What is the idea behind making mangers IC. It cant make sense paying ICs manager money, just to protect their "reports number". I see a lot of them doing not much on great pay. Seems like a win being made IC. As a manager I would love it!
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To manage means to just get by. You are not excelling, you are merely "managing". To have THOUSANDS of individuals "just getting by" at all of these companies is sad. Most of their "barely making it" work can be automated now
And yet, you have VP’s in HR with no direct reports, or recently an IC in HR promoted to VP, again with no direct reports. How do you jump 6 levels? HR don’t allow it for other groups. Why do they get away with … Do as I say, not as I do?
But the rest of us are hammered 20:1?
@hp let’s keep in mind, most of these folks did what they preached. Which is why they earned a Sr. Manager role. They carried the bag, customer first mentality, helped with everything from A-to-Z, whether it was under their purview or not. To be honest, this is how DELL culture has always been regardless of the title. Or it was. Personally speaking, I would like to take it back to bold, agile one team mentality.
I feel compelled to speak up tonight.
Frankly, most of what I read on this site doesn’t make much sense—and it’s painfully obvious that many of you just don’t care.
The few who did care were often in senior manager roles. Unfortunately, depending on the timing, they either got promoted —or worse, demoted due to corporate policy.
It’s a shame. Real leadership and accountability seem to be in short supply.
That said, the only comment that made sense tonight is the shortsightedness that ICs make less than their leaders
It's funny to see managers now IC forced to practice what they preached. Very disgruntled they are and struggling.
Not for long... just interim survival period
The demotion give previous managers time to find a new job. For ICs they just lat us off but leaders get demoted knowing the clock is ticking and have time to find a new job. Ultimate goal is to get rid of people for years now. They just give leadership teams more notice and time to find other options. Thats my opinion on why they demote managers to ic. The previous managers know they won't stay long as IC on a manager salary so they will be next to go for costs.
To assume managers make more than some ICs is short sighted
This has happened before. It will take a few years, but those whose egos can handle it, and who stick around for whatever reason will be promoted back to manager, and teams will slowly start to take a shape that makes functional sense. Then some consulting company will charge Dell an obscene amount of money to recommend a flatter ratio, because some proprietary research says it’s the best ratio, and we will do it all over again.
I can only assume this is what they learn in business school, and it’s stupid, BUT I do see some marginal benefit in forcing orgs to rethink their structure once in awhile…even if this seems like a slow and bumbling way to go about it.
My manager was AMAZING. Best manager I've ever had in my long career. He cared about us both as a team AND individually. Easy to talk to, very personable, ALWAYS had our back, if we work after hours he gives us insperity points AND tells us to take free time off to make up for it.
He was demoted to IC and is doing the EXACT same job as before except he no longer has the managerial "privledges" - promotions, raises, approving PTO and things like that. Otherwise, nothing has changed in regards to his job.
I can't help but wonder if this is part of a larger plan to let go a LOT of these SR. Managers though...
Dell is going to layoff demoted managers, IC now, very soon. This is always the plan.
Managers do not always make more than their direct reports. Depending on what they do, Managers can be transferred to IC roles. I've seen it in the last few months. One of the ideas of AI is to make a not so experienced person look like an experienced person. I've seen it shown on one of our area Town Halls. It's obvious, hire less experienced people and people who make less to do the job of an experienced person. Will it work out? I have no idea.
Id say now they all have huge targets on their back for WFR...
When my boss was a manager I made more than him and when he was made a director I still made more than him. This happened several times during my time at EMC and Dell.
many managers technical skills are out of date or they had few technical skills to begin with...so I question this...they should be laid off like everyone else. Someone above them likes them.
I think there are a few reasons. Long term the company expects to have many ai agents and fewer workers. Fewer workers = lower need for managers. They converted mgrs to ICs ahead of this change, probably expecting some new ICs to leave on their own. Also, there is an argument that ICs will end up "managing" agents.
Everyone knows it is impossible to manage large teams like that. So in the mean time you will have ICs step up to do manager jobs for low pay. At the end bloated team is just another WFR target. It is called totalitarian tip toe or boiling the frog slowly so it does not jump out.
It’s about restructuring and flattening the company. I don’t think most managers who were converted to IC would agree they “don’t do much” though. In most cases, these people are being asked to do the same job they had as a manager but without the title. Their pay might stay the same but now they are no longer on a leadership track and, in most cases, the only thing they are not doing is writing performance reviews or dealing with the HR tasks. A lot of these people are insulted being asked to do the same job though. Guess what that leads to? The answer is: many will choose to leave. Dell achieves a smaller footprint and flattens the company.
What really gets me is seeing good managers — the ones who actually care about their teams and know the business inside out — get demoted, while the yes-man crowd somehow stays put. Some of the best folks end up doing pretty minor stuff. Depending on your situation, that can turn out good or bad though.
Depending on your outlook you may love it, but believe me its horrible. Happened me some time ago and I can't disagree with you im not doing much. But its so unnerving, unsettling etc. Jobs market in this country is not promising. Everyday you are waiting for the dreaded last minute 1x1.
Now if you are a person who likes to do nothing and maybe close to retirement, it would be advantageous but that is not the case for my personal situation.