If one has cancer, you would remove the tumor by precisely removing malignant cells. If it is not done in time, metastasis occurs and malignant cancer cells spread and start to create new tumors in different remote organs. If a doctor comes and decides to k–l 10% of all cells in the body, it will be meaningless.
Precise job cut-offs in a dooming industry and/or in hard times are needed. Expecting a great future with a 10% across the board cut is a meaningless and stupid strategy. The cancerous cells (some may say it is ExxonMobil low and high level management. Many with poor college pedigree) will continue to metastasize and engulf the empire.
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@1see
In an ideal world, it shouldn't matter. In big corporate world, it matters at times (more pronounced among international colleagues who may have had not as startling past or foundational education).
The problem arises when certain individuals work really hard to create processes and work that they can compete in and excel. A lot of times, these processes and artificially created work are unproductive and sometimes they are toxic. When people of certain attribute move up., they recognize and bring up and reward same low level talent.
It is not applicable to everyone but if you look around, you will find decent examples. So do your own research and judge yourself. Everyone is free to develop their own data set and conclusions.
So grads should take note from
@par+16mq4Npe Post
Spending years of your life to get a higher degree does not matter. You will be another number. Most of you are looking for that but it does reflect a small sample of what you might be dealing with. If you know something is wrong and you see it is wrong and you dare “open that can of worms” you will likely be fired. Then you may be labeled as having a “bad attitude” because of your “pedigree”
This happens a lot when the wrong people are promoted.
Is this really a problem?
Many with poor college pedigree
@1oxw (below): What would you suggest for someone doing IT? Are O&G IT skills transferable to tech companies without MBA?
if you lose your job, plan on being out of work for a year. Better to go back and get an MBA, so you have different skills since oil and gas jobs will be low for several years. Previous oil price crashes were not timed with a COVID-bad economy on a worldwide basis. I know several former ExxonMobil now at Microsoft, Google and Amazon and doing well but they are MBAs with engineering degrees.
Cut salary by more than half of these mo–ns. Remove all the perks and then these id–ts will start to do work instead of creating illusion of work. Treat all employees with rewards equivalent to what they deserve as pathetic performers. Let's not fool ourselves by referring top and bottom performers. Most will have a very difficult time finding employees who perform anything useful throughout the organization irrespective of their ranks and position.
On the ranking side of business are arguing: When everyone is good some good will be at the bottom. Reality check: When all are bad, even id–ts will be ranked top performers.
After workforce reductions in 1980s and 1998, I saw many survivors of layoffs voluntarily quit and go elsewhere particularly when oil price spiked to 150/b in middle 2000s. Some did very well, others were laid off again, but in general the former ExxonMobil did well. Also, many are on wall street in private equity or crude trading or oil and gas lending or consulting if they have mba and technical background. Some of the pure technical are running smaller independents. Most will land on their feet.
If this is true why has Exxon used this for bait for investors? Why would a woman who completed graduate school for engineering with a high gpa for while working for Exxonmobil and well liked by her managers be told that she has no chance of becoming an engineer?
If everyone is a high perfomer. How do you reduce the size of the workforce when oil price collapses. Maybe you use the CVX or Shell system. CVX is cutting way more than XOM this year. And CVX and RDS had deep cuts in 2017 (XOM did not). Looking back XOM should have cut deeper in 2017.
@par+
"Managers only want top two quintiles in their groups."
So that they can then redistribute them to the presribed ranking distribution next cycle?? Case in point for how this system system is awful
The company recruits from the top 30 to 40 universities for engineers and engineers with MBA and accountants and accountants with finance or MBA on a global basis. There are over 4000 colleges in US. alone. College pedigree rarely matters if this is the hiring pool. Performance after arriving at work matters. I have fired Ivy League MBAs who had chips on their shoulders and would not do the work. It was "below them". No one cares where you went to college after 3 to 5 years. Managers only want top two quintiles in their groups. It is a real headache managing PIPs who should be fired. In rank sessions, I never cared where they went to college on employees more than 10 year service. Their ranking in prior jobs mattered whole more. GPA is meaningless after being hired and it does not show up in any employee record.
I am not disagreeing about the curves but I think a more fair evaluation process would have been better or being honest that we need to cut some of the positions. How many will see Exxon’s people let go in 2020 as poor performers? I believe a lot of people here are intelligent people that can go elsewhere and be high performers in higher positions This has marked people and that is how a lot of people see it.
Consultants are not always right.
Learn to code
XOM hisorically did not cut base pay. It prefers to terminate low performers and hold base pay constant. We used to use the term "salary transition" for those paid above their salary curve. These people did not get pay cuts, just o pay raises. But in last 50 years, XOM has not reduced the savings plan match. In fact it increased it from 6 to 7%. So the cut in the match means "everything" is on the table: PIP, match, pension, executive compensation, headcount, org structure. Maybe alot of people on the Upstream curve need to have base pay cut to downstream levels or be demoted to a lower salary curve? Maybe all curves need to drop to encourage more voluntary resignation for people wanting to change industry or go back to school.
Low performers are low relative to other XOM in the rank group. Multiple supervisors and second line managers sit through these. But a low performer in XOM is not necessarily a low performer in the industry, in goodtimes these people can get another job, oftentimes with a pay raise. Just not in a oil sub $40/b business climate
Did we hire people when clearly we were already cutting just to include the new hires in the Lay-off so it would not be seen as age discrimination? It is common knowledge across the company as you get older you are ranked lower. Suddenly we decide to cut jobs by that ranking and for the first year ever include new hires! Wake up! Thought of it all didnt we?
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol31_2004/spring2004/hr_spring04_forced/
Backbone would have been you taking accountability for your poor management decisions. What ridiculous comments. Anyone can read between the lines in this “lay-off “. Go troll your yammer page. Isn’t that where most of you invest your time now?
I see the narcs are trolling the lay-off boards. Now you get to see who really should be cut. This is your new management.
What a mo–n to even make a statement like that. This is your problem Exxon. Your Bubba Sups with high school diplomas that think they are qualified to rank your PhD’s.
Hello Snowflakes, There are more annuitants holding more shares than XOM employees. We will not vote for a dividend cut. We voted our shares supporting managment. We also worked for 35 years and survived multiple workforce reductions and oil price busts. Please grow up or get out. No problem with losing the class of worker that had to have mom call the boss or needed a trophy when on a losing little league team. Join the real world. It is tough out there, so grow a backbone
The cancer is the bottom 10% being let go. Imagine being a parasite just leeching income from the company with minor contribution back. All the ones being let go deserve to be let go for just being a drain on the company.
“Bubba Sup”
XOM for long
Another one promoted that does not belong there and likely has to defend his choices now. I’m sure you will be on the next chopping block.
Exxonmobil headcount grew by nearly 5000 from 2016 to 2019. Upstream shrank during this time, so I suppose most of the growth was in the gulf coast chemical and refining projects or IT. ALL groups in chem/downstream and upstream need workforce reduction at lower capex levels forecasted for next 3 years. XOM needs only a three hundred project people and geologists to implement Brazil and Guyana projects. But headcount will be added in Guyana and Brazil for operations (with over 50% local talent and some expats initially). This addition will be offset by asset sales and divesting the people with the asset. Headcount in Upstream needs to come down further if PNG, MOZ or Qatar LNG projects are delayed
During Q&A for second quarter earnings announcement, Chapman indicated that the revised strategy is being developed now and will be approved by board in Nov. XOM will tell public at investor day in March 2021. So next year, watch out. More workforce reductions and management cuts are coming. I expect all salary curves to be dropped based on industry salary surveys and Oil and Gas surveys. Entire industry curve is dropping (yes even in tech companies). I expect reduced stock grants (that is a cash expense for company) and lower bonus for executives, more cuts of low performers, and many jobs reclassified to lower CL. This is no different than 1986 or 1998. Salaries were held low for 3 to 5 years after an oil bust, and voluntary attrition of high performers is best indicator of competition for talent.
Agree with observations, most people in PIP belong there and have been for long time. Few exceptions who dropped suddenly were not dropped earlier due to stickiness in system, while they truly should’ve been brought down. Many who were low performers actually went up for first time because those who were high finally dropped, some to PIP.
The “what about me” folks are going away, thank god for that... we are paying way too much salary as well, because we don’t give bonuses.. hope the salaries are also cut by 20% similar to how other majors have gotten rid of bonus. Those who cry will always cry no matter what, those are the ones that need to be chopped mercilessly
@pqx
the problem is the "low performers" are not always actually low performers because of the broken ranking system. You can have a group with mostly high performers ranked against each other and some of them will end up as "low performers." The same thing is applied to "high performers". Some of the "high performers" are not actually high performers. This is the point the first post is about, human cells vs actual cancer cells.
XOM likely plan is to first remove 10% of low performers, and then additional 10-15% through layoffs with severance package. The severance layoffs will be surgical like OP commented THEY ARE COMING .
Naive to think that XOM is done with 10% through PIP. Wake Up!!
We know in the end the number will likely be much higher than 10%. It seems like another dishonest statement we made to the public.
We know in the end the number will likely be much higher than 10%. It seems like another dishonest statement we made to the public.
The simple fact is that cutting opex/capex and certain benefits and employee headcount is the best way to preserve the jobs of the remaining. The issue is can the company reliably determine who belongs on the PIP list . My observation is the rank groups (fifty or more) are large enough that the bottom grouping (bottom four people) generally are easy to determine.