Thread regarding Honeywell International Inc. layoffs

DEA,

I move the company forward by being a product engineer. I work a lot of extra hours, nights, weekends, traveling to meet with customers, and mentoring junior engineers and learning a third engineering discipline. The stock price is a shell game that is about to crash. The products are not good as shown by Honeywell's consistent position in the lowest tier of supplier quality rankings from Boeing, Airbus, et al. And the only expansion/growth is through acquisitions... not real growth. And now, the company is in panic mode because of very bad management and gross neglect of everything in order to skim the cash off the top to make Dave and Darius billionaires.

Looks like DEA is DOA.

@HR Troll If you really are in HR, then you know that an employee who works for a company should expect a fair wage for their work, so if "HON paid you a salary," so what, any company would pay a salary for services rendered. "Increased salaries year over year." Not since 2009, when employees took a 10% salary cut from April 1st through the end of the year, followed by furloughs, RIF's and several years of no increase. Annual increases began again about 4 years ago. Go look at your "regrettable attrition" rate of Box 1, 2 and 4 employees. It has Corporate uptight about several SBGs and functions. That says it all. Too many good people are leaving. "Honeywell hasn't missed a quarter in many years." When you layoff employees and reduce benefits, costs go down. Go talk to Finance about all the quarterly "Specials." Ask them why the auditors are now citing HON about some of HON's accounting practices. Ask why the Aero backlog has drifted toward $1B during the past year, increasing steadily since MM took over (it was around $150M when the prior VP left), and why so many good employees have either been fired or quit his organization as the problem got bigger. Aero revenue was expected to increase after 2016 due to all the new aircraft platforms, not due to some new Corporate magic. Entitlement? No, it's more of a leadership disaster that doesn't allow excellent employees to be part of the solution.

I think this point by krl is the most relevant "Despite paying no US income taxes some years, and getting considerable incentives just to not move jobs overseas, they did exactly that."

It is sad to see the engineering profession damaged by the greed of employers like Honeywell willing to outsource 50% of technical expertise to 3rd world countries for cheap labor costs. So many up an coming managers bought into this shift into cheap labor and were promoted for promoting it. It started back in about year 2000 and it continues to shift more engineering jobs every year. The new hope is that we can utilize the talent we have left to invent and innovate and use 3rd world labor to do every other aspect of engineering. This is a terrible strategy and the company is failing because of it. Wall street will figure this out just as it did for GE. CEO greed and puppet layers of executive management have k–led the future of this company.

As a country we try to encourage our young people to excel in math and science so they can someday work in industry to keep our country strong. Guess what... if we are willing to layoff the young engineers for being too costly, we are on a bad path.

DEA

There are lots of people that are weighing stock gains against benefits, pay and work environment. This is resulting in many people leaving Honeywell. Three engineers in the last three weeks have left on a single floor here. New employees start working here but continue their job search and resign in a few months. Perhaps the rise in stock isn’t overcoming the losses in nearly every benefit there is.

I was naively excited when they announced the goal of improving engineering productivity. I envisioned management putting together teams of engineers to stream line common tasks and develop new tools to reduce task duration and increase task quality. Boy was I stupid and embarrassed. Management rolled out the EEI goal. I hope they’re not overpaying the genius who came up with such a creative idea. I bet that person worked on it for months or 5 minutes.

Your posting has got to be a joke.

Perhaps we should put our savings into Honeywell stock to reap the increase but work at a company that provides better employee treatment. Is that your point?

I think Wall Street would agree. Work at a company that gives you the highest compensation and benefits and put your savings into the company that provides the highest returns.

Your posting is the most horrible effort at motivating me to move Honeywell forward.

Please try again. That was truly the saddest effort. Honeywell used to hire great employees. Show me you’re great. I’m willing to listen, see the light and move Honeywell forward.

@krl and few others suggest that HON hasn’t done anything for their employees. Well, HON paid you a salary, matched your contributions, increased your salaries year over year, paid bonuses, paid dividends, etc. HON is a company that has been profitable in good and bad years, thanks to management and employees. HON continues being profitable, even after laying off engineers and “PIP’ed” friends. What’s has been the impact to HON, after all these layoffs?. HON hasn’t missed a quarter in many years. So, maybe these engineers and friends were not really contributing what was expected.
We make fun of millennials and how they feel entitled about things. I don’t see a big difference between millennials and some of the people complaining in this forum.

I'll echo @krl 's comments. I was a higher level "management type" who also gave nights, weekends, and holidays trying to meet ever changing commitments and take care of my team. Contributed significantly to revenue and margin. Watched benefits cut, friends PIP'd for no reason other than to hit "targets" or they weren't "liked" by their leader, furloughs, poorly thought out policy changes, the works. Witnessed a number of questionable "ethical" decisions as the pressure to meet ever higher targets ramped up. Gave up and retired early and NOT a former engineer.

• krl

according to -zkl, apparently you are just a complainer. Yet your story could be told by thousands of engineers...myself included.

so, -zkl, exactly what part of his response shows any benevolence to employees, at least of the engineering persuasion (of which you obviously are not). Pick any one of his listed take-aways that should result in love rather than revulsion for this company?

it's so silly how anyone who doesn't agree with the disenfranchised engineering group immediately gets labeled as HR/management and told to go to Glassdoor. I'm neither, nor do I visit Glassdoor (or even know what it is), but it's absurd how people who frequent this page think they "own" it and that any opinion that directly conflicts with their own means they're not worth listening to.

I joined AiResearch in 1968 while I was an ASU engineering student. I was laid off in 1970 owing to economic issues, but still felt very good about the company in general. It was considered one of the best (if not THE best) places to work in Phoenix in those days. I came back in 1980 and worked continuously until August of 2018, which I was shown the door. The beginning of the end was when Allied Chemical got involved, and the intermediate end had to do with the GE rejects who ran the place for awhile. I worked many 13- and 14-day stretches qualifying various versions of the 331-200 and -250 APUs in the altitude chambers, back when salaried people got paid (not full rate, but something) for overtime. All was well until a few years ago, when it was decided that supporting fielded products was too expensive, so let's just quit doing it. Well, that was my job, so it was just a matter of time. I continue to watch with interest.

I spent 18 years working long hours, nights, weekends, even holidays when necessary to meet the “commitments” that somebody else made. When I was a people manager, I did all I could to give my team everything they needed to succeed. As a contributor, I tried to solve problems before they were visible to customers, even when I had no part in causing them.

In return, the company cut my 401k match. They froze my pension. They furloughed myself and my staff with no relief on deadlines. They cut basic amenities for employees, even office supplies. They took away accruing vacation. They engineered ways to not pay departing employees their previous year’s bonus and 401k match. Despite record profits, they would claim poverty for raises and bonuses. Despite paying no US income taxes some years, and getting considerable incentives just to not move jobs overseas, they did exactly that. With a massive tax cut, they bought back $1.9B of their own stock, artificially jacking up the price and ensuring fat executive raises.

Those are all factual statements. They were a powerful incentive for me to take an early retirement.

Now what on Earth has Hon done to move their employees forward?

I was moving this company forward but then my hair turned grey and I found myself in the elbow. A five year campaign of horrible reviews and denials of raises and bonuses finally convinced me to lay myself off and call it retirement. Not anyone's idea of how one should be treated after more than 25 years of service. Just telling it like it is as fair warning to anyone foolish enough to consider Honeywell as a place to bet your so called career on.

so what? They (management) could have moved company forward without the 5 billion in stock-buybacks in 2016 and 1.9B in stock buybacks just last quarter in using the money. Stock was already going up with the market anyway. As for you, go back to Glassdoor and post fake reviews while drinking koolaid yo HR /management troll.