Hello, I cover health insurance for the Financial Times. If anyone would like to chat anonymously about the situation at CVS, Caremark or Aetna, please reach out at Mansur.Shaheen@FT.com
11 replies (most recent on top)
Lol at person making everything about race. The DEI scam is over
I did strategy consulting for CVS. I am not familiar with these layoffs but do know of racially motivated eliminations planned for the future. I’ll tell you about it and provide the receipts if you actually publish it otherwise GFY.
They are probably paying you so they can not pay out peoples severance packages.
The intranet post was made at 7:00:00 ET and was likely scheduled. We are not notified when these posts are made. There is no email trigger and unless you're looking for something, most people don't check that site frequently enough for that to be sufficient. We are simply lacking dignity in this process. Last year, we had to wait on-edge for WEEKS; this year, a sudden surprise. There is plenty of literature on how to properly communicate massive changes with dignity and genuine empathy but clearly, nobody has bothered to read it. Ask ANY person at this company how to save $100,000 and they'll all tell you something different. There is so much waste and instead of assessing vendor contracts or even selling off barren real estate, we're doubling down on things like RTO. It's disheartening to say the least. I'd rather work harder and eliminate vendors in exchange for a fellow colleague's security and wellbeing.
“…enhancing long-term shareholder value.”
WOW! What a disaster of a comment! You would think she would focus on the lives CVS touches not on shareholders! Even morale down employees could at least relate to the actual health outcomes CVS affects. But to say focus on 'shareholder value'?! If that really was her focus she should step down, and I don't say that glibly.
As I read that, I though it's important for us (and leadership) to remember that all of us who continue to do our day-to-day work are inherently focused on the long-term value of the company's stock.
It's the shareholders and the board who've lost focus on the long-term value of the stock, in favor of chasing the dragon of perpetual short-term quarterly growth. That crippling addiction is what had been holding retail back for ages, and is now threatening a once-stalwart Aetna.
My bad! KL did NOT send an email. She posted that in the article they snuck onto the intranet homepage.
Did KL send an email? I did not see any
Selfish reporter looking for a cheap scoop which puts our severance packages at risk.
The last time CVS had layoffs in 2023, there were several weeks of lead up, so we knew staffing changes were coming. This time around, they did not announce pending layoffs. The only way staff were notified was an intranet homepage post titles “Ensuring our continued competitiveness” that was posted at 5am Monday by a Senior VP of Communications.
After layoffs last year, morale has been tanking and our internal employee survey scores reflect that. I’m shocked as an employee that CVS leadership just keeps posting “articles” on the intranet homepage and no company-wide emails are being sent about these layoffs.
In an email this morning, our CEO said not to pay attention to speculative news stories and essentially said we need to keep in mind we need to focus on “…enhancing long-term shareholder value.”
I will openly say there has been minimal communication on the layoffs enterprise wide.
Some teams have had proper leadership and layoffs were addressed. Others such as my own, if I hadn’t read it on the company’s internal site, I would have never known until I saw a local news blurb about the layoffs.
Karen also published another article calling the speculation of breaking up the company is false and to put your head down and keep plugging (also with zero reference to the layoffs).
Morale was low and this is only making it go lower with minimal confidence in leadership.