Thread regarding VMware layoffs

At Brcm, we were told that policies like WFH will not be changing with VMW acquisition and Brcm will continue to believe in Office work. VMW have to change.

VMware has plenty of office space. BC has 2 locations in Austin area on top of VMware's space. Top metro areas have space.

Wishful thinking OP

This level of denial is up there - do you think that VMW's offices are just suddenly gonna disappear into the air on the acquire date? Brocade and CA still have their buildings, and I still see Symantec offices (although not sure if this is their Symantec or Accenture symantec). BCom will obviously pick and choose offices from vmw to keep in order to support the addtl employees, and strong chance that HQ in PA will be a part of that.

At CA, in the early days, Broadcom wasn’t really allowed to communicate with us for legal reasons. That changed as we got closer to the deal close. Most of the communications were coming from CA HR and they were pretty direct. People would ask about WFH a lot, and the answer was something along the lines of “Broadcom prefers people to be located in an office, this doesn’t mean you will be asked to relocate if you don’t live close to an office, but if you are within 50 miles (traffic is irrelevant), you will be required to go to the actual office. Broadcom kept several CA offices, so some people didn’t have to move or they opened a new office in a similar area.

If WFH is important to you, this will not be the place for you. WFH people are approved each year by Hock directly. He may be OK with it now, but may change his position next year.

For those of you saying “the world has changed and the pandemic has proven that people can be effective working from home”, is a true statement. Just not at Broadcom. This is what Hock believes and he is a CEO that shows up in the office, every day.

Talking yourself into your desired outcome does not make that desired outcome a reality. WFH versus working in the office isn't about money. It's about control.

Broadcom will get rid of 17.5k employees or more to meet their productivity and profit targets. That will leave plenty of office space for the rest.

In the meeting last Friday with TH and JK, these two were cautious and political when responding to Raghu's question of WFH. TH said that mindsets evolve. TK referred to the empty campus, etc. etc. People at VMware that I have spoken with took it as a negative perception because they did not commit. However, they did not say 'no'.

Looking from a different angle, can you imagine what happened at BC if they had responded 'Yes, absolutely'. It had been highly demotivating to their current employees.

Therefore, we cannot predict what will occur with WFH. The topic is wide open and we will know as we approach the transition - and people realize they cannot come to office because simply, there is no office space for them!

In another thread, someone said that a BC executive (or someone speculated) mentioned that if people did not want to come to office, that's fine, BC easily find someone close to office that would want to join. My answer to that is 'good luck'. That comment seems from the 90s when employers ruled the workplace.Things are different now.

If you want a strong performer to join your team, then negotiation is a 'must'. Would you prefer a poor performer who is willing to come to the office? The BC leaders can be bully, but I'm sure they are not stupid.

They will have no choice at transitioning but keeping people in WFH mode.

Then, the next action will be monitoring the situation. If those WFH perform very well, they can start adjusting their view a bit and become more permissive. Even VMware had similar situation before COVID. You did not have to be a superstar, though performance was monitored.

They can find a way to bring more people in, but it's a large number. It won't be easy or quick, and could become totally unnecessary. Why bother if it's a cheaper model?

As for the '2nd class' citizens comment for WFH, it seems that everyone at BC is '2nd class' already - per the comments of people with insiders knowledge.

Even if they drop the all-colocated requirement as a matter of practicality, there'll always be that doubt. Will they rescind their tolerance of WFH if they're able to find a way to deal with the costs at some future time? Culturally and infrastructurally, will remote employees be second-class citizens? It's really difficult to support a remote workforce. How much of that experience with doing so will be lost in the integration?