When you have only the cost of an employee as a criteria, instead of contribution, experience and skills, you end up with crippled teams. Mine has been missing several critical roles for months now, and a couple of hard workers you can rely on. We are left with average performers and few inexperienced newcomers. Barely anything can be done.
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Wow. The same function can be done by 15 persons instead of previous 25 team. What a big productivity improvement.
I hold a global leadership role within my area of expertise. Back in 2019, our team comprised around 25 people globally, including five highly experienced individuals. However, by 2025, the team has shrunk to just 15, with me being the only remaining experienced member. Ten positions were shifted to GSCs (all now staffed by junior employees), and another ten were laid off.
Every day, I struggle to accomplish even 50% of the critical tasks that used to be managed by the more experienced group of five. Much of my time is spent explaining basic professional concepts and technology to the new juniors while also dealing with crises as they arise.
The growth we are responsible for has significantly declined, and in some areas, we’re causing long-term damage to the company, simply because we lack sufficient resources. With an investment of just six figures annually, we could return to generating tens of millions in value each year. Why these cuts were made in the first place is beyond me.
Frankly, I don’t understand the direction the company is taking anymore, and it’s difficult to remain motivated. I’m aiming to survive another five years, hopefully retiring early, perhaps pursuing a small side gig or transitioning to a different field.
I can accept my situation, but it’s disheartening to see how people are treated today and how the company is gradually declining.
It is what it is, and change seems unlikely.
To my colleagues: keep your heads up and make the best choices for yourselves.
It's hard to justify leaving when you're compensated well and the job market isn't great. Probably better off putting in a half-assed effort in hopes of getting let go with a severance package.
I was smart. I was targeted. At first I was upset but now I'm thankful I don't work for such a corrupt corporate shithole. Somewhere else will appreciate your talent. Your first mistake is working here and your second is staying. Imagine if everyone just dipped out and found new jobs. Management will manage empty rooms. I can guess that's why their strategy was to build their plants in b-m fk no where towns so employees are sheep. Maybe not this layoff but you'll be the next. Move on. Sheesh.
They had MTEs that could be plugged into just about any situation and help offer solutions but decided they were all too old or making too much money. But at least Pete got his bonus!
It's OK, Peter sacrificed the MTE org to get his son a promotion at Kearney. It was worth it.
Sir Peter's nuking of a plethora of MTE roles was a shortsighted colossal error that permanently damaged the company. There are other roles that got nuked in large waves but this role had the connection between the labs and full scale production.
The fact that he got a 3 rating and a mega bonus only reinforces the insanity of perpetual cost-cutting.
3M is like the current rendition of the Minnesota Twins, who won a division then slashed payroll and tried to win building a roster with duct tape and super glue. It doesn't work in the long haul. The other reason the stock soared to 130 from 100 under BB is investors figured that the sum of the parts are greater than the whole and BB will get more value slicing the place into 4 or 5 smaller companies.
So glad I'm retired. What a dumpster fire. So sad.
What you described just means that the business unit is not interested in the products you are working on anymore.
We don't work on products; we perform certain necessary corporate functions. Think, like, if we had a single person who knew how to produce reports for mandatory SEC filings.
If anyone on my team leaves, corporations if a certain size are required to have someone performing our tasks, and these aren't the kind of things that can easily be outsourced or offloaded or streamlined with AI.
But we also aren't receiving the support we need and we're being asked to take on the workload of our departed team members (which had required more than a few late nights), without any clear game plan.
I’ve approached multiple so called leaders about critical work that could not be delivered as a result of layoffs. Responses over the past 5 years include:
- Some things just won’t get done so you should get comfortable with this as the new normal. You’ll have to decide what won’t get done moving forward.
- Employees will need to prioritize as best they can.
- Don’t worry, cuts and hiring freezes won’t last.
and one of the best
- Please develop a business case to justify why a new employee is needed on your team.
Each of these is laughable. The responses reflect leadership incapable of offering direction or support, and exposes individual contributors and teams to future allegations of poor performance when important things don’t get done.
3M epitomizes the old adage, we don’t know where we’re going but we sure are making good time!
The term for this is known as “bleed back”, meaning harm done when a consulting firm chooses people wi--y nilly to fire and ends up losing good talent. Lots of bleed back going on now.
I am sorry to hear this. I left 3M few years ago. What you described just means that the business unit is not interested in the products you are working on anymore. Probably your manager was shielding your team and taking the beating. Best is to look for a new position outside 3M. Wish you the best!
My team is a group of talented, high-performing people doing some mission-critical stuff.
But we've lost 3 people in 6 months (including our manager), and now we're 4 people doing the work of 8.
But rather than backfill any roles or put someone in a leadership position for us, they're just ignoring us and expecting that we'll keep doing our jobs because we're all capable professionals.
We are, and we're keeping the lights on, but this is ridiculous. No acknowledgement for the incredible work we've been doing (and the have that we've pulled off some impressive achievements despite being extremely short-handed). No recognition if the fact that we know what we're doing and haven't had any guidance or alignment with corporate but we've all built inroads with VPs to ensure that we're signing with the bigger picture. No acknowledgement that the workload is unsustainable and ba--s will have to drop, and no, we can't take on even more work.
There's no opportunity for advancement. No chance for a promotion. He-l, we didn't even have a performance reviews this year, so I'm sure we're all just going to get 2s and get a 3% COLA raise as a reward for all of our hard work.
I'm looking for a new job. I know two other people on my team are looking for new jobs, and the last guy is angling to become the team manager (which he'll either get, and then have to manage a bunch of new people, it won't get and then he'll start looking for a new job, too).
If anyone on my team leaves, there's nobody that can back them up. The things we support will simply stop being supported, and those things will disappear from 3M. You would think this would be an obvious problem they'd be working to solve, but in 6 months we've spoken to our current supervisor (a VP) exactly 4 times.
What do expect when some of the top performers were laid off?