Hello friends,
So the “RIF that isnt a RIF” is underway. Volunteers to lose their jobs have been solicited, and the word is that around 4% to 5% of the staff have applied to go! Mostly in USA & UK, but not exclusively so… and the question now is whether 200 or 300 people leaving will appease the RIF beast. We will know soon enough!
22 replies (most recent on top)
Hardly anyone reached out when I got RIF’d last November and now they are all contacting me because I found a great job right away.
Packages this time are way less than last November.
Many legacy Inmarsat staff keen to move on, particularly given the enhanced redundancy available in the UK
One reason why so many London based staff were keen to leave end of 2023 with nice packages and into what was then a good job market in the UK
Hi friends it’s mr Dark M again with an update for y’all.
I am reliably informed (by P#C) that the lucky volunteers to “self-RIF” are now being granted their enhanced packages and leaving dates. Nice for those who get it, especially for our Euro colleagues who can pocket multi-year severance handouts.
I hear on the legacy Inmarsat side, 3 levels of leadership (L3, L4, L5) are departing the former-Inmarsat customer services organisation. The incumbent L2 and his new L3 seem unconcerned. But that may change when NPS and customer sat slip and when Customers and the Segment begin to complain.
But hey, if there is no money (for workers :) ) then thats what happens…. It doesn’t look like the voluntary program will produce enough savings to “feed the beast” so stay tuned for #INVOL_News….
Linkedin randomly offers connection opportunities to people you might know. I doubt it was because of a sudden realization that Viasat isn't doing well.
Why does it matter if they reached out to you or not?
Well this explains why a former coworker who never reached out to me after Viasat's layoff in 2023 suddenly wants to connect on LinkedIn.
“We’ll know soon enough”.
Hope so. Hate limbo. I’m dreading this carrying on the rest of the year. Can’t do my best work. Bet no one else can.
You would think a business faced with existential problems would actively pick the segments it wants to keep and shed the others it can't invest in. With this program we're left with the same random outcome as we had with the last RIF in that lots of people will be gone but unhealthy or unprofitable businesses will still not be ki-led. It's more of the same all over again where there will be fewer people to do the same amount of work, when the company should pick segements then cut the ones (and hence people) it can't afford to keep.
We probably will get a nice little parting gift just right around thanksgiving and christmas again.
They will need 900 volunteers to avoid an involuntary RIF, right?
Don't disrespect UCLA like that. It's from USC
Stop the nonsense. If you listened to the P&C speech, you’d know that the company can deny a voluntary leave request. So it’s not that random.
We at GURUSAT forgo all logic and let our employees randomly choose if they want to leave with package. We don’t care what department or function they come from. Management does not need to put thought into which projects people are not needed for and match layoffs accordingly. GURU has UCLA MBA which has taught best to leave resource gaps to chance.
If you recall the P&C line (assuming you actually work for the company), any hiring e.g. the 84 open posts are subject to committee scrutiny…so, in extreme circumstances, one or two might actually get filled
Why are we still hiring if people are being asked to leave. I count 84 positions on the career page
Is all hiring going to stop. I see 84 jobs on the careers page. Why are we doing that if a “rif” is needed?
What troubles me about this voluntary program is that it remains random at its core. You would think a business faced with existential problems would actively pick the segments it wants to keep and shed the others it can't invest in. With this program we're left with the same random outcome as we had with the last RIF in that lots of people will be gone but unhealthy or unprofitable businesses will still not be ki-led. It's more of the same all over again where there will be fewer people to do the same amount of work, when the company should pick segements then cut the ones (and hence people) it can't afford to keep.
Surely this won't create a hostile work environment for the next six months and those who do opt to bail out won't just sandbag until their end date. Then again those who will take it probably aren't contributing much anyways so this is more of a forecast for the rest of us where we are hoping enough sign up so we aren't on the chopping block this winter. Good luck everyone!
Based on previous maths I expect a total need of 600 maybe up to 900, definitely more heads to roll.
But isn't this all just f'ing random. Wouldn't leadership facing existantial issues sit down and do the hard work of deciding which businesses are important and which have to get thrown off the lifeboat and hence decide those are the heads needed to go. Maybe reshuffled heads based on that biased towards the winners to keep, but take active decisions nonetheless that are tied to the outcomes you want instead of seeing who'll voluntarily jump ship and then see if you can sustain your business.
It's all so sleep-walky
Errrr some troll took my post from another thread on RTO and pasted it here. Latest troll thing to clutter threads.
Ya, some form of RTO is likely the next step. Already some activities tangential to that. I know some trolls will rejoice that will drive better outcomes yad yada yada. The reality is leadership will still point us to work on the wrong problems, doing that at the office or remote will not change the outcome that GEO is of diminishing usefulness to customers.
Everybody needs to realize this. No matter what they say, layoffs are always a possibility. They've lied to us before and they'll lie to us again. Thinking you're safe because somebody above you told you so is naive and will leave you in a cr-ppy position once you realize they lied.