Does anyone "in the know" know at what level the layoff decisions were made? Manager, Director, VP? I would think that whoever was making a decision would have some sort of an idea of what the job position was and what the employee's functions were, if it was a duplication. But then again could have just been going down a list of names and checking random names.
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Director and above. They sign NDAs.
No, not necessarily. While what you're hearing may hold true for some orgs, other orgs have Sr Directors conducting planning, assessments, final org charts, and actual notification discussions, while their senior managers and lower are largely left in the dark until after layoff discussions occur. In other words, there is no single way. It varies because so many teams are structured differently from one another.
I've heard both high level and lower level managers/directors depending on the depth of the cuts. Where most of an org is eliminated it's higher level director/VP, but if it's trimming down a team by a certain number it's left to managers to create a list.
The objective is to reduce operational costs by reducing overall headcount at all levels and eliminating some roles. The criteria for this may vary some from org to org, but it's either you're no longer needed due to business changes or in the cases of reducing a team size, laying off lower performing and less talented individuals that keave behind the strongest possible team. Leaders are having to cut deeper than they ever wanted, so all this negativity towards middle management is misdirected. There is a company wide objective to reduce costs and this is a lever the C-Level folks want to use to do so. Everyone else involved is doing their duty of carrying out those orders and has an extremely difficult job of impacting the livelihoods of so many people. In many cases, managers, senior managers, and directors are also being affected. I'm not suggesting sympathy or saying certain leaders should carry zero blame. I'm simply saying that it's ridiculous to assume that all leaders are heartless a--holes who think you're just a number. I say all of this as someone who will likely be impacted next week.
Our director got canned last year and they never backfilled. I’m sure our Manager and Senior did not play a role. It had to be VP and up. But these higher up leaders rarely know us on a personal level, so at the end of the day we’re just a number.
From the names I’ve heard. The criteria is all over the place.
Salary
Tenure
Performance Based
WFH
Legacy TMO/Sprint
Age
This would vary by org and location. Generally speaking, a vast majority of managers and senior managers were not involved in the selections. There are likely teams in which leaders below directors were looped in and even consulted, but as often as organizationally possible, director+ leaders made official selections and submitted assessments. You will hear about exceptions to this here and there. For example, since this was a major restructuring designed to increase each leader's span of control and/or eliminate roles, directors or senior directors may be impacted. In cases like this, the individual making the decision would be the senior director, VP or SVP above the highest person selected for separation.
In Consumer Group, it was Sr Director and higher
Move on dude. It’s done.