To JE - I am writing this letter to you rather than responding to ‘People Pulse’ survey. I have talked to many colleagues in Engineering that have not received an opportunity (not been invited) to complete the survey, and many have expressed concern on whether or not the confidentiality of the survey tool is being maintained. (mailed and posted on Honeywell layoffs site)
- Why did you chose to not send out the survey to your entire organization at the inception?
- Were certain groups (i.e. those on PIP’s, those who were recently stripped of MIP’s, those with bad review, etc.) excluded from this first round? (for fear of getting a real ‘pulse’ on the environment?)
- If the results were higher (and acceptable in your mind), would you still be sending out the survey to the rest of your organization?
- Why did you share the extremely lackluster results that clearly could cost you your job?
- Why wasn’t your “Need for Speed” such that you would want to get 100% survey results as quickly as possible and then fix what’s broke equally as fast? And now 6 weeks later you haven’t even finished the survey process? No Urgency
First and foremost, were you really surprised by the survey results? If you were, then you are really not in touch with the organization at all, and/or you have a team that is afraid to tell you the God’s honest truth, for fear of retribution. The corporation should hold you and your entire management staff accountable for this. Not only did you fail, but your entire management staff all the way down to the Tier 4 manager, and back up the line to the CEO has failed. Have you discussed this situation with TM or AO?
If I were to meet with you face-to-face, without any repercussion, I would tell you the things that I will detail in this letter, but there is absolutely no trust whatsoever, that your survey will not be used to punish us further.
I have worked at Honeywell for many years and have seen a steady decline in ‘leadership’ over the past 10 years. Before, Allied Signal placed their ‘management’ in place, we actually had true leadership, made the company a lot of money, and had fun. That heritage leadership cared about the employees first and foremost, over and above everything else. ‘Back in the Day’ Engineering talent was revered and the engineers were the last to feel the pain of any cutbacks. What happened?
Over the past 10 years, the following has been taken away…….
• Pension – Frozen (no pension for new employees)
• Vacation – “unlimited vacation” (yea, right!)
• 401k match temporary reductions due to economy – never reinstated
• 401k match now in December rather than bi-monthly in paycheck
• 10% Salary Reductions across the board
• Mandatory 115% EEI goal (yep, it exists, even though HR will say it doesn’t, you’ll be let go if you don’t ‘charge’ a minimum of 10% overtime- average.) It will never show up on any paperwork, or goals, but rest assured that this exists.
• Multiple furloughs (3) in one year
• Lower-elbow ratings for all
• Unwarranted PIP plans for 10% of workforce, particularly Band 4’s to make MIP budget spread further.
• Original MIP program was funded by taking 10% of employee’s salary and putting it ‘at risk’ with a 5% upside for meeting goals. So by taking MIP away, you are basically stealing from the employee.
• MIP reductions from 10% to 5% to 0% (recently).
• Multiple years of 0% merit
• Elimination of employee stock purchase plan/employee vacation buy program/work from Home/Telecommute
• Elimination of 9/80 work week
• Elimination of approved telecommute agreements
• Cut backs on business travel
• Elimination of paying for personal certifications
• Insurance costs up 1000x, and co-pays about 10x
• Mandatory biometric screenings with $1,500 penalty for weight & smoking
• Participative pay program during Allied merger to accumulate funds for merit increases, but never given after merger complete. (asked employees to ‘invest’ in the new relationship)
Recently, major systems have been audited and failed – Purchasing – Material – Cost Estimating – Cost Charging – Customer Confidence.
We can no longer claim 100% Mission Success after WorldView 4 Satellite loss due to Honeywell Gyro Failure. How many other (latent) failures are laying out there that will cause the next major failure? THIS IS A METRIC THAT WE CANNOT GET BACK – OVER 50 years of MISSION Success down the drain
Leadership has turned this company into one that others would not like to work for, which can be seen when you walk the halls, when you sit in meetings, and unfortunately, in the quality of our products.
Options? Those of us that did ‘invest’ our entire lives to this company now find ourselves in a situation where age discrimination doesn’t allow us the opportunities that we once had to take our talents elsewhere. Additionally, we are dealing with age discrimination at Honeywell in mandatory unwarranted PIP’s, stripping of MIPs, downgrading of positions, RIF’s pointed at those with seniority (higher cost, and therefore older employee base).
We are simply hanging on patiently, waiting for a ‘golden parachute’ that leadership is unwilling to hand out, as they would rather perform continuous RIF’s that don’t catch labor-attorney’s attention, and sheds large numbers of excellent seasoned employees, without any succession planning at all. Realistically, we would rather be mentoring new engineers to do our jobs once we do make our exit, however, we are not motivated to do so in the current environment.
I would have to say that if I had your job, and my organizations’ ‘survey’ came back as low as it did, and I had no clue of why this occurred, I would deserve to be fired, as should you for totally failing on all 8 of the Honeywell Behaviors. At a minimum, you would be ‘put in the lower elbow’, with an immediate long-term PIP, and you would be stripped of your MIPs immediately as well.
Particularly to get a -46 rating and still not have the survey out to the entire engineering organization is another classic fail. Need for Speed – FAIL! So over 600 employees, and 75% are so negative that the average is below zero. So 450 of your employees hate working here and would not recommend telling anyone to come work here. That simply speaks for itself. Even if the other 150 employees voted +100 (not likely) then you can extrapolate that only 1 in 4 of your employees like working here.
What is your real plan here? Follow CE’s plan and exit with your millions and head off to Tahiti? Is CEO going to allow you to do what is necessary to salvage this broken organization, or just get rid of you as the scapegoat? At this point reinstatement of MIP’s and 10% across the board salary action wouldn’t fix your numbers. I know that I personally am making less than I made in 2008, and can pull my Social Security Administration report to prove it. We can’t wait another two months to hear about a plan, we need to see change, and it needs to be immediate. SO what are you gonna do? At a minimum, I recommend thorough exit interviews with anyone who leaves the company today, as well as possibly going back for the last several years and re-interviewing those folks? Pay particular interest to those who were hired recently and left in less than two years. Why not hold a Town hall, and review all feedback from surveys, as well as those listed above and below, and talk candidly about them?
List of items to immediately re-implement to try to restore confidence in the company………
- Lift hiring freeze – staff the need
- Eliminate – IN WRITING & IN PRACTICE – EEI goals
- Catchup – For all, but evaluated on case by case basis – one-time compensation catchup, dependent on circumstances.
- Reinstate the 401k 8% match, paid bi-weekly
- Unfreeze Pensions, offer pensions for new employees
- Restore Stripped MIPs
- Restore grades to those down-graded
- Stop the ludicrous 10% mandatory PIP process
- Reinstate 10% Work from Home for all employees (not assemblers)
- Reinstate 9/80 & telecommute arrangements previously authorized
- Make CARING & COMPASSION a rewarded Honeywell Behavior
We hear in every town hall how much money Honeywell is making, how the economy has rebounded, and nothing is being done for the folks that make this happen. We are tired as hell of this and won’t take it anymore.
Please do something, it’s almost too late! (or maybe it is already too late).