Hey XOM people. We’ll be adopting your forced ranking system this year, PIPs for 0.7s etc. So many rumors here and nothing from management when we ask so I thought I’d go to the source. Is the distribution by team regardless of size or does the distribution go up to a GM or VP level? We have PIPs already but they’re used for disciplinary purposes. I’ve only met one person on a PIP. They were let go but it was pretty egregious. Now we’re going to use them as an “improvement tool” or something.
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@1hd No one knows what "hipo" means.
The main thing is to be a hipo and have a sponsor. If you don’t then your ranking will move all over the place for no reason. You won’t be able to control it as supervisors and roles change and you can’t control that but your ranking will be based on how visible and important your role is and if your supervisor likes you.
You are now in a competition.
Nobody can be trusted.
Be careful about all communication.
Claim credit for the work of others.
Kiss up to the managers you know will be in ranking meetings.
Sabotage coworkers whenever possible.
You need to find a sponsor. Sponsored people get moved around so quickly that they only accumulate a dangerous amount of knowledge about each subject and they leave before any mistakes can be traced to them. Sponsored persons get top ranking no matter what. If you are the Supervisor of a Sponsored persons, do not tell any of their mistakes in a ranking session or you will personally drop in ranking.
Groups with lots of sponsored persons get much higher average rank targets and groups like safety must average less than 40% so that all ranking averages 50%.
Now immediately start undermining every colleague to your boss.
@qa Much, much less than they threw at republicans.
Is there supposed to be a point to this exchange? I don’t think any adult on the planet with a single functioning neuron has an issue with the fact that O&G executives mostly identify as republicans and donate to them.
@jt Yes, but they also threw money at Democrat politicians in the 4 years prior.
Shell stock will go up
When did Shell get rid of forced ranking? They had it back in the 80s and early 90s when I worked there.
@he You’re paid better as a contractor and you have a defined lane where you apply your expertise. It’s when you’re full-time W2 that the company drains you with hours of pointless meetings, tortures you with their ranking system, and uses you as a “generalist” to cover job reqs they don’t want to pay qualified people to fill.
Too many of you are stuck in the 20th century company-man mentality. You need to approach employment like a business transaction or you’ll get eaten alive.
@hk They’re all throwing money at republican politicians.
This pretty easy to check because political donations are (by law) a matter of public record.
@f4 If you think all the executives are all Republicans these days, think again. That ship sailed about 20 years ago. In fact, are slightly more Democrats than Republicans in those seats today. Ironically (or not), that coincides exactly to when treatment of workers has gotten worse.
Forced ranking is basically working like a contractor . The company decides whether to up your contact for another year or kick you to the curb. You have no guarantees that you’ll even be employed the next year.
It’s also a legal loophole to do layoffs without calling it a layoff and he protections if you were formally laid off.
Also a way to rapidly to migrate work offshore to India or replace jobs in US with people here to “train”of visas. As soon as this low cost worker is “trained” they get backfilled with another trainee.
We announced at yesterday's 4Q2025 annual meeting that we had acheived $15.1 billion in structural cost saving from 2019 to 2025 (more than any other integrated oil companies combined). We also announced that the total structural cost savings from 2019 to 2030 is expected to exceed $20 billion.
All other integrated oil companies including Shell is using the same playbook that we initiated/accelerated on in 2019 for structural cost efficiencies.
@da Because they think they’ll be the exception to the rule. Then, when they get thrown under the bus, they act shocked, threaten to file lawsuits, only to roll over and take the abuse.
It’s both pathetic and amusing to watch people with no institutionally protected rights constantly thumping their chests about how “free” they are.
@aj It’s kinda like how everyone here throws hissy-fits over Indians “taking” jobs that are actually being given away by…wait for it…white republican executives.
In other words, nobody here is interested in naming or solving the actual problem; they just want an excuse to slam brown people and coast on mediocrity while collecting a paycheck.
Force Ranking is the best motivator. It gets the best out of you.
This is the American way. Why are Americans moaning about the American way?
Us in ROW are the ones who are d-mbfounded at the treatment of the workforce.
Who is in your rank group depends on management discretion and HR. In theory it has to be a certain size to be statistically significant. But XOM has done it many ways. At the first level they try to rank same CL (Classification Levels). For example 23-25; 26-27; 28-29 and 30+. Now comes the fun part-who is in that CL rank group (usually from your organization) can vary. Sometimes all engineers and sometimes every one in your organization at that same CL level. System used to have guard rails that keep individuals from falling too much in one year but that is no longer the case. So it can be the wild wild west for the ranking process depending on the year. Good luck!
Awesome
Feel free to ask questions on what you want to know about us. We’ll do our best to get the intel and pass it over to you
@ah Go to our page and read the IPF thread, it’s the newest one.
@ah Okay I don’t know anything about that; so are you going to progress the offer of a conversation or just stroke your ego? I’m trying to bridge a gap and fu-k our LT.
It wasn’t long ago that people here were posting about how much better everything is at Shell.
Just saying.
true. at shell - mandatory 5% lower ranking and as high as 20% for some businesses. it started last year.
by what is a huge coincidence this only ended up affecting americans
double lower and you’re out.
let’s see, what else -
reorg every single year
no assigned seats
seating is all entirely tables with single monitors
lights are on a timer. wiggle every 5 minutes or the room goes dark
vending machines have been removed outside of 2-3 floors in each 12-20 floor tower to “conserve energy”
is your company also this cheap and actively hostile to americans? let me know
@OP Follow up question as part of a rumor. there may be a 2 or 3 year rolling average. 2 PIPs in a row, you’re done but need to maintain a 1.0 average for the 2 or 3 years to stay with Shell. At this point we’re a dumpster fire and I’d rather share stuff with you all than think anymore for a minute that Wael Sawan gives a fu-k about us.