Do you blame your manager personally for what happened, or do you see it as more of a company-wide issue, something out of their control? I ask because a former coworker’s furious at our manager, but I don’t think that’s fair. He’s one of the rare decent ones here.
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@OP my offshore-now-onshore mngr never spoke to me all year except for annual review. how's that for leadership. I can tell you they kept bring in young new offshore folks for us to train. When they found a few who worked out.. axe!
@OP Yes, but direct managers supply the names. They may claim to not know about layoffs, but aren't they the ones who are responsible as they personally select the individuals to go? It's all semantics and they actually think that we can't figure it out.
As a director, who has bawled before after and sometimes during letting people know of their layoffs, it’s not in our hands. We get the dates and in all my cases names of people and though I’ve tried to fight it many times, no one listens and the layoffs keep happening. I’m tired and drained and hate this so much
Here is what I know from my experience in April with UHC.. Managers/Directors (M/D) were given a list of folks to consider for layoffs. The M/D then gives some suggestions on who to keep or layoff. But that was all the say they had. The M/D were not given the criteria that was used. I believe any criteria that was used is not straight forward. Some nerd in Accounting probably did some evaluations of numbers (salary, perf ratings, volume, etc) and a decision was made on who goes and who stays.. I would not blame your M/D directly for this.. Whichever list they put you on, you will probably never know..
You prove the point. You cede both your position and personal power and are redundant just like your director and senior director above you that still have no vision. Layoffs become political plays for the VP towards keeping it in the family whether that be your work hub, your consulting company darlings, your culture. You should self-deport yourself if you cannot even pretend to be a manager of people. Do your job friend and good luck to you.
Lay-offs are a company-wide issue. There are multiple methods of approaching who to layoff. Age, experience, location and job redundancy.
Some people are laid-off and their solid work product is given to those with less experience and less pay.
Others are laid-off because they are remote and their job is given to someone in Minnesota.
@ag managers in the engineering space are supposed to technical enough to help architect solutions. They are not useless but when it comes to metrics, pay, and many other people leader tasks, those are handed down from the top. To answer the question more directly, directors don’t do a lot depending on the line of business.
If there were less middle managers like VPs and senior directors, things would move a lot more smoothly. You need IC managers that are technical. I’ll be honest most IC managers aren’t great tech leaders. Depends on the team and org.
@c8 hr is just a wheel in a cog in the machine
@ab I am a director and I can tell you that we do not even know who will be laid off so there is no way a manager knows either. Our senior/executive directors make all of the decisions along with the two incompetent HR gals. So far, it has always been a political decision where the kiss as... stay and those who dont feed the egos of the executive team are the ones to go.
@am if you request layoff can you get unemployment? Asking for a friend….0
@OP there are no “decent” managers on this company. But who cares whose “fault” it is. You have no control over it and blaming anyone doesn’t change the outcome
I requested it. Glad I did.
Not sure why there are even managers at this company. If you are just suggestion people and no one listens to you, why are you needed. I tell you why. Because you do nothing but harass, intimidate and promote a hostile work environment. Maybe if you all respected yourselves, leadership might take you serious.
The executive leaders decide when to cut staff and how much. Your immediate manager decides who from the team goes.
I've seen managers rif team members, then the next day the manager gets rif'd. So don't blame your immediate manager. They are equally as vulnerable
As a manager I have next to no power when it comes to making layoff decisions or pay/promotion decisions. These things are "committee'd" to death by people at the senior director level and above. Generally decisions are handed down for manager to execute.
One major problem at this company is managers are not trusted with any responsibility. They are "suggestion" people who make recommendations to upper leaders but never really get heard. This company is way too top heavy and that's a big reason why things don't get done in a timely manner and decisions just get delayed and delayed.
@a1 both. they ultimately have to pick the sacrificial lamb
Company wide. I know for a fact that most managers are just as caught off guard as their employees. Mine is more worried about being laid off than I am.