I have no problem with the "right sizing" exercise of a publicly traded company. It's all about the bottom line and the corporate obligation to investors. Pretty basic.
For those folks who have left the company as part of the layoffs this past year and a half, this really could not be avoided in light of the volatile oil pricing. It's just math.
What I will say however and this is purely "my 2 cents", is in a company such as ConocoPhillips that has such a large component of middle management in their org structure, and not to throw anybody under the bus here but this overstaffed level of management is a "nice to have" but a huge financial drain to the G&A budget.
Some departments have a general manager or similar title with multiple managers reporting up to them. Below these managers are supervisors or leads. These supervisors/leads are the folks that are in the trenches and report everything up to managers who take that information up to the next level and so on.
I hope this next round will see a realignment of the reporting structure and in-doing-so win some staff confidences back.