Most people I talk with seem to believe that things at Chevron have changed for the worse for employees since MW took over and things were much better in the past. Some of this is industry issues but what changes have you seen that have happened since MW took over?
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The IT dysfunction is 50% on leaders and 50% on people. Leaders have no vision and don’t even understand technology in many cases. The same leaders that led us to the problems that ImagineIT was supposed to fix are the ones leading us after ImagineIT.
We hire software engineers to do support work or Salesforce/SAP/Workday config and wonder why the good ones who want to actually code leave.
We keep IT people so far away from business users and behind layers of administrative SAFe b**t that they don’t understand the problems they could potentially help overcome.
We push more and more to MSPs and contractors who can’t meet their promised service quality and that’s the impression customers get of IT… and then we look for how to shift more to 3rd parties because saving $$$ is more important than anything.
We can’t hire people to come to Chevron, and when we do, we can’t keep them. So we have IT teams understaffed and overworked which leads to more burnout and people leaving, putting more on those who are still around.
It’s a death cycle for IT at Chevron. It’s either going to end with everything going outsourced - in which case, enjoy seeing how much worse IT service can still get - or all new IT leadership and actual investment in good people who are allowed to work close to the business.
@bwe: JW was completely beholden to GK whose leadership all put their fingers on the scale to greenlight megaMCPs. They got their bonuses and payouts before it was obvious that the MCPs all overran budget and underperformed on production. At least MW has us focused on margins over unprofitable barrels.
How about changes since RM took over? We were so hopeful when she was announced but we were wrong to be so hopeful. The HR function morale is at an all time low.
After watching what he did to Downstream, everyone knew that when MW was promoted to CEO, Chevron was going to be a lot less fun to work for. The cost-cutting and the consolidation we could put up with, what no one predicted was how he completely demoralized the company by: a) focusing on social engineering rather than the core competencies of the company; b) sanctioning (by lack of action) cronyism and favoritism in promotions; c) completely destroying any sense of training and career development; d) encouraging, by c), back-stabbing as the primary avenue for career advancement, if not a recipient of b); e) completely detaching senior management from any contact with the 'average employee', creating a culture of 'haves' and 'have nots' in Chevron. You could also add in the 2020 disaster of a) allowing so many Boomers to EOI without any succession plan, and b) decimating the remaining ranks, in the name of cost-cutting. We used to have (and were proud of) Chevron Way, now the 'MW Way' is, "if you're a high-pot or diversity candidate, welcome to our country club. Otherwise, be happy you have a job, if you're not happy then leave, or we'll lay you off the next chance we get".
That is VERY delusional, @5bhw. Maybe they can continue on for a few years in an imaginary delusional world supporting the same superficial woke DEI administration that developed today after all of the technical elements of the company have packed up and left to go work on solar and wind lol.
I have talked to IT staff in CVX San Ramon who are under the impression we are primarily an IT company, just like others in the Bay Area, and will get ahead on our superior info tech prowess. They are totally delusional.
Well, @4lgg many of us have worked well with pencil and paper for decades and got things done extremely efficiently by comparison to today and also have worked well with IT departments that crushed the current one in competency. Your point?
People who treat the IT function like garbage are sc-m. Go back to working with pen and paper or start dealing with extremely low quality out of country outsourced IT. Once everyone in IT leaves thats what you'll be left with and you'll be wishing to go back.
Lets go As-tros...........
We ALL have a hatred for the IT function …
MW seems to have a hatred for the IT function. Its been absolutely terrible working here with the changes that have been made.
@ 2szo. Did you mean “lack of promotable white males”?
The word bell end comes to mind...
The layoff and cost cutting King is the main changes hes made. The last round pretty much broke the company.
Who cares about the temporary stock price high. Unless you own thousands of shares its of minor consequence. MW is destroying the company from the inside. We have high attrition and almost no motivation to put in any kind of effort with almost no incentive to do well. With inevitable more MW layoffs that will have some cool sounding name hanging over our heads its no wonder people are tired and unhappy. There is more to a company than just the shareholders.
With regard to the amount of layoffs?
Boo hoo. No fun. I wanna go home.
Stock not at ten year high. It’s at ALL TIME high.
Not getting into specifics, but it sure was a lot more fun to work at Chevron under DO and JW than it has been under MW.
There are those here infatuated with the very short-term stock price increase, as if that was a MW accomplishment rather than a reaction to global oil prices. I hope you're taking the opportunity to sell - look at stock price history! Throughout my career (like right now), I've taken the opportunity to sell off CVX stock high and re-invest in other more stable blue chips.
MW has never built or grown a business. He prefers to think of Chevron as a massive turnip which we can continue to squeeze blood out of. There is no near-term risk to this business approach and the results from cost savings are immediate, so it is really easy and satisfying to do. Listen to his favorite story about when staff proposed a new refinery and he convinced them to squeeze the same additional capacity out of an old legacy refinery. His proudest moment. He is so focused on earnings and cashflow per barrel, I am convinced he would be happy to shrink to 1,000,000 bbl/day or lower if we won the per barrel metrics game.
The industry is in decline. More people chasing fewer jobs, etc. etc. The consequence is not rocket science - it’s what you see daily.
As an employee MW's legacy is constant layoffs and cost cutting thats hurt employees. The work loads have increased and after the transformation things have been chaos. Morale has dropped to the lowest level I've ever seen it. There are few promotions and career opportunities. He might be good for shareholders but MW is a layoff addict that's terrible for employees unless he gets his addiction in check and starts caring about employees at little bit. His workforce has no motivation due to his actions.
Outmaneuvered Occidental and got $1 billion for not doing a bad deal. XOM used to be 2X CVX market cap, now we have almost caught them. RDS used to be 1.5X CVX market cap, now we are bigger. Runaway capex spending is now under control. 10-year high share price. He’s got the big things right. Agile, diversity etc. all just noise around the edges.
As a 15 year plus employee looking back, absolutely this isn’t the same company, I’ve watched us slowly continue shrink in numbers and increase divestitures. MW’s reign from my perspective has been defined by layoffs, cost cutting and an acquisition to get at a mid sized companies strategically located natural gas fields, (Rocky Mountains Business Unit will be divestment bonus). I’ve watched benefits continue to get cut and watered down. We’re plagued by continued campaigns to reinvent ourselves through this transformation or evolution, or agile initiatives or whatever new bull$&#% the consultants tell them. No talk of promotions anymore, career development talk is a joke, and some VPs are messaging very bluntly now about our grim future now, (of course they don’t have to worry because we’ll be the ones holding the bag). You don’t have to be a fortune teller to see that all these things point to a company in slow decline, the writing is on the wall IMHO.
Layoffs tend to be correlated to financial strength of the company. As such I’d not imagine any large restructuring for a good whole. The company is in excellent shape
The current share price is at a near ten year high. They’ve done pretty good.
Gorgon was agile. The built the minimum viable product in just a decade for $50 billion. They they turned it on and found out about mercury and minimum viable welds and various pots and kettles and that CO2 won't go in the ground and Jansz is dry. But they were loading cargos. And now they can start fixing it all.
$130+ share price.
The whole point of agile is having quicker releases and less overhead. This obviously doesn't work in large o&g projects. In IT it could work, however cvx IT is completely incompetent. They're the literal definition of vaporware, spinning up endless projects with no actual users and promises of million dollar savings.
Investors disagree. And that’s who the board works for.
Share price near 10 year high. That’s what the guys at the top are paid to do.
Agile isn't the CEO. Agile is IT, which is incredible. Since when has IT been able to jerk the company around, paying agile coaching contractors a zillion dollars for useless buzzwords? Incredible that we have a chump IT guy with zero credibility teaching all the agile courses to real business people.
O’Reilly was a great leader, even though he was Irish. He had great help from Kirkland and Robertson. He invented Chevron Way, partly to onboard broken Back-stabbing Texaco staff. Watson was a tall finance guy with good hair and a silver tongue. He relied on others for decision asking and steered a safe financial course. Wirth is a politico who focuses mostly on people and coaching, rather than business. As a result we have no strategy, just reactions to the market and a huge desire to cut costs and avoid risks. JJ is nice but weak no let MW carve up and sell off Upstream. Downstream is doomed to low margins and threats in Calif.
MW is a layoff aholic. He made his name via Accelerate Downstream. This means he doesnt care about employees as he really wants us to leave.
JW was more Grow to Win and championed big projects like Gorgon.
JW was philosophically against low CO2 projects whereas MW is more influenced by the market.
Woke agile digital transformation and all the other rubbish he has instigated....
agile transformation digital delfi chapters wtf !