As the longer term employees are already familiar, Ford rules their staff by creating an environment of fear and chaos by now annual voluntary reduction followed by involuntary either by removal or demotion. The newer 5-7 year people now see the reality of their future at Ford. To work hard only to be thrown away as they too now are the 'old Ford' while the conveyor belt of new hires rolls in. Make no mistake, they will be disposable too in a few years. I ask, while the older workers are struggling to finish their career for a pension - why the heck would any newer person want to stay with a company that so despises its workforce? Or for these new hires, why even waste their time when they could begin a career with another company that won't be looking to eliminate them in 5yrs?
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I worked as an engineer for Ford from 2001-2007. Came to Ford straight out of undergrad. What I’m reading here sounds like nothing has changed. I resigned and went into a different industry. I hired on with a company that is actually well run and profitable in another state far, far away from Michigan. I’m now making almost 4 times my last salary at Ford and every day of my work life has been better since I left. I’m 44 yrs old and I have a large retirement portfolio that will likely grow a lot more over the next 15 years I have left to work. I would have never come close to this net worth working at Ford, even if I had gone on permanent launch and been promoted to upper management.
Leaving Ford was the best decision I ever made, I wouldn’t recommend any young person go there now unless there is no other option. In that case, I would say work there for 2-3 years max and move on. Even if Ford somehow rights the ship, the UAW has to be fed first, leaving the salary people to fight for scraps.
@2kmc+1bZE1Se3 nailed it.
High stress comes from unpredictable inconsistent behavior.
Low stress comes from predictable consistent behavior.
Since Ford is not basing decisions on contributions, skills and knowledge but rather on things such as demographics (age, race, gender, health), pension obligations, healthcare obligations, familial relationships, how brown ones nose is and whose behind ones lips are attached to People are understandably fearful. They behave like rats in similar experiments where most rats viciously attack each other and some rats freeze in fear.
All in all Ford is a most pleasant and productive workplace (sarcasm).
I hope everyone who can leave the toxicity does, your stress level negatively impacts your health.
Yes, many companies have head count reductions but it’s more frequently based on years of service (low) and/or performance (also low). What is so distressing about Ford’s frequent reductions is that it seems random. I have worked at other companies that implemented head count reductions and felt that I could stay off the list with hard work and delivering quality results. It always kept me employed. I have never felt that way at Ford. It seems that hard work results in higher wages which puts a target on your back. Nearing a pension milestone puts a target on your back as does growing older or being in the wrong position at the wrong time. A person can scale back on the hard work but the other targets are outside our control. That creates stress and a culture of fear.
Speaking of Ford 2000, do they still have that "Wall of Commitment" with all the execs' signatures on it around there?
You say in the top line "no pension to speak of" but then below mention "goal of hitting 30 year pension target." Which one is it?
You obviously have not checked your pension estimates, if you're on GRP. If you can get away with what you're describing, be my guest. But to do that for 10 more years? Doubtful at best. I do as much as I can to hopefully keep this going a few more years to retirement eligibility but to do nothing for 10 more? In case you haven't read the headlines, they're declared war on the over 40 population. And I wouldn't pat yourself on the back with those TA's because there are some areas in which everybody gets them.
FORD 2000 destroyed this company. Allan came in and for a 8 year stint had the company pointed in the right direction. But as soon as he retired those bad habits creeped right back in. Well I will not call any of our management leaders. The current management has ridden the coat tails of the F-series since the Explorer sales collapsed in the early 2000s.
Those old white guys who worked in the Truck organization. Well they are the ones to thank because they knew what the customer wanted. I am sorry but Billy is not a leader. He had the keys once before and he was even fired by his own family. Allan made him look like a clown he was. There is no future at Ford. I am starting to see young people looking for jobs out of the state and automotive. If I had to do it all over again today I would move south.. Stay away from Ford and automotive. If F-Series does not regain its sales leadership it is only a matter of time. 90+% of the profits come from one platform. Bronco & Maverick will be interesting to watch? I hate to see people get laid off. They only follow the orders from the group of clowns currently running things. They get 6 or 7 digit bonus for so called meeting their objectives! Well that bar was set pretty low. I hope I am wrong but I have a feeling Toyota will unleash their new truck and ki-l any momentum Ford had at regaining sales.
20+ years in this town and this industry, no pension to speak of, and 25+ to go before I hit the soc security threshold.
I've only just over a handful or more years at the Fords, including a TA or two during that short time, and I realized last year that I do not have the "nod" from the LL5s to be considered for promotion from GSR to the LL golden circle.
The joke is on Ford. I now spend all day doing handyman work in my neighborhood for extra cash while pretending to WFH. Dont judge, I still meet or exceed all my performance objectives, which tells you just how high that bar is actually set. Why try harder for what would be an extra 0.5% merit increase and still no chance of promotion? Oh, 135% for TA you say? Not a great multiplyer when we hit 50% bonus payout. (Which included sympathy points this year. How sad)
My retirement plan now is to buy and run a series of rental properties during the day while drawing a Ford paycheck and using the health insurance. I won't be the first that has used this double dip retirement plan. The difference is that I'm not just occupying a spot on the headcount while checked out at year 20 with the goal of hitting the 30 year pension target. I'm doing it just cause I can.
The state of Ford's vehicle quality is a reflection of the depth of the abusive, toxic, and incompetence of those in management. The old sayings of "Found On Road Dead", "Fix Or Repair Daily" exist because that is the type of product that results from a culture that beats and eliminates knowledge and skill and prizes backstabbing political players and fake diversity initiatives to further eliminate internal competition.
You guys are doing a great service telling these stories for people looking for jobs. Especially for right out of college job seekers where they might be inclined to believe the official press. Web sites like Glassdoor are mostly a bunch of 1 line puffs; HR swoops in and squashes the real stories. A few truths get thru on those sites, but this is the real deal.
I feel this so much. My soul is definitely crushed. But I also think would it be different anywhere else? Between the DEI initiatives being shoved down our throats at every opp they get, seeing brownnosers instead of the best get promoted, working my rear off year after year to just get passed over and never any feedback on how to improve, I’m very much ready to move on. I have learned that we definitely have an organization of mangers and not leaders. Mine is def a manager and not a leader. They only care about themselves. They will get assignments from our director, cascade to me to complete and then I do the work and they get the credit/pass the work off as their own. There is no help with career advancement, development, etc and this person is LL5! It’s really sad and I can definitely say I feel chewed up and sp-t out. Does anyone have experience elsewhere and can say it’s better outside of F?
Ford isn't the only company that is doing this. I spent 10 years at the largest retail company in the world and they were (still are?) pulling the same tricks as Ford. The only difference was we had no pensions.
The company created a highly toxic environment. We had many consecutive years of triple and even quadruple digit layoffs. There was no replacing the termed so the current employees had to step up and perform the jobs of those that were fired in additional to theirs with no extra compensation other than keeping your job. They couldn't compete in the cutthroat retail business so they just bought companies. This added to the headcount so they had to 'rebalance' elsewhere.
They got rid of those are deemed to make to much money. The compensation packages were initially quite good with 2 weeks of pay for every YOS with an extra 6 months. It turned into 90 days of pay and you were termed if you couldn't find a new role at the company. The caveat was how can you find a new role if all the company was doing was firing? This finally turned into 2 weeks of pay. So who were the fortunate ones in this situation?
After each major layoff, management (I refuse to call them leadership) would call for an all-hands meeting and they would blatantly lie to us saying the firings were over and to not dwell on the past and to focus on our jobs. (I am serious about this one!) Of course they had to throw in a do not talk to the media lecture.
While all this was going on they went to the burn and churn method of yearly evaluations. We had employees with 20+ years of stellar reviews suddenly get poor reviews. This was the kiss of death. If this happened to you, you knew to get your resume updated and start your job search. They did this so you could transfer your knowledge to someone on your team. It also meant that 2 weeks of pay as compensation.
This does not inspire loyalty or the want of going above and beyond. The company created such a toxic environment that no one straight out of college wants to come onboard. All the tenured are just hanging around to try to make it to a good place where they can retire. Only those desperate will join the company now. The company has decided to outsource what little of their IT department they have left as cheaply as possible so their HQ has become Little India. You can guess that quality has been severely impacted.
Oh yeah, the company has also declared itself a 'data' company and not IT or retail.