Curious how HPE decides who gets WFR'd.
Does a manager get told they have to let specific employees go? A certain $$ amount of salaries and they pick the employee(s)? A certain # of heads?
I would logically guess that the manager decides which employees to WFR, because people above the manager likely have zero idea of where the manager can absorb the impact the easiest... but saying logical when referencing HPE kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm betting its got something to do with money. The offshore jobs is still dealing with money. It doesnt matter that one onshore manager can do the work of 4 or 5 entry levels, especially not when you can get 15 or 20 of them for the price of one if its offshore, no compliance, no guidance. Like whats going on with that case for disability discrimination where they fired a guy cause he and his wife cost them too much in health insurance benefits, or money.
Age. Salary. Age. And age.
Superb explanation.
Left HPE on my own before they could WFR me, was glad to leave. Working at a much better place for more money and treated better.
@2egh- thank you for clearly explaining the entire story. Have a good weekend. I truly mean that!!!
Well a couple of things regarding the accuracy of my information. I was not in HR nor legal. I was a delivery manager that did this for more years than I should have.
It is true that Meg has blatantly gone after those over 55 and has made no bones about it. I don't know how HP can win the pending age discrimination class action lawsuit as she is on the record. Anyway, the severance agreement cleverly forces you to agree that this is not the case or you get not severance yada yada yada but we all know that it is.
Regarding labor pyramid... 100% of the management discussion is about where you work and your level not how much you make. Again there is clearly an indirect salary correlation but salary was not the deciding factor for labor pyramid. The deciding factor was 1. your level which was to be as low as possible and 2. your location which was to be offshore by 60%.
So what was the managerial impact? The larger % of onshore higher leveled people (like Experts and Masters) the larger your quota was. Firing older workers was the direct result lately.
One last thing I'll mention here. When layoffs started back in 2006 low performers were easy to target. When it continued year after year what happened in reality was that the younger, less experienced people were targeted for WFRs because a senior person could do their role plus take on one or more people's jobs as they were fired. THAT is why the labor pyramid got to be upside down. The MBAs at McKensie never looked at the productivity and amount of work those older that were left. So yes, you had a 20 year onshore employee doing the job of say a mid-level technician and that was a red flag. What was never considered was that senior person was doing the work of 4, 5 or 6 of the med-level techs that got WFRed.
@2nse- Not fully accurate (thinking you are HR or legal) how do you explain in 2016/17 the large portion of victims were long (15 plus years) tenure? That is NOT a coincidence, since MW said in a townhall the distribution of the triangle needed to be reversed. In addition the mandate to hire college graduates? Good information but not completely accurate.
@LKIh7lG-2xej mic drop
damn! thanks for all the detail. seems to match up with what I've seen so far.
@LKIh7lG-2xej -- that is outstanding information that should be shared with all HPE employees. Thank you for posting this!!!
Here is how WFRs are really decided:
Executive Management determines that the financial numbers are not being met or going to be met. So basically revenue is down or below expectations but profitability has to be maintained if not increased; only thing to do is cut costs.
They determine how many head cuts need to happen and a total number is decided.
A mixture of global and regional management determine how the allocation will be made by function and organization. This of course means that some teams get two quotas: 1 for the region and another for global.
The Your managers manager decides how his/her total allocation of cuts will flow within their span of control.
Your manager gets a quota of heads to cut. Sometimes it is a % of the total team but most often it will be a hard number with a due dates of names to be WFRed back to the business office tracking your team within 2 - 5 business days.
Your manager then selects who goes. There is no negotiation or push back allowed. If your manager cannot give up the names, then their name goes on the list and the next manager picks the quota - 1.
Selection criteria back on 2006 when we started this was pretty easy. Low ranked people with performance issues topped all lists. After a while it become a game of mitigating short term risks. Loud, angry customers and account teams tended to not have their people WFRed. But after several years even that did not work as the pool was shrunk to bare bones. Then it became a game of who will cause the least damage when WFRed. No function or team was off limits after a while; even off shore places like Costa Rica and India.
7 a. One note here... the assumption that salary was a consideration was NEVER a direct factor. Where you lived (USA, Canada, Germany, Spain, etc.) and the legal protection afforded you as a local citizen was first and foremost. Now it is true those onshore countries are better paid... but picking one person in the USA over another because they made 25% more over the other was not considered.
7 b. When names where selected, they were "scored" based on skills like customer facing, project management, technical skills, etc. Lowest scores "justified" the choices and created a legal paper trail.
Once a name was submitted it was all but impossible to get them pulled off or swapped with another. It did happen but was very rare.
When names where submitted, the WFR machine started and was all but impossible to stop. Cut off for IT access for example was set in stone. I had someone that was on the WFR list that happened to find another job in HP well in advance of being notified. When the day came and went, the next day they lost all IT access regardless of remaining an HP employee. Needless to say they figured out that they were to be WFRed and was less than happy.
Another gotcha was that if your organization hit the overall quota assigned, chances were almost certain that if another organization in the missed their quota, your team would have to "make up the miss". "Take one for the team", we were told. This happened a lot.
One other complication is when HP files with the SEC an intention of paying $XXX millions in severance in the coming fiscal year (Google 10k filing). That causes some interesting quota behavior too. That is when the WFR quota is not heads reduced BUT heads reduced that were paid severance. So what happens then is your manager will not give you a nudge that you need find another job or at least polish your resume and have a plan B. If you are on the WFR list and you leave HP or simply take another job within HP, your manager has to find another person on your team to replace you. So it ends up a double whammy to the team.
Finally... (as if this is not enough) ... let's say or argument sake that at the first of the year, the Street is promised US$1 billion in cost reductions. That is 10,000 people at $100k per year salary if those 10,000 are laid off on day 1 of the fiscal year. That never happens. So let's say they lay off 5,000 by the end of Q2. That means that 5,000 have been paid $250 m and the company only get 6 months or $250 m in cost reduction benefit for the year. Oops. Another $750 m to go in 6 months. So now quotas have to go up and monthly cuts happen then it gets to weekly cuts. It is an ugly curve.
Well surely someone remembers the penalties for their State for not doing what HP was supposed to do...
Well 2016 was pretty much out of your managers hands and due to that big Mckinzee audit...age, heads and dollars. Your manager and their boss and it way higher than that had no control last summer of who got laid off. Implementations didn't matter and they would rather pay a penalty. Anybody remember that? Probably wasn't in the know If you don't remember.
I haven't been laid off from HPE, but at the last place I worked, I believe it was largely based on salary. I was one of the most expensive people on my team because of where I lived. (Many of my coworkers lived in low-cost locales like Florida and Ohio, and I presume they were being paid less than I was.)
A summary of how you get chosen (in many departments) is for lack of sufficient ruthlessness! Really and truly! … Now hear me out: Management is required to “toe the line” and deny-deny-deny (lie), and say that there IS no “forced distribution” performance reviews. But there are, and everyone knows it! So, to “pop out” (look good, avoid the next layoffs), you must shove others down. It is known! Steal credit for their work, trash-talk them in front of the boss, road-block them, do NOT do a good job of commenting your codes, so that no one else can understand your “super-genius” work, and on and on… I have seen that (trash-talking) done in staff meeting, in front of everyone, except for the being-trash-talked victim. The clueless manager responded along the lines of, “Well, I guess I am glad that we all feel free to speak our minds here”. … So you have GOT to point out to the boss, when the others aren’t team-playing at all, and trying to back-stab you… But then that can be a double-edged sword, since that can be seen as trash-talking them! It’s really dicey; decent ethical folks can not survive there long (after years and years of this dog-eat-dog way of life). It’s turning into a giant shark tank!
Groups (and groups of groups) are given mandated "body count" listings... And then, even if a boat-load of folks quit, die, move to a different HPE job, or otherwise suffer attrition... The "body count" must still be met! HPE stock values depend on it! (Supposedly... I'm not so sure that the stockholders are fooled, any more). THAT is why most managers do NOT give you a "heads up" warning that "now might be a really-really good time to look for a different job in HPE"! ... HPE management has NOT learned the lessons of the Vietnam War... Wars are not won by bureaucratic "body counts", they are won by smart thinking! But the latter (smart thinking) has been eradicated by now, in HPE management.
Probably depends by group. My team's manager actually told us he had to cut X amount of people and budget, and it was really tough to make the choices.
Well, the way some of my teammates were WFR'd was a bit different. It was actually based on performance. They laid off the folks with the lowest reviews, which had more experience and a higher salary than others on the team. But don't wait, just quit HPE...
My guess is exactly what you described - salary amounts to be cut are provided and the managers have to pick people. It is definitely no longer based on performance. At least not in the division I was in for almost 20 years. The last 5 years, it felt like managers kept people they like not people who work really hard, have positive results and knowledge/experience.
Column 1 age, Column 2 salary.. sort. Lop off until $$ is reached.