My Manager seem surprised on the RIF call on 9/21. The Manager set the appointment didn’t he know what was going to happen? HR and other personnel on the call were either blind copied or forwarded the link. Don’t know if he is playing good cop/bad cop.
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The "manager" (person in leadership) that read the script to me was snickering the whole time on camera so I am going to guess they knew and took pleasure in doing so.
All managers were coached on how to read the script, show no emotion, do not say you are sorry.
- VP level (not necessarily svp/director/manager) knew and they knew months ago.
- Depending on the VP, they lower management for names to hit budget targets.
- The target was 10% at the VP level, so it may seem arbitrary that some groups felt bigger impacts than others
Questions that have not been addressed is who had visibility into what the organization would look like after these changes? Is anyone in management actually managing “cross-functionally?” These siloed cuts reflect a poor understanding and appreciation of interrelationships. Good luck to those who remain - ask anyone in management who left and what groups were impacted and they’re likely coming here for that info.
I'm the one who told my manager that three of his peers (NOT low level) were rolled up in the rif. Even being in the 7x7s, he had absolutely no idea who was on it apart from those in his downstream.
For the record, it was agonizing for him to provide those names, and if I know anything about how this company works (and I do), I am guessing he was GIVEN names from high above and had to fight to keep people, and ended up gritting his teeth and giving them sacrificial lambs. I've seen this happen many times throughout my tenure. Senior leadership says "get rid of these chess pieces" and local leadership says, "I can't, but I can give you these," and it often pains them to do so. As I described it to a non-associate friend of mine tonight, think of it as we're all pieces on a chess board with a salary floating above our avatar. SLT moves us around, and local leadership barters.
This was a terrible thing for local leadership. I guarantee NO ONE on the breakup calls was happy about being there, but of course, they can't say that because they are explicitly instructed not to.
It is not remotely uncommon for direct managers to have no idea when their employees are being riffed until the last minute, or even afterward. As the person who responded just before me indicated, these lists are compiled far above.
I have to be careful here, but I will say that there were leaders on my team who had absolutely no idea that anything was going on until after it happened. And that's not the first time, or even the fifth, that I've seen that happen.
Also of note, when 7x7s start getting scheduled, a lot of people are gonna have a bad time.
VPs and above knew. And they knew for months. Your average manager or director didn't know anymore than you, unless their vp let it slip.
All of this is from the highest levels. Trying to figure out who knew what when is a lost cause.
It's also about 7x7. If you are more than 7 layers from Gail or if you or your direct leader are on a team of less than 7 people, you're vulnerable.
Let's not blame the people who really didn't know and even if they did, what could they do.
Director here-my guess is it depends on the part of the company. I personally was blindsided as were some peers in my department (also directors) who had their direct reports let go, which was revealed only after it happened. Maybe we’re on the list for next round? Who knows.
Director knew last week who they were letting go on my team. Not only told remaining employees but gave a time of when allowed to tell RIF employees.
In the case of a geographic RIF (i.e. the site strategy plan of 2017/18) managers not only knew but were forced to rank and order our associates like lining lambs up one by one to go to sla-ghter. My teams were not affected this go-round BUT, for mass RIFs like this one I believe there’s a real possibility Managers and Directors may not have been informed or involved in who was staying and who was going. A whole lot of tenure and over-MRP people were chopped- that tells me they were focused exclusively on the biggest impact to the bottom line (shouldn’t shock anyone). IMO decisions were made at high levels, and decision makers took their cues from McK, and large-scale from VG/BR (meet “x” number).
Telling people ahead of time could lead to disaster for all the nice neat 15-min HR chop sessions. Too many leaders (like me, hahah) would 100% give their people a heads up prior to the meeting.
I would not be surprised if some middle managers knew, but I would bet money most did not. My manager was finding out from me some of the names of people let go in adjacent teams, and many other very credible indications that he had no idea during, after, and leading up to the great RIFing. Even in cases of huge reorgs (with some people let go but mostly departments moved around), it has been my experience that managers only even find out about those a couple of days before the announcement, if that.
The way things are run there……it would not surprise me in the least if he actually did not know.
If a manager didn’t know that a meeting they scheduled was to terminate one of his employees then … someone is incompetent
No he didn’t. Above their pay grade.
Your manager new.