Just got an email from Roger announcing a 5% reduction in both employees and contractors in Business Technology at Discover. Felt like this has been a long shot coming. Not a fan of Amir as soon as he joined my mental health, and work life balance has been all over the place. Also announcing a VERP for long term employees to take an early retirement.
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This started since Roger took over. Roger wants a younger company with fewer managers
The company needed a good enema
All the people on my team with mainframe legacy application knowledge are eligible for VERP. We're already overworked. For each person that leaves, we will need at least 2 people to replace each one. Good luck finding them and training them – you'll need it.
Other important details:
- 5% reduction of BT - but focused on "Non-engineers".
- Employees notified by Nov - allowed to stay on payroll until Mar.
Nice way to reward corporate loyal employees Amir. Good luck with all your new ‘Engineers’ that don’t know sh–. I signed up for the package.
I still don’t understand why they brought a CIO from another continent when you have so much talent here locally? Next in line would be our CDO. I haven’t seen or heard any strategy from him and it’s been an year for him here.
I don’t know why I didn’t catch this until several hours after the announcement, but when I realized this had nothing to do with covid19 or the economy (as Roger’s email made clear) and was just part of Amir’s reorganization I was p-ss-d. But he’s been telling us this since day one so I don’t know why it caught me off guard.
It doesn’t help that it was one day after they announced the cancellation of retiree health care, which the retirees pay the full cost of. So now anybody let go or considering the retiree buyout has to figure out how they’re going to cover themselves until Medicare.
Kind of an odd question but would appreciate some insight: Is this a good opportunity to volunteer for a layoff even if I do not meet the requirements for the early retirement program that was sent out today? I was already considering leaving to go back to school sometime next year and I'd like to possibly save someone else's job if I can.
Discover used to be a great company that had an amazing culture. Roger was a big part of that and even with the current situation I believe he still wants the best for the employees. Unfortunately I think he and the EC made a very large mistake with Amir.
Amir sold them on a plan and that was that. Amir took no time to understand the culture or organizations that made up BT, he just started executing. No listening or talking to the employees. Amir knows best and there's nothing he can learn from us little people.
At this point no one cares about the employees in BT. If Roger is supporting this, it's over. How many high-profile VP level departures does it take to make that clear? When officers are getting off the train, that's probably a good indicator that the employees should as well. Directors will start leaving next.
My suggestion would be to take whatever package or severance that you can get and start your funded job search. Amir will continue to remorselessly fire people from half a world away until he works his way down to your organization.
The compassion, the empathy, the culture is gone. It's not coming back with Amir at the helm. Welcome to "Master Class - Destroying the Soul of an Organization - Part I".
My gut tells me this all started with Nelms departure. Glenn was pushed out and Amir brought in to execute this plan