Thread regarding Corning Inc. layoffs

"you are definitely not privy to the information you believe you are."

There are two options: you are privy to high level info, or you are privy to how things are for the people who actually do the work. Never both.

So you have self-identified as someone who has laid people off while knowing that you will not be held accountable for your own bad decision; someone who denied raises for those who need money while getting LTI bonuses for yourself. Congrats - you are part of the reason the culture is rotting.

You are mistaken. I am the recipient of the, "Boot licking". Due to the engineered compartmentalization, you are definitely not privy to the information you believe you are.

"If you believe this company is flawed, you'd be happy to part ways."

Translation: you're not allowed to criticize the boots I am licking.

Give. Me. A. Break.

Of course there are hiring ups and downs, broad economic forces as well as self-inflicted errors, and other things that impact the workforce.

For hiring, the 'slowness' is generally related to time between first contact and start date being significantly longer than technology industry standards. The hire/fire rate is actually much lower than the industry - as anyone who has dealt with technology industry companies can attest.

The implication that a certain degree is needed to be allowed to criticize or offer solutions is nonsense - as is the idea that only C-suite / Board members know the inner workings of all divisions. Anyone who has presented to these groups knows that the information delivered is often watered down and tightly scripted. The VP and Director levels try to 'manage the message'.

During the pandemic we were asked for 'shared sacrifice'. Why is there no 'shared sacrifice' now? ~20% of the C-band & below population was fired; 0% of the D-band and above group was impacted. No raises of any kind were given to C-band or below ... LTI bonuses were given to the majority of people D-band and above, and essentially 100% of director and up got these - and they are large enough that every person who got an LTI effectively equated with a lost job.

2001, 2008, 2012 and a gap until 2023. This is a good run without significant reduction.

Place blame how you will. This Company has used labor as a way to control spending for a long time. As far as being slow with hiring, that's nonsense. It is feast or famine with hiring or dismissal. If you think you have the answer, get yourself an MBA and climb the ranks. Save the Corning world. Being a technology company now, Corning will try things and occasionally abandon them. This will also add to labor turbulence. Anyone below The Board of Directors playing armchair quarterback doesn't have a fraction of the information being exchanged at that level. If you believe this company is flawed, you'd be happy to part ways.

Certainly saddens me to read a colleague saying that cutting nearly 1/5 of the population is 'overdue'. Corning is notoriously slow with hiring ... thinking that a solid 20% of people were bad hires is pretty wild. Certainly there are 'culls' that happen whenever a layoff occurs to get rid of people due to low performance, but there have already been singularly skilled people lost.

And of course there have been zero directors, senior managers, or other higher ups who have felt consequences for their poor decisions or the downturn. Until we see VPs getting axed, we know that we're not even trying to get to the root of the problem.

This reduction is overdue and anyone with more than 10 years of service will tell you this. This sort of people movement typically happens about every 4 years.

I think the term "cyclical" is a better at describing Corning than unstable. Some of the up/down cycles are cause by economic trends (periodic up/down fluctuations in the economy), but some of it is self-inflicted (poor business decisions in the life sciences area: For example, Corning & vials). When a mild "pull-back" in the overall economy coincides with Corning's poor business decisions....then you get mass layoffs.