Man this place has turned into quite the clown car fast. We just had a small RIF a few weeks ago now email comes out that we are laying off 10% of workers over the coming weeks.
Worst part is they haven’t notified anyone yet and will do so over the coming weeks. Merry f’ing Christmas.
If you’re not looking for a new job already this should be a wake up call to get out as fast as you can.
So those who don’t get laid off in the next couple of weeks have the pleasure of serving the king for up to two years during which at any time they will get a pink slip? Reeks of a Cartwrightness.
This is what the actual announcement should be:
"Unfortunately, as part of this stage of transformation, I am saddened to say we need to make changes that will affect the leadership. I as your leader, take full responsibility to put TU stocks, its shareholders, and employees to a position that is similar to Titanic. I am fully responsible for not listening to the smart employees and waste tremendous amount of money being spent to take TU to cloud even knowingly that this will cost more and destined to failure. As I said before I am saddened to announce that I, myself, and three level down of my direct reports will be leaving this company without any compensation. I truly believe that this will put TU in the right direction and dig itself out of the hole that we put were responsible for putting it in. Furthermore, all of the millions of dollars saved from our salaries will be equally distributed to all employees who put their blood and soul in this company and are truly responsible for the success."
Thanks
Sincerely,
Chris Cartright
Heartless Spineless
I blame the Neustar merger for a lot of this. Their leadership has been taking over and they are huge on offshore, even bigger than legacy TU was and that’s saying something.
Especially in global technology, the CTO comes from Neustar and I think would be all too happy to have the entire tech organization based in Chennai or Hyderabad or whatever.
Why make us come back in the office, to fire us, it doesn’t make any sense, that’s not saving anyone overhead cost!
What country requires advance notice for layoffs and how long is that window? That will determine how long employees have to wait.
The board, Cartwright and that creepy HR Walmart person should be ousted. What kind of leadership team dismantles a longstanding US company week by week right outside of Wall Street’s doors? Most employees are also investors. Congratulations Cartwright for maintaining your shelf life, I really thought you’d be tossed out into the street months ago.
Am hanging on this thread, its the only place I get news! Please share whatever info as it comes. Hoping everyone is safe and able to keep a positive outlook despite the bad (and poorly communicated) news.
Nobody knows anything about timelines as far as I can tell. Whether all 1300 are US based remains to be seen. I know the UK has been struggling so wouldn’t be surprised if roles there are part of it.
Has anyone heard anything about actual timelines or areas impacted? Digging around but haven’t learned anything yet. Goodluck getting any real work done the next few weeks with this hanging over our heads
More info in the coming WEEKS? So potential layoffs are going to be looming over us over the holidays too? That’s cruel. Does anyone think they know what groups could be at risk? Neustar?
Are the 1300+ souls being laid off mostly in the US? Why would an American public company that handles US consumer data layoff their American workforce? They’re not building widgets, they’re stewards of US consumer data. Take the cheap labor argument out of equation, how do Americans feel about their personal data being handled outside the country?
@ftg+1pB0N8EB Agree 100%. I’ve had such a hard time trying to get meetings together with offshore resources because of the time zone differences. And also very few of them know how to think strategically. But execs don’t care. As long as they get their cheap labor and hope that no major outage or security breach happens on their watch that’s their game plan.
I was at Transunion until about two years ago and have seen a round of layoffs when I was still there. The timing of announcing this around the holidays is not abnormal in the industry (have seen it at other companies too). I left after most of the backfills and the new hires started going to the Global Capability Center in India. It's a decent strategy to save costs in the short run but not a good long term strategy since there's a lot of important subject matter expertise sitting with the US workers. The time zone difference makes it a nightmare too on urgent tasks/items/issues.
Line up another gig, coast at TU and get the severance too.
What a way to run a business: notify the entire company that 10% will be laid off. Meanwhile, everyone is expected to work with a clear mind and give their 110%.
They announced this week to avoid the bad press that would happen if they announced during the holidays.
It’s also possible they said “in the coming weeks” in order to allow people to try and quit early so they can lessen the overall severance obligation.
I get that layoffs are a core part of corporate operations. But to just leave people hanging over the holidays is such a pi-s poor way to do it. Not that Chris Cartwright cares what I or any other peon thinks. He will have bigger issues to deal with when they move everything to India and wonder why all the systems and products start su-king even more. Wouldn’t surprise me if TU gets hacked or a ransomware attack because they will have let go good people who work to prevent that.
“The affected 10% of employees will be notified over the coming WEEKS. Sleep tight, and happy holidays.”
They will likely be subject to the WARN act. I’ve heard the actual cuts are supposed to happen in March. So that would align to 60 days notice if they start notifying people over the next few weeks. Hopefully I’m in a new company well before then.
Was planning a relaxing vacation in december, and what an email to start the day with :/
At least they could’ve hinted the organizations which would be impacted instead of messing around with everybody. Duh.
@zjh+1pB0N8EB Don’t be ridiculous. CEOs never get held accountable for poor business decisions. That’s the fault of all the middle managers and worker bees who are told to execute his poorly laid plans.
Timing could not be any worse, right before the holidays... But probably wanted to ride the current market rally.
Silver lining (if any) is mention of facility exists... Which may mitigate RTO issues.
I think a better solution would be to fire Chris Cartwright instead of laying off 10% of the staff and outsourcing their jobs to cheap labor overseas.
Shipping jobs to their 'Global Capability Centers'. i.e. India.
What an email to wake up to… are they really going to throw this out there and not let the people effected know ahead of time?