Thread regarding Symantec Corp. layoffs

If you are not offered a position with Broadcom, then your employer is still Symantec (Remain Co). If Remain Co then lays you off, you will likely get a severence. That severence is dictated on several factors to include the country / state in which you work, your paygrade, years of service, etc. It will not look the same for everyone. Those who are based in California are WARN protected, but not true for all states.

If you are losing sleep at night over severence, here is a suggestion: Call your HR business partner and ask them for guidance. While they cannot tell you if you are going to be RIF’d. They can provide you information that can help you understand what type of package you may receive.

It seems like a lot less deadwood was trimmed than expected/needed—most of the non-engineering teams like marketing and support are intact. Mostly just older employees and some management.

The deal first has to be approved by the regulators. There's no firm timeline on that. Once the deal closes, you can expect 2 weeks notice from Broadcom on your status (STAY, TRANSITION and TERMINATE).

I suggest you read this useful thread, particularly the post by CAdood: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/ZS6FvhK

@10rGUztJ-2zwr The deal has to be cleared by watchdog first. They're looking at the end of the year but I'd assume it starts as soon as November to go along with Broadcom's fiscal year. At this point your guess is as good as any. We need to wait for clearance.

By when can we expect to start receiving the offer letters from Brcm? Any ideas? Need this info as would have to look for something before that happens. As they may or may not extend an offer. Need to be aware of the timeline due to visa limitations/restrictions.

I can't tell whether this person is spreading FUD/trolling, or is afraid. I do notice that they keep coming up with scenarios to justify the "massive layoffs with no severance" claim. It's just silly.

Arguments about Broadcom buying just assets don't matter. Even through that twisted lens, Symantec ESG employees will either get job offers from Broadcom or Symantec (RemainCorp) will RIF the people that Broadcom doesn't want and offer them a severance package.

Stop inventing scenarios to justify the hysterical claim. If you can't help but see the glass as empty, at least stop spreading your poison so that other people don't worry needlessly.

No-one is going to be suddenly left out in the cold.

Who is the one id–t that keeps on posting about no severance? Go find a job my friend and you don't have to worry about it. I'm in development and will take my chances with a potential of huge RSU grants for staying with Broadcom. Btw, Consumer AV is screwed. How you going to have a viable product with all the technology going with STAR and Broadcom.

As far as I I know, severance pay is entirely discretionary in the United States. If it were legally required, then Symantec would need to pay severance to all Enterprise Business Unit employees who remain with the company at the time of the deal closing, regardless of whether they receive or accept an offer from Broadcom

Upper management has not gone on record with respect to severance pay for those EBU employees who remain employed as of the deal closing, but I have no doubt that employees who join Broadcom will not receive severance. The agreement between Symantec and Broadcom likely requires Broadcom to provide Symantec with a list of all Symantec employees who accepted an offer from Broadcom. Symantec will use this information to ensure that those who accepted an offer from Broadcom will not receive severance.

The exchange of this type of information is no different than one company calling another to verify an applicant’s job history. In the United States, this type of information can be provided without the employee’s consent. Moreover, Broadcom could easily require people to grant such consent as part of any job offer.

This type of exchange of information without the employee’s consent seems like a privacy violation to me, but that’s not how the law in the United States views things.

A few queries since upper management cannot be specific in their "FAQ" (notice, said FAQ doesn't focus on the employee)

• Broadcom keeps us a few months -before- close and decides to RIF (I'm sure there's more RIFs). Does the company honor the severance?

• Broadcom keeps old symantec employees -after- close, but decides to RIF. Does the company honor the years from old symantec?

The second is scary. All the years you've worked and in the end after closing you get RIFd without anything. Perhaps being RIf earlier got the better deal.

Isn't it sad we have to rely on this forum because our fearless leaders are too secretive?

This is different from the CA acquisition in which they bought the entire company. Broadcom has acquired the assets of the EBU. Broadcom will offer positions to people before the close, not after. That is, a number of people will simply not be offered a position at Broadcom, therefore severance from Broadcom would not apply.

In this deal, Broadcom is purchasing the Enterprise Security products and the Enterprise Security customer contracts and will make offers of employment to a population of employees who will be identified as part of the integration process to support Enterprise Security.

Broadcom will extend offers to a population of Enterprise employees by close. They will make those decisions between now and close and will extend offers accordingly

It is very clear that not everyone in the EBU will become a Broadcom employee.

Will such people who do not offers get severance from Former Symantec? Maybe? Unlikely?

if You are not offered a position by Broadcom you won’t ever be a Broadcom employee therefore Symantec severance would apply.

It's sad to see some people can't shake this false idea that the Broadcom buyout will lead to firings without severance. I repeat: research (Google is your friend) and critical thinking.

Corporate buyouts and carveups happen all the time. They are not being used as a mechanism to avoid the CA WARN act or paying severance packages. If that was happening, you'd be reading about it in the news, along with class action lawsuits and scrutiny from government.

Again, I suggest you read this useful thread, particularly the post by CAdood: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/ZS6FvhK

After the Broadcom aquistion closes, you can expect a notification within a couple of weeks telling you your status:

• STAY: Welcome to Broadcom (likely better pay)
• TRANSITION: Your position will end in 6-12 months, we'll give you a bonus to stay until the end
• TERM: We don't need you, here's a severance package.

Again, there's not going to be mass firings without severance. Stop the hysteria and spreading panic.

It’s with mixed emotions that I received my RIF notification. I have been with Symantec for 13 years. I have watched so many RIFs pass me by, all the while sweating that I would be on the next list. I joined the company thinking to add value. I just didn’t think my value would be contributed to the pockets of the soulless few who stand on the top looking down and proclaiming that we are being put into a “more positive position of opportunity”, to borrow a phrase from Rick Hill’s speech.

I think people with that much money should be required to take a class in reality.

Dude, Broadcom is not doing this for the first time. If they will fire people without severance, you will hear it from people from previous acquisition already.

If anyone at Consumer thinks they are safe, they are mistaken. I am glad to be leaving today, Symc has become the hellhole I can't tolerate.

An excerpt from the yesterday's call:

Absolutely! So we have 12,000 employees today. We are marching in our improvement plan towards a 10,000 in aggregate for the full company. We’ve started to reduce the headcount as you may have seen in our report and we do more as we go forward.

When you talk about the remaining company post-transition period, we’ll have about $2.5 billion of revenue and we believe that $1 million per employee is the right long term target. 2,500 is the long time target. We should be very close to that after the end of the transition period.

People who do not receive or accept an offer of employment from Broadcom will not receive severance from Broadcom because they were never Broadcom employees. This situation does not involve the sale of a company. It involves a sale of some of a company’s assets. There is a difference.

If anything, people who remain employed by the company currently known as Symantec who do not receive or accept an employment offer from Broadcom will receive severance from Symantec when the deal closes. That’s because they were employees of Symantec at the time the deal closed and their employment was terminated by Symantec at that time.

Any idea what would become of those whose green card is already under process from Symantec?

There is yet another way that employees in the Executive Business Unit are going to feel the brunt economically. If an employee has taken a loan from their 401(k), that loan will become payable in full upon the end of the employee’s tenure with the company currently known as Symantec (I.e. the closing date of the deal). If the employee is unable to repay the loan in full at that point, the amount owed will be treated as a disbursement that will be taxable (and potentially subject to penalty if applicable). This will happen regardless of whether someone receives and accepts an offer of employment with Broadcom.

The statements proclaiming that people will not get a severance from Broadcom are rubbish. Before spreading this rubbish and scaring people, do some basic research and apply critical thinking. For starters, the WARN act still applies in California. Companies get bought all the time, and you don't see employees being let go with nothing.

I suggest you read this useful thread, particularly the post by CAdood: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/ZS6FvhK

I'll go further - if you work in EBU and Broadcom does NOT offer you a position you will NOT get severance. This is NOT discussed in the FAQ, which is why it will happen. Why would Broadcom pay you severance for a job they never offered you, and why would Symantec pay severance to an employee they just sold to Broadcom - Symantec is specifically not RIF'ing you. Your job just goes poof into the ether.

Redundant roles (HR, legal, some sales, marking, help desk, and support) will get laid off like 90%. If you are an important role like an engineer in enterprise on important product, they will most likely keep you. Broadcom cares about the big customers and sticky products not small fish and experiments. They just want to make money with sustainable franchises listen carefully to his calls.

Get the resume updated and start interviewing just in case. Think about it logically instead of emotionally. CA went through it and it was tough for non-mainframe but mainframers are all happy. If your franchise and product makes money now, then you prob okay but dont get too comfy.

Hey guys,
What will happend DLP support guys. Will Draper and Toronto be affected ?
Do we need to start looking out for jobs ?

Because if they stick around they get a severance package. It’s spelled out in the FAQ.

This a bit of hysteria. Some people will get RIFed, some will stand and some will be asked to stay for 6 months for the transition (with an incentive package to stay on for the transition).
If you read other threads for other companies bought by Thanos (Broadcom CEO), you'll see it's pretty transparent.

BTW: I'm one of the people who got RIFed, and I'm really happy. I'm going to enjoy the time off.

I don't know about "terminated all employees" statement. That's a little out there. Why speculate when when you have precedence on what Broadcom is going to do. They literally did the exact same thing to another security company last year.

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/ZS6FvhK

All of this information can be found in the FAQ referenced in the CEO’s email.

Where did you find this information?

Yes, they were careful not to say that during the call, but that is the net-net of the situation.