Thread regarding Schlumberger Ltd. layoffs

-7hpw

I'm sorry to hear that. I know how difficult things are for you and your family, since I went through the same experience. Hope the new year will be better for all of us. Take care.

i know excellent advisors and principals who have been fired and 'retired' (I was one). Conversely, i know plagiarizing, incompetent engineers & scientists who are still employed. I also know there are lab technicians being 'sold' as critical to their manager's groups who couldnt do simple algebra or say anything remotely intelligent about something about chemical equilibria yet that is what they work on every day. SLB is no where near to being skeletonized although management above group level clearly doesnt pay attention to who does or doesnt do things and what groups are actually productive versus those that know somebody in the C-level suites

-prn

Are you the manager running the centers close to the railroad? Are you still doing nothing but throwing BBQ parties?

I cannot agree more about SETC. I worked for other global organizations before joining SLB. SETC was the most unreasonable, time-wasting BS that I've ever experienced.

"They don't touch the level B6, B5, and B4" you have no idea what's you are talking about. I was one of those, along with many people in that group, who got kicked out. I have to say one must try to make some progress while working (or at least an illusion of it) but that SETC thing is a total bs, except for the raise (in lieu of your annual merit raise;-)

@KLPY7AL-1jco

1) It seems like you missed my point or maybe I wasn’t very clear. I wasn’t making any general statement about advisors/fellows and what they do. My question is whether the transformation and HR’s formula equally focus on all the levels. You mentioned about “halo” of advisors and fellows. So once you get this “halo”, regardless of your contribution, you should be safe from “transformation”, right? If this logic applies to any prominent positions, I guess I can clearly see what the transformation is about (though I already kind of sensed it).

2) Again, I still don’t understand why you keep making an analogy to a war, but if you as a general make a decision to go to a war even though there will be only casualties to your army, you’re simply wrong. Also, the connection between Vietnam War and layoffs in SLB looks quite irrelevant to me.

3) This is also quite interesting comment. So, SLB executives don’t need to show exemplary gesture of their loyalty and commitment to the company, simply because this industry destroys our world and hence is not ethical? I wonder why there are so many trainings related to ethics in the company. BTW, aren’t loyalty and commitment attributes of true leadership, not ethics?

I don’t think I need to respond to your comments any more. You have a nice weekend.

-xjh

1) The Advisors and Fellows usually have international exposure inside and outside the company, while most of other technicians are more readily replaceable. They hold the "dream job" of many tech and if they are discarded like other technician, the halo goes away. They don't touch the level B6, B5, and B4 techs so plenty of young engineer still keep joining the company hoping for that career and level of job security, no matter how harsh is the path to get there.

2) On the contrary, letting people die is not a "stupid decision" sometimes is the only way to try win a war. Like on the D-Day, the generals were perfectly aware that the casualties would have been massive, but was necessary. Could a better strategy been formulated? maybe or maybe not, but someone had to take the decision and be accountable for it. This is what executives do, they take decisions, no matter how hard, and they are accountable for. In retrospect we can say that sending a lot of kids to die in Vietnam was absolutely stupid, and maybe in the future we will be able to say that cutting 30% of the workforce was stupid, or maybe not.

3) When CEO cut their salary and benefits they already have a second way to make it up, or we are talking about companies which try to have a very ethical footprint. O&G is not an ethical field, we are F* up the planet and the people living on it in every single aspect from toppling governments to favor certain oil companies, to fight a legal war against climate change, and pollute as much as we please with the excuse of job creation.

Next month, we will all hear exactly the same thing from the management in Q4 earnings call - "The market finally hit the bottom blah blah~", and the layoffs in the name of transformation will continue. This is the company that lived in its own delusion of "world's best managed company" and "technology leader".

lrd,

Well stated and very true. The culture in SLB is unrecognizable, and the can do attitude has been beat out of loyal employees a long time ago.

Why would you call me an incompetent manager? I run this center.

A very good summary of what is happening now, accurate and totally true, a fundamental change in the management of SLB is long overdue.

Loyalty and commitment from all SLB employees will carry the company forward, but this has to start from the top and be fully supported at all levels throughout, the current divide and rule culture accompanied by the one size fits all mindset will not work, the downward spiral will continue unless changes are made.

SLB is now almost unrecognisable in it's present format to many long term employees both current and redundant, very sad.

@KLPY7AL-ztc You seem to have very good understanding about “modern labor market”, so enlighten me with the depth of your profound knowledge.

1. As you may know, in this “modern labor market”, many technicians, engineers, and supply chains so on and so forth got laid off, when people like you – “super-specialists” – enjoy better job security. Why is that? Is it because you really do more important work than what they do?

2. I don’t understand what you were really trying to say with the analogy to a war situation. So, generals can make any stupid decisions and let soldiers just die? Also, what’s the connection between generals and SLB executives? I didn’t know SLB executives could make any stupid decision and have a sound sleep.

3. I hear that some CEOs voluntarily takes pay cut, which shows loyalty and commitment to their organizations. Why can’t we see the same thing from SLB executives?

You keep not understanding how the modern labor market works.

First you need these "super-specialists" publishing papers because that is how you build the reputation of knowing what you are doing.

Executives are paid what they are paid because they can take the hard decisions in the blink of an eye. It's like in war, generals aren't the smartest one, they are the one who can send thousands of people to die and have a sound sleep every night. The same with executives.

They can cut much more and still be able to operate. They just need to hold on to the patents and they can dismember the whole company and rebuild it many times before running out of money.

2015 total compensation for 5 top executives after laying off 30~40% of the entire workforce.

S. Ayat: $6,256,759, A. Belani: $5,638,945, P. Kibsgaard: $17,343,126, P. Schorn; $5,048,948, K. Al Mogharbel: $4,927,634

http://www1.salary.com/SCHLUMBERGER-LTD-Executive-Salaries.html

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/19/news/companies/schlumberger-ceo-pay-oil-jobs/

What will be the numbers for 2016?

Why don't you add people at research centers, whose main job is to publish conference papers?