Thread regarding CDW layoffs

"does anyone know where management is getting their insights to make changes?"

The latest Daniel Pink book. Remember the author interviewed during Diverge who admitted he couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag so became an author writing about management instead?

"Are there some surveys none of us are seeing?"

ROTFLMAO

"Do they care how many people think their management is being toxic or useless?"

No. Justification for their role was built on knowing all. They read the latest DP book. They can "layoff" anyone who speaks up and seeking input would make them irrelevant and reveal the truth.

"Do they care that there is so much overlap with roles and red tape in the processes that we can't get out of our own way to utilize them. Do they care that they are burning hours upon hours every week on disparate tools and processes?"

Possibly. Waiting for the new DP book on that subject to come out so someone new can become a VP claiming to know how to solve that while listening to absolutely no one on the front lines impacted by the problems..

"Do they think leadership from Public sector sales organization is going to breath new life into the org somehow?"

Desperation and no clue what else to do. Wonder boy flamed out after demolishing the once successful culture. Can't (probably) do worse.

Agreed those leaders have a false sense of leadership & accomplishment. Their teams are successful despite the leader not because of it.

Quote: “The timing seems unfortunate that CDW bought some companies to form the new Digital Velocity division right as the economy started to slip.”

To be fair, ITS has similar problems with siloed teams related to the FP acquisition. Comp for Directors and Sales has people putting up walls instead of working with other teams. It’s dog eat dog and everyone starves because they can’t get their act together for big deals.

Some dept leaders are definitely divisive in their approach with other teams & within their own teams. They’re the ones who have the most impact on the team’s performance or lack of performance & initiative. Can’t expect high/consistent performance by teams with low morale. A hard look needs to be taken at them instead of the coworkers before more talent flees

While there isn't 1 magic lever that management can pull, it is an issue that they don't seem to consistently or effectively pull ANY. Teams are silo'd. Management is silo'd. They've been ineffective at creating new culture with the acquisitions and years into merging companies many people still refer to their original company for their current teams and how 'they' do things and 'cdw' does things differently. Senior leadership have allowed middle tier leaders to stay in place who actively breed the 'us vs them' mentality. Managers bad-mouth other teams and entrench themselves deeper in how they want to operate--others be damned. The "CDW Way" is absolute lip service and nobody feels safe to say anything because ineffective management seems protected to maintain the status quo or for risk of looking like the team isn't doing well and puts a target on more people's backs for the next RIF.

The timing seems unfortunate that CDW bought some companies to form the new Digital Velocity division right as the economy started to slip. But they haven't done themselves any favors by retaining a lot of headcount from acquisitions and a lot of middle management that keep their operating costs inflated. But just cutting people won't solve their problems.

If CDW wants to become more efficient and solve customer problems, they need to create a new culture of customer first and high collaboration. And the only way they will do that is if they get the right senior leadership in place to not just demand that behavior but inspire the vision. I'm not in DV, but from my view it seems like they have no passion or vision from their management on down. They have been run by leadership that came from the acquisitions and was initially promoting how much better they were than legacy CDW and inspired no desire for the rest of the organization to utilize them. They have some amazing team members that are collaborative and engaging outside of their bubble, but I've heard they are even stifled by management telling them to stay in their lane and focus on their own stuff. The rest of the org feels that DV is inconsistent at best and most often just difficult to work with being constantly passed around to different roles or teams that have overlapping responsibilities. And then heaven forbid you finally start to build a solution just to find out the delivery teams can't support it or want to double the cost and you end up needing to go to a partner.

And on top of that, does anyone know where management is getting their insights to make changes? Are there some surveys none of us are seeing? Do they care how many people think their management is being toxic or useless? Do they care that there is so much overlap with roles and red tape in the processes that we can't get out of our own way to utilize them. Do they care that they are burning hours upon hours every week on disparate tools and processes? Do they think leadership from Public sector sales organization is going to breath new life into the org somehow? We in ITS would take them back with open arms and try to unite the solutions across private and public clouds if they'd let us.

CDW employees have no real voice. CDW leadership has no vision or inspiration to offer. Sell sell sell. Hope you know the right people to be involved in some cool projects or sign some big deals depending on your role so you don't end up on the bottom of the list.

There’s very little profit in selling “stuff” due to competitors - that’s where the acquisitions came in - to sell “full stack” including services. The problem is that the company is too damned siloed to successfully implement such a strategy successfully… and that is on the senior leadership.

"Sellers need to sell. Backbone has to find ways to be efficient and cost effective. It is what it is."

The sad reality is that quite literally every single internal process is more difficult/time consuming today than it was 2yrs ago, 5yrs ago, etc. The actual hard work starts the moment you receive a customer order, and then have to navigate the growing number of internal hurdles and/or roadblocks. Until "leadership" (at any level) listens to and acknowledges this new reality, our numbers/production will continue to lag behind expectation, and our frustrated customers will continue to spend elsewhere.

Totally agree. I think there's this perception that there's a magic lever that management can pull to suddenly 'fix' the issues that are being laid out here. The fact of the matter is that we sell 'stuff' to customers. If they buy? We do great. If they aren't buying? We struggle. If there was a special lever to fix this, the company would have yanked it many quarters ago. The stock price drop is not surprising at all because we just missed on pretty much every meaningful measure.

Sellers need to sell. Backbone has to find ways to be efficient and cost effective. It is what it is.

So how do we feel now that the Q1 results are out ?

Logic says the only way shareholders recover is to trim the fat. My guess is another 2-3% layoff as early as next week or if we’re very lucky pushed off until end of q2 in hopes we beat or at least meet expectations.

At the end of the day, we all have very little control over getting laid off. You will survive it. Polish your resume, apply to jobs, have an exit strategy in case the worst occurs. Otherwise buckle in, ignore the noise and do everything you can to meet q2 results.

Relying on managers for insight or direction is pointless, they are excluded from these decisions. Best thing to talk to your manager about is your pipeline, your impact on the business and anything you can do to drive more value to customers as well as CDW internally.

It is not good at all:

CDW shares fall after Q1 earnings miss: sales down 4.5% to $4.87 billion, adjusted EPS at $1.92. Declines across CDW's corporate, small business, and public segments contribute to lower-than-expected Q1 results.

Summary
Revenue: Reported at $4,872.7 million for Q1 2024, down 4.5% year-over-year, falling short of the estimated $5,001.52 million.
Net Income: Achieved $216.1 million in Q1 2024, a decrease of 6.1% from the previous year, below the estimated $292.55 million.
Earnings Per Share (EPS): Recorded at $1.59, down 5.2% year-over-year, falling short of the estimated $2.15.
Gross Profit Margin: Improved to 21.8% in Q1 2024 from 21.3% in Q1 2023, indicating a more favorable mix of higher-margin products.
Operating Income: Declined by 7.7% to $328 million in Q1 2024, reflecting increased operational costs and challenging market conditions.
Interest Expense, Net: Decreased to $51 million, benefiting from higher interest income and lower debt levels.
Dividend: Announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.62 per share, payable on June 11, 2024, demonstrating continued return to shareholders.

So how do we feel now that the Q1 results are out ?

I think the main difference with CDW is that we are notoriously underpaid (significantly) and the CDW culture was always a reason to stick around. Now with the fear of layoffs and being overworked there is not any silver lining to be paid like sh-t. I think CDW would be experiencing a mass exodus if the job market wasn't as bad as it is currently.

Also, if you disagree that CDW underpays their employees, I will leave you with this fun fact. CDW only changed the starting sales salary from 30k to 32k because colleges wouldn’t allow them to attend career fairs because that is under minimum wage.

"CDW customers and competitors need to know the state of the CDW business practices. A company cannot just do what they want to their employees for any reason including profit."

Huh? That's pretty much what any large company will do. Have you browsed around the other, major companies in this space? They do the exact same thing. We are just feeling the transition from a more 'mom and pop' setup to something radically different.

Again, I am not here saying I love it. I'm just saying this idea that we are evil compared to any of the other sharks in these waters is mistaken. Companies are here to make money. We like to believe we are safe and valued - but at the end of the day it boils down to our ability to generate revenue/profit for our employer. I wish that weren't the case - but that's where things stand. You owe CDW nothing and they will show you, whenever they need to, how little they care about you. Use it as a two way street.

CDW customers and competitors need to know the state of the CDW business practices. A company cannot just do what they want to their employees for any reason including profit. Company actions have consequences, customers have options and competitors are ready poach employees and customers. CDW can digest that.

I think the pill that many people on this site need to swallow is that CDW is not the company it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago. I'm not saying that with glee, just stating a fact. The organization is a publicly traded company. Their interest is generating profit and maximizing shareholder value. The 'old days' of a 'coworker first', family company are gone. These layoff rumors will always be rumors because, at the end of the day, they are a means to an end - continually maximizing shareholder value. I worry as many of you do, but do you honestly think they are going to come out and say, "Hey next week, some of you are gone." The answer is, no. They will do whatever they have to do, at whatever time they feel ready to keep the business moving forward with a lowered headcount, to make those calls.

Also, each department will likely always be in their own world as they look at headcount. Finance does things differently from Sales who does it differently than Technology. Sweeping statements of layoffs, without substantial proof or smoking g-ns (which I cannot imagine we will even get) are just fearmongering people on here.

This whole last year has been nothing but stressful, demoralizing, and exhausting. Every day it feels like a fight with myself anymore to keep pushing at this company. That's how I feel personally, but I'm sure I'm not alone on this. The lack of communication and ambiguous nature of things isn't helpful.

Where there's a lack of official communication, grapevine will be used in its place. That's what's happening here.

"Being rude to objectively abusive to coworkers on calls" is an understatement. This behavior is a part of CDW culture because some CDW managers lack managerial and communication skills. All senior managers including the CEO should review the comments on this site to know what has become of their workforce. CDW managers are responsible for the fear mongering, job insecurity and low morale. In 8 days, this thread alone has over 2000 views while other larger tech companies have not had any new threads in several months to more than a year.

Thanks for that update. I wish Eccles well with his family issues but you are absolutely right that the lack of communication continues to be disheartening. I wish leadership would realize that even small communications would go a long way to show the workforce they care even in the slightest about tier concern and anxiety

A few people asked about the DV Managers meeting last week. The meeting occurred (first one this year) but didn’t include much new info. The main points were:

1. Eccles currently has a stressful family situation that’s impacting his work.
2. “There aren’t any layoffs planned”. Important point to remember here is that leadership didn’t call the January round a layoff as they considered it performance based. So good news: they’re not planning a mass layoff like April 2023 this quarter. But targeted people could still be let go.
3. Related to #2, Eccles specifically mentioned having seen his name on this site. While no one can say for certain whether he’s ever commented, he has absolutely read the threads. (If you happen to be reading this one, you have my empathy for #1, but the reason people are speculating anonymously is because we haven’t heard any substantive news since December. In the absence of confirmed plans, coworkers are trying to piece together whatever details they’ve gathered because the lack of direction is destabilizing to put it mildly.)
4. The entire group was chastised because a few managers have a history of being rude to objectively abusive to coworkers on calls. Imagine an elementary school teacher lecturing the entire class because a couple kids are being disruptive. The point was probably to communicate that the bad actors have been called out privately, but the group lecture worsened the already abysmal morale.

The DV goals announcement that had been scheduled for April 26th was rescheduled to the week of May 13th. The hold up had previously been confirming positions and responsibilities for Eccles’s directs, but I think that’s been resolved. Board approval (presumably for the reorg) has also been secured. So who knows what the current delay is? Some transparency would be useful, but given the lack of communication so far this year I doubt we’ll get any.

I can guarantee you that CDW employees mental health is not a factor when they are deciding layoffs. You are just a number and if that number is interfering with profits, vanguard and black rock aren’t happy. If they cared about our mental health they wouldn’t cut commissions and bonuses when we are dealing with record inflation. Unfortunately corporate greed cares about no one except for the 1%.

Looks like another quiet week. I wonder if the CDW mental health benefits are seeing an uptick of people needing to talk about anxiety and stress.

"If you want a good laugh or cry, look at the 17 jobs CDW just posted on LinkedIn. Nearly all are location-bound. In a reposted job, they’re hoping to get a “Senior Solutions Architect, Security,” in San Francisco for 140k… good luck with that!"

Exactly...then go look at SHI...basically the same position for $220K-$300K.

https://careers-shi.icims.com/jobs/16592/stratascale-principal-cybersecurity-architect/job

If you want a good laugh or cry, look at the 17 jobs CDW just posted on LinkedIn. Nearly all are location-bound. In a reposted job, they’re hoping to get a “Senior Solutions Architect, Security,” in San Francisco for 140k… good luck with that!

I bet you can thank the Global Career Framework for that. Apparently that framework is way undervaluing roles and ki-ling off hopes of progression internally (not to mention making it hard to hire anyone decent).

If you want a good laugh or cry, look at the 17 jobs CDW just posted on LinkedIn. Nearly all are location-bound. In a reposted job, they’re hoping to get a “Senior Solutions Architect, Security,” in San Francisco for 140k… good luck with that!

Yes, they are the worst so the expectation is very low.

"I've seen a number of posts in defense of the business that sure do seem like they could be in those circles or at least some level of management."

"Indeed. The one posted on January 20, after the January layoffs, titled "I'll tell you what's going on" was definitely a Director or VP."

In response to the above two statements... Maybe, just maybe not every positive post is a member of CDW leadership. Also, maybe, just maybe, that January 20th post was somebody impersonating a CDW Leader and not actually one. I think it is way more likely it was somebody trolling than an actual member of CDW's leadership team. I think I saw in that post, the poster said something about DEI not being important... do you really think that is CDW's stance or any of their senior leaders would write that? This is a web site that the most polarizing posts gets maybe 50 total responses/likes/dislikes. Do you really think CDW Leadership is spending time looking at this site and posting... especially posting to former Coworkers?

Actually, I was laid off from CDW in January 2024 and it was completely unexpected. I offered the advice from my own experience.

"Fingers crossed for all of you, but if the worst happens:"

Thanks for all the "wonderful" suggestions... whoever posted this is probably in management, so you feel like you're being caring and helpful... ok sure... whatever helps you sleep better at night buddy.

Oh and let me guess... this is a difficult decision! Right? Oh and... you're very sorry!

How about you stick to what you know: making terrible decisions with your 6/7 figure salary.

Seems like Employee Relations or HR Partner talking points. It you want to help, confirm how many impacted and when will it happen. We all know how to google the what ifs.

Fingers crossed for all of you, but if the worst happens:

• Take a few days of "me" time if you can. Allow yourself to process your feelings of uncertainty and anger, then formulate a strategy with a clear head.
• Know that when severance is paid in lump sum, the withholding is MUCH higher... sort of like bonuses. Don't expect it to net the same amount you would in a similar period of net paychecks over time.
• Don't use the resume that the "placement firm" CDW works with provides - it's not optimized for applicant tracking systems and can come out garbled. I found this out because I applied for a job through a network referral who happened to be the hiring manager. I had to re-do my resume and resubmit it.
• Work your existing network, but don't be desperate or angry. I didn't do the "open to work" thing on my LinkedIn profile because all that tends to do is attract solicitations by people wanting to re-do your resume or LinkedIn profile.
• When you run across jobs that look objectively good, but aren't for you, take ten seconds or less and share them on your LinkedIn network. This is an organic way to grow your network and influence, while perhaps helping others out... and it tends to foster goodwill, so others will reach out and reciprocate to help you.
• Be open to contract opportunities to get by for now - the job market is brutal right now. Hybrid or in-person is the norm. Relocation, if offered, is often a pittance. Pay scales for tech and professionals are down from what they were a few years ago due to a high number of applicants. Get generic applications into EY, PWC, Robert Half, etc.
• Reach out to other CDW alumni on LinkedIn - we have been in your shoes and will do what we can to help.
• Don't panic! There is always a path forward. Brainstorm with others if you need help finding it.

"I've seen a number of posts in defense of the business that sure do seem like they could be in those circles or at least some level of management."

Indeed. The one posted on January 20, after the January layoffs, titled "I'll tell you what's going on" was definitely a Director or VP.

"Nobody in that meeting would be on this site."

I've seen a number of posts in defense of the business that sure do seem like they could be in those circles or at least some level of management.

"No one at that meeting would be permitted to disclose anything negative… but the fact that no one has posted “don’t worry” could be telling."

Nobody in that meeting would be on this site.

"No one at that meeting would be permitted to disclose anything negative… but the fact that no one has posted “don’t worry” could be telling."

• there is always a mole!!! Let's hear it. DO IT FOR THE PEOPLE!!!!!

No one at that meeting would be permitted to disclose anything negative… but the fact that no one has posted “don’t worry” could be telling.

Haven't heard anything yet!

How did the Monday manager meeting go? Or was that cancelled, too?

I’m literally gagging at the new HR jargon used on the CDWJobs site:
Together
We unite
We win
We thrive

Hey, Kool-Aid!

The leaders are cowards - and they’re going to run the company into the ground. Do they actually expect high performers to stick around with this uncertainty?