard working and very knowledgeable folks. At the peak team size in Poland used to be 25 resources and In a matter of 3-4 years, 3M lost all the talented people to Deloitte and Accenture because they could not compete with salaries. Good old memories with all the BT implementations and travel to both sites in Poland.

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Post ID: @b1+1ktsv2vsx

@OP don't forget to train your AI replacement robots. Time to flip the middle finger and let the f'ers figure it out themselves

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Post ID: @aw+1ktsv2vsx

@OP - regarding your comment “What can you really expect from a CEO and a C-Suite whose success is measured by stock price and shareholder applause?” I’d like to take the comment a step further. The CEO / C-Suite compensation and performance metrics are determine by the Board of Directors. These are the same people who kept our previous CEO MR in his position while the company lost 10 years of value during his reign. I think this is where the core issues lie.

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Post ID: @ae+1ktsv2vsx

May you all find amazing next chapters. This company did not deserve you.

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Post ID: @a8+1ktsv2vsx

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