**Have any product/project managers been laid off? If so, what department were you in and for how long?
I feel like my product services are no longer needed as they have brought on some offshore people
Just wondering if I should start to apply externally
There was an admin assistant in our division that transferred to a project manager position. My understanding an undergraduate degree or formal training is not required. So you would expect reductions and a lot of turnover. Hiring individuals that do not have the skill or knowledge to manage multiple projects.
Maybe a corporate simp /boomer got triggered?
We loved working there. No one was layed off. We were treated really nice by our bosses and got certificates and lunch for all our hard work.
Would suggest coming in earlier and staying later that way your boss sees you working really hard for the corporation. That's dedication and loyality and patriotism to the money getting hustling.
Many project managers come and go. Many eager beavers 20, 30 somethings –gonzo in 3 months, a year or so. they just dissappear. Yet when they arrived, they were full of all this ambitious corporate nonsense, company loyalty, patriotism to the corporation. It was sickening. Now, they;'re gonzo. what happened? Reality may have sunk in.
Only trying to help you all. Certifications for product and project managers; PMP, CPM, PMITS and Pragmatic Marketing cert. my team are all CPAs and have never had a reduction in our team only have to get one audit report issued annually Typically average 1 audit per manager. Not a pressured job. I love Optum.
I'm not going to say my group, but there have been several product managers laid off this year along with some technical writers. So far the project management and business analysts have not been affected. As often happens, the remaining PMs are either so incompetent or so overworked that it will probably cause a cascade of failure. Laid off PMs had a minimum of 15 years with the company and left with a lot of knowledge.
What kind of certifications?
I’ve seen a lot of product managers be laid off
Not a corporate audit team and do not do SOX testing. In an Optum division (not saying which one) and do not worry at all about a RIF or position being outsourced. 10 years in the audit function. All manager and above positions. All advanced degrees from U.S schools and/or U.S. accredited certifications.
Could it be your team isn't really a "audit" function but just a quality check team or that you haven't been with the company long enough to know the layoff and outsourcing practices? Can you tell the group, just how many of the Corporate Audit team that reports to the board is outsourced to India and how many Sarbanes auditors at Optum were layed off thru the years or how many UHG/Optum audit groups had layoffs thru the years?
The audit function manages projects and we only have to complete one audit a year. That is get one audit report issued. We have never had our team hit with a RIF and I don’t see that happening. Our positions require certifications that individuals off-shore most likely would not have or could not obtain. Make yourself seem irreplaceable. Talk the talk. That’s the name of the game here. It’s not all dollars. We are all salary grade 28 and 29.
Lots of foreigners coming in to replace Americans. Indians coming into to replace legal american workers etc...where are your US employment rights?!
I was indirectly involved with the team as a technical consultant for about 2 months - maybe 2 or 3 times a month I would talk with them. When I took over the lead position of my new team, maybe a month went by when this weirdness happened. This was in the beginning of the year, February, if I remember, when all the shakeup started.
Since it was a new fiscal year starting up (FY 18-19), rumors of staff shuffling were all over, and several people were moved to different teams, including myself. No one thought this was going to be the beginning of many, many layoffs in the company. If there were rumors, no one in my office knew anything. We were a smaller office that had some middle-management in it, but I think maybe only one executive.
Thank you. How how long were you in your position before that happened? Did you see signs before they joined?
I'm the original poster of this comment: @3mje+17FXjCTN.
This is exactly what happened to me. I replaced an outgoing lead engineer (he found a job elsewhere) and within 3 weeks, several people from India joined the team without a single word from management at all. My first-line mgr, a director, based in the western US, had no idea what was going on. Several other first line managers were equally confused. I spoke with the engineers from India myself. Apparently, they said they had been shuffled around to different teams 3 times in less than a year and it was impossible to keep up with all the change.
Several of us in the US, including my first-line mgr, tried to contact the new Sr. Director, who was based in India, what was going on. Nothing. Not a word from this man in 3 weeks. Contacting other Sr. Directors was met with silence as well. Finally, our scrum master told the Sr. Director in India that this was very unprofessional to behave this way, so we finally had a call with him were he said these people were here to "grow the product" as "more was going to be demanded over the next fiscal year". Not once did he explain why nothing was said as offshore resources were added.
As I said in my last post, their 'lead' had similar background and experience as I did; I didn't wait to be cut, I put two and two together and within 3 weeks I was out of Optum. I strongly advise you to do the same.