I wish someone can explain the selection process for layoff if not the manager. Is it tenure, pay, performance review? Is it random. I don't understand hard-working, well respected people being let go and dead wood with more pay left working in same role... It makes no sense. Like please someone explain how the selection is made when not obvious.
14 replies (most recent on top)
I have been laid off 4 times in 30+ years . I was one of the critical resource owning the knowledge of process exclusively. So every time they call me to layoff , they repeat this slogan ‘ ur position / job responsibilities is no longer needed or eliminated’ . So for example ur flipping burgers in a restaurant and ur work is replaced by robot or they stop selling burgers or burgers come from package ready to serve. The State labor department need a few lines from the employer to justify ur lay off. As per rule, they cannot fill this six months with similar job responsibilities. U can sue the employer if they does. But who does this follow up. So it is headache and paperwork to perform lay off as per HR in all 4 times.
Selection criteria........do I like you or don't I........
In old companies, they would plot out people’s salaries in a quadrant. If you’re an outlier with a higher salary, they look at the ROI on the employee. Are they generating revenue or cost savings, or are they purely overhead? Plus, there’s the good old fashion “cut all low performers.”
I don’t know if WF uses that methodology, but tenure is seldom used for most companies in today’s market.
@1jxg+1lKxzfaH It's like communism with a paycheck.
@1jxg You are talking about tech. It is not this way in all areas of the enterprise. Many people in lines of business ops, risk, legal, Project Management (BEC) and product owners CAN move around or get promoted. We have an incentive to do well and produce. The question is how are they determining who goes on the chopping block bc several people have been canned and it leaves gaping knowledge gaps (due to one person finding a niche) and stress on remaining teammates. HOW DO THEY DECIDE?!?!? Dart board?? HR people: SPILL THE TEA!!!!
Managers are only in consideration when there is a golden parachute involved. In your case it's just a pearl necklace.
Sadly the worst thing WF can do for a team member is keep them on the payroll. We are all operating at a minimal pulse rate. Yes it is stressful to get let go unexpectedly, but more often than not it opens doors, it creates opportunities. In tech I know of less than 5 people who moved internally in 20+ years from technical to management. Is that really a good thing though? Jury is out!
What is the incentive to stay at WF and do your very best? There is no corporate ladder to climb. All that remains is parallel and sideways work; sweeping sand at the beach. The main incentive for over 20 years has been all about pay. This is the only important metric, not your performance rating, not whether you have friends at work, not because you are being watched as a good candidate for a better role, not because you single handedly showed up and interrupted your personal life off hours to prevent an outage from costing the bank x dollars in downtime.
But WF doesn't have a pay incentive, it keeps you in the 1-2.5% merit increase range each year, year after year after year.
Most of us need WF to nudge us out the door no matter if strategic or seemingly random. While I am still here on the mothership, I do not really care anymore about the reasons for why. It is not my job to work around layoffs and cover up holes. What is the incentive to do so? There is none.
@opx that "problem" will be self correcting since the imports are supposed to be more skilled than US workers, so they should eventually start demanding higher pay.
Good thing you can "identify" as whatever you want, eh? Yep!
Severance savings isn't part of it. I know where a new hire (still in 90 days) was kept and a good 15+ year employee was let go.
I'll let you guess the ethnicity of each.
LGBTQIA2+ status, race, s-x, location, compensation, performance, qualifications in that order.
They want to reduce severance costs, so layoff newbies when possible. They also probably hit the unvaccinated hard, less likely they will die suddenly on their own (and not get severance).
Yes, it is random distribution.
In my case, it was due to some input from my inept manager. They were intimidated by me, if only because I asked questions. Like "What does this MBO actually mean? How exactly will it be measured?" Yea. The rest of my team knew manager had it in for me--no joke. When I was let go, manager had a former direct report from their former team (let's call him "Dead Weight") moved over to "replace" me.