Thread regarding Citrix Systems Inc. layoffs

Microsoft did this type of ranking and officially stop several years ago, it still goes on by not as black and white as it use to be. Very destructive culture crushing method. One more tactic to get people to quit. What’s next public spankings and punch cards?

"Think of it from the buyer’s (Vista, Elliot) perspective. They bought Citrix because they felt that there is room for improvement"

This is absolutely incorrect.

The buyer's perspective was that there was more value present than was reflected in the market valuation. Period. Whether there is room for improvement was not a consideration. Improvement isn't necessary to profit, nor is improvement a goal. The goal now is simply to extract the value in the most efficient and least risky way possible.

As to be expected. The next step will be to write up a PIP. This will be time consuming and demoralizing for all those involved including the HR folk (provided they are still around and not outsourced to a specialist HR consultant). Critical will be the timeline by which date measurable improvement must be demonstrated.

This system is already underway. I was asked on Friday to provide a list of issues with a coworker so manager can put him on plan. The culture of collaboration and supporting each other is gone. I feel dirty for providing anything even the one minor complaint I might have had which happened months ago and was resolved. I felt put on the spot to give something/anything. I just wonder if others are being asked for similar on me. This is how they start getting rid of folks without paying severance. These are the beginning of very dark times here.

This whole company is fu---d. Tk doesn't give a fu-k though as he'll still walk out of the building with millions of dollars in his fat man pants. Maybe you'll be a 1 today or a 2 tomorrow, but you'll make a 3 one day when you cost too much.

Ask your manager for remote work and grab a house/condo in the keys down in FTL, go fishing on your lunch break, stop by the office a few days a week. Just treat it as business, where they treat you as business. If you don’t feel good working remote with CSG, jump to any other remote opportunity and live in the keys fishing…. Our software jobs are the epitome of flexible. Hopefully this is motivational, and that’s all I mean by it. Go live in your paradise and don’t live to work.

Think of it from the buyer’s (Vista, Elliot) perspective. They bought Citrix because they felt that there is room for improvement and therefore room to increase the value of the asset. One of the areas of improvement is employee performance. They believe that at least 20% of Citrix employees underperform in the role they are in. This does not mean that stack ranking will continue forever, but in their mind it is the right tool at this point in time. They own the company now, they decide. As much as they and TK have the freedom to decide, no-one is forced to work for Citrix - there is plenty of other companies out there.

He doesn't care because he is only interested in making sure that a certain percentage of employees will never be suitable for pay raises, and may be suitable for termination. There's no such thing to him as having 100 percent of employees doing a great job.

Years ago, I worked for a company that did a hard line version of this system for a while, firing the bottom 10% every year. A.k.a., "rank and yank". When I was there they were still doing the ranking, but had lightened up on the mass firings. I'm telling you, this system destroys company culture. I've never worked with a meaner, more unhappy bunch of people.

Are you saying TK wants us back in office so badly just to compete against each other? How is that collaboration? Does TK think we’ll get promoted and grow like this?

WTF TK!

Managers will be forced to rank team members as a ‘3’ by fabricating issues or exaggerating them.

Who gives a shlt? 99.99% of the remaining employees are just waiting to be laid off. Even without severance it is better to not be at Citrix than staying. It will never be a great company to work for ever again.

Forced ranking is aligned with Krause other strategies to keep the remaining CSG employees in perpetual fear of losing their jobs. If you are still on the payroll once all the current layoffs are done, then you will likely comply with any directive since you're assumed to be a coward that won't leave unless you're fired

There will always be people who will step on others to get ahead. But CSG is officially incentivizing everybody to step on everybody just to avoid being fired.

Force ranking can be used to mask discrimination.

Then leave?

From the wiki article:

"Rob Enderle has argued that 'No sane person could sustain the argument for forced ranking once it's applied to products instead of people. Apply it to automobiles and make 20 percent or even 10 percent of any run unsatisfactory by policy, regardless of actual quality, and you'd immediately see that you were institutionalizing bad quality. With people, though, folks remain blind to the fact that forced ranking is walking example of confirmation bias.'"

This was already done at TIBCO and it was 100% TK's ask.

Backstabbing has always existed, at least in my team. You only need one individual to create a very toxic environment. This won't be introduced by TomK. It predates the merge.

Sounds like a "great" way stamp out whatever is left of Citrix's collaborative, supportive work culture. Bring on the backstabbing!