How is the morale at Ford right now? I am with GM, we had our cuts in Feb, the morale dipped so low I've never seen it this bad (25 years with the company)...
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Morale depends on what level you are.
Morale is terrible. I posted this piece on the GM board a couple of days ago and I'll repost it here.
This is what it is like to work at Ford right now:
In my department people are starting to undermine each other. The fear is so overwhelming that everyone is scrambling for cover and safety like we are all on the Titanic. Managers are cc'ed on every email now, and everything is put in writing to cover a**ses. No one is willing to make a decision. People try to earn brownie points with management by throwing their coworkers under the bus. Management says nothing to us but slogans.
When asked if there is going to be a layoff, our LL4 and LL5 will look us right in the eye and say our department is not going to be affected and that we are growing. No one believes them.
Our department was always a bit rigid with roles and tasks. It was considered the right thing to do to have your set of tasks and stick to them. Occasionally we would help each other. We are over staffed with about double the people needed or more to do the work if we were all working at full capacity. We all know this on some level, so we look around and try to figure out who will be kept and who will not. This makes everyone really suspicious of any changes in tasks or duties.
Now, people are totally territorial. If a mistake is made and you are asked by management to help someone, the person you are supposed to help will eye you with suspicion and do anything in their power to not accept your help or have you get involved. Everyone is being shuffled around in our department which makes this suspicion unbearable. We were inefficient before, as described above. Now we are completely paralyzed. No work is getting done.
Our management are trying to get more direct reports under them. They seem to think this will help them survive.
People are getting sick from the stress and there is a lot of people taking personal days.
I just want this all to be over. Whether I get the axe or not, I will be better off knowing what my fate is.
I wish everyone nothing but warm regards and hopeful wishes that they land in a safe place.
A lot of the younger people like myself are looking at these high level positions we aspired to reach differently. I don't want to bust my a-- climbing the ladder just to get pushed off in 20 years. They let some damn fine employees go who were dedicated to the brand. And no rhyme or reason as to what positions were cut. They're keeping the information to the lower level folks minimal, although word gets around fast who left. Definitely a bitter feeling about my job now.
Same thing here. Terrible environment full of confusion, mixed messages and low morale. People want it over but they're dragging this out over months. Go figure.