#attrition

At least not that I know of. If the whole ploy of being forced back into the offices to thin out the workforce (we all know that's the real reason) doesn't work out, are we looking at another major round sometime soon? How long are they going to wait to see if their plan is working?

Source: By Kevin Crowley, Bloomberg

The 140-year-old oil company is making more money than ever. Yet the pandemic exposed deep cultural problems—and talent is fleeing.

Shortly after Exxon Mobil Corp. lost its battle with an activist investor last year, an executive named Bill Keillor decided to give his department a morale boost. It had been a difficult year and a half for Exxon employees. Covid-19 and plunging crude prices had led to halted salary increases, reduced benefits, and, for the first time in decades, thousands of layoffs. Anxiety was coursing through the organization.

So Keillor, whose title is global IT vice president, and his leadership team organized an awards ceremony to take place at Exxon’s Houston campus. They posted an invite on Yammer, an internal social network, with Keillor’s face cropped onto a tuxedo. With many employees still working remotely, most tuned in via Zoom.

Keillor started by thanking everyone for their hard work over the past year, presented awards to three top-performing teams, and then opened the floor to questions. It was at this point things started to unravel, according to four people present who spoke on condition of anonymity. The software developers, data analysts, and technicians who run Exxon’s vast computing network, which helps the company manage everything from drilling wells to pipeline flows, were in no mood to celebrate. Emboldened by the virtual format, they began firing off tough questions. They wanted to know if there would be more layoffs, whether remote working would continue after the pandemic, and whether Exxon was willing to raise pay to the level of major tech companies.

To an outside observer, the scene might have appeared like a slightly tense version of your average corporate town hall. But within Exxon, famous for its top-down, buttoned-up, authoritarian culture, where employees rarely challenge their superiors, and certainly not in an open forum, the moment had the strong whiff of rebellion. As Keillor bristled, other managers stepped in to take some questions, deflecting attention from the boss. But eventually, Keillor had had enough and snapped.

If you want to be a “hotshot” and triple your pay working for Amazon, then go right ahead, the people recall him saying. “Good luck to you.”

Rather than be humbled by the scolding, staffers began circulating memes mocking the event in private chat groups, which rapidly spread across the company. One depicted a long-term career at Exxon as a car hurtling off a highway. Another compared the awards ceremony to a piece of tape used to patch a leaking barrel of water. Others suggested it was about time employees take Keillor up on his advice and quit.

A year and a half later, even as its stock surges again and Exxon makes more money than it has in its 140-year history, the company has experienced the highest attrition since its merger with Mobil in 1999. Of the 12,000 departures globally in the past two years, less than half were from layoffs. “Like nearly every company, attrition increased in the last two years, but we don’t see that as a long-term trend,” Exxon said in a statement. “Importantly, we are seeing good results when hiring top talent for roles throughout the company, at entry-level and for senior executive positions.”

But a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation involving interviews with more than 40 current and former employees (many of whom requested anonymity because Exxon hasn’t authorized them to speak publicly), as well as reviews of dozens of internal documents, reveals one overriding reason talent is fleeing: a culture that’s increasingly out of step with the world around it. Those interviewed describe an organization trapped in amber, whose insular and fear-based culture—once a beacon of corporate America—has become a drag on innovation, risk taking, and career satisfaction. Although many expressed pride at working for an industry leader, they were also frustrated by how slow it was to invest in some of the energy industry’s biggest breakthroughs over the past decade, including shale oil and low-carbon technologies, making it a place where the best and brightest no longer want to spend their best years. “I was bored at my job,” says Avery Smith, who earned more than $100,000 a year as a data scientist right after graduating from college and quit last year, echoing what many other former employees told Businessweek. “I was pretty fed up with not innovating.”

Exxon’s performance ranking system, which pits employees against each other, dominates the day to day. Subordinates are told not to speak out against their bosses in meetings for fear of being placed at the bottom of the rank and pushed out. Employees are reluctant to raise problems or speak freely about environmental issues. Senior managers too often promote people who look and sound like themselves at the expense of technical experts willing to deliver hard messages, and some employees of color say they’ve been marginalized. “Agreeability to senior leadership has become more important than capability,” says one executive who left the company last year after two decades. “Unfortunately this accelerated during the pandemic.”

Exxon spokesperson Amy von Walter rejects those characterizations. “The idea that ExxonMobil’s culture is what these employees say it is doesn’t hold water for two reasons: how many people join this company each year and how long people stay,” she wrote in an email. “No culture is perfect and it’s far too easy to take a few data points and paint with a broad brush, but that doesn’t produce an accurate portrait.” (In response to the Keillor episode, von Walter says Exxon encourages candid workplace conversations, “although we may not get it right every time.”)

But CultureX, an organization out of MIT that evaluates corporate culture based on Glassdoor reviews, says these problems run so deep that Exxon now ranks below industry benchmarks for 143 of the 196 cultural issues it measures. According to CultureX co-founder Charlie Sull, innovation, collaboration, and psychological safety fell far below those of oil industry competitors, whereas pay and benefits ranked above average. Exxon, he says, appears to be using remuneration and perks “to compensate for a culture that faces significant challenges with toxicity.”

Exxon, which traces its roots to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, is used to being public enemy No. 1. It’s incurred the wrath of politicians and civil society for being too powerful, too profitable, and too polluting. But rarely has it suffered such discontent within its own ranks. “Upper management doesn’t like to hear bad news, so to stay at Exxon long term, you have to drink the Kool-Aid,” says Dar-Lon Chang, a mechanical engineer who left the company in 2019 after more than a decade. “This doesn’t sit well with younger people and especially those concerned about the climate crisis.”

Since losing the campaign to Engine No. 1, a tiny activist investor firm, Exxon has reformed its climate strategy. Under Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, it’s pledged more ambitious emissions reduction targets, increased spending on clean energy, and elevated its low-carbon division to the top of the corporation. It’s even made a series of rare external hires including Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells from Diageo Plc and low-carbon head Dan Ammann, who previously ran General Motors Co.’s autonomous vehicle startup. It’s condensed 11 businesses into three and is on track to cut costs by $9 billion by 2023.

By financial standards, Woods’s plan is working. The stock is up 60% this year, ahead of its major peers, and closing in on a record high. But if Exxon has any shot at dominating the volatile energy transition over the next century, it will need to attract and hold on to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and technologists. “We can talk all day about low carbon,” says one recently departed Exxon executive. “But first we’ve got to decarbonize the culture.”

https://governorswindenergycoalition.org/exxons-exodus-employees-have-finally-had-enough-of-its-toxic-culture/

Anyone have any thoughts? The guy that "was" in charge of all the cores and is now a segment head is always missing in action. How are we supposed to fix the leakage problems if SVPs are not held accountable? We all have our head buried in the sand thinking problems will go away. Such a mess.

Every time there's a layoff, they let go of the people who've been around the longest and know the most. The ones who can solve problems in five minutes that take new people five days. Then a few months later they realize the work isn't getting done anymore. So they hire two or three people to try to do what that one person used to do. How is that good for business?

I've watched at least five people leave my team over the last few months. I don't blame them, but the company makes no effort to hire new people, so those of us who stay end up doing the work of two or three people. Which means that deadlines that used to be reasonable are now impossible. If this keeps going, I'll be the next one out.

Senior management have absolutely no idea how to run a tech company.
They repeatedly try the only playbook they have, which is to cut costs by laying people off whilst paying consultants millions to do their jobs, which seems to be simply latching on to the latest hot topic and hoping that fixes everything.
Here's an idea, why not try actually investing in the businesses you own rather than trying to bleed them dry.
Anyone else notice the number of good senior people jumping ship recently?
How's future forward working for you Stephanie?

2.75% average raises will happen this month. KM will wait to see how many quit then offer early retirement to some to try and keep the budget balanced.

Turnover's blowing up at so many other companies but things feel weirdly frozen here. I'm still looking for an exit but most of my team seems fine staying put even after everything that's happened, and I can't tell if they know something I don't or if everyone's just too tired to move.

I’ve never seen so many coworkers checked out at the same time. After the way this year’s gone, it’s hard to feel supported, valued, or even wanted here. People aren’t talking about growing with the company anymore, all they’re doing these days is comparing job postings.

Why is it always the older, experienced, and high performing employees are shown the door? We have plenty of those who do nothing all day and yet they stay. Why? How come that keeps happening?

Left two years ago, just came back on this board to see if things have improved, and it's clear it's all exactly the same. They're still offshoring everything, thinning out US teams, and piling more jobs onto fewer people. My advice is to leave if you can. The grass truly is greener.

I didn't realize the layoff stress here was bad enough to make someone leave for less money.

I notice the new Pulse survey asks how long you intent to keep working at Verizon for, with no option to put 'until I'm RIF'd'.

Do they seriously think we'll indicate our intent to leave, so they can bank on natural attrition to do Dan's dirty work for them? They're making Verizon such an awful place to work, I imagine a lot of people are actively looking for alternative employment, but why would we share that info with them? I know I won't, and I'm actively looking for a new job.

I am from India, but went through the University -> H-1B -> Citizenship route a while ago in Tech space. At that time, there was no fraud or offshoring, and very few select people got an H1B. I really appreciated the opportunity provided to me.

Now I am seeing all these young kids from the US are being short-changed with offshoring. Any US layoff or attrition is being filled offshore. That mandate is coming way, way above. If you don't provide opportunities for young kids, what will happen to the next generation? This is 100% wrong. I want to take someone fresh out of school and mentor them with what I've learned - but all goes offshore. Almost like seeing Manufacturing going offshore in the 80's and 90s.

I am not sure why nothing is being done... I feel like people here are more subservient and submissive than in other countries. (sorry)

The question isn’t why they’re leaving. The question is… what do they know that you don’t?

Morale is collapsing. Talent is walking out the door. People spend more time worrying about where their job might be moved next than how to grow the business. RTO and FTW are a major distraction and ruining what’s left of the company.

Meanwhile, leadership remains fixated on RTO, badge swipes, and presence reports as the company continues to lose ground.

RTO hasn’t created growth. It hasn’t created innovation. It hasn’t improved execution. It’s become a distraction from the real problems and significantly reduced hours. I can’t get in contact with anyone in the afternoon anymore.

At a time when the company needs stability, focus, and a reason for people to stay, leadership is kicking the company while it’s already down.

You can’t attract new young talent when you have prison policy. Nobody worthwhile is willingly signing up for this.

Lot of high profile exits

Just ask around, you'll see that people have been disappearing consistently. They don't need major rounds anymore when they're always cutting folks.

Every other month is a quite layoffs unless it is a big one then even more losses. Then they rehire these kids, give them scraps because they straight out of college, and expect us to train them. Nope. Other more indians with fake diplomas and degrees.

That's the whole point. It was always meant to be an attrition tool.

To the point that I don't know if we'll be able to get anything done.

JPMorgan Chase is managing its workforce evolution in response to artificial intelligence. The bank plans to rely on natural attrition rather than implementing layoffs. CEO Jamie Dimon anticipates AI will eventually reduce the total number of jobs. The company intends to hire more AI specialists and fewer traditional bankers. This strategy allows for retraining and redeploying existing employees through natural turnover.

https://aimagazine.com/news/jpmorgans-workforce-strategy-attrition-over-layoffs

And everything reflects it. The group is not open to new ideas, or new tech or new methods. And we are supposed to be a "cutting edge" IT group. We have projects that started a decade ago that cant move forward because we have not done our "due diligence". We are using tech from 2015.

10 out of 14 people will retire in next 3 years. Hopefully we can get some smarter people in. Although most likely we will be offshored.

Forcing employees into an office while our entire executive team and most of our upper management is remote has to be the most hypocritical thing this company has ever done. At least under Mike, he and others were actually in the office.

If RTO were really about collaboration and face to face time, our execs would relocate, open more offices, and ALL employees would be mandated to go to an office or risk being made redundant, just like FAANG did post-COVID. So what's the real reason here?

As others have said, most likely hoping for natural attrition, especially since they did this while gas is at an all time high and increases/equity are at an all time low. If they don't get the reduced headcount they hoped for by the October deadline, you can bet there will be another big lay off in Q4.

Displacing individuals is too slow and not creating sufficent staff reduction.
Poor work conditions and arbitary illogical management and we-ponized metrics have failed get employees to self attrit. Leadership next phase: Build League, the foundation to start displacing entire teams of employees at once....

Lots of major names have left the company, and people continue to leave. Probably a combination of the upper management culture (nepotism much…), LT mindset around optimizing and running as lean as possible, and the profit sharing changes which apparently we claimed “entitlement” to and did not work for. And really bad base pay relative to general industry. What do you think?

I have seen several capable coworkers leave over the past year and it rarely had anything to do with the work itself. Most of the frustration came from how people were spoken to or ignored by management. After a while employees stop feeling valued and start looking elsewhere. It is becoming a pattern that more people are noticing. Exxon is losing good workers it should be trying to keep.

That tells you clearly that this had nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet. A very, very stupid move long-term.

I was trying to keep track of friends and colleagues leaving IOL. But, recently it has blown up so much that I had to stop. Sad, but it is the reality.

Imperial will probably show a large net cash positive position next quarter, but the knowledge and experience lost will never be quantified. The cost of development these talents is staggering, and now they being purged out. So very very sad.

We hear the low performers are being let go. It has been confirmed excellent employees are now being let go, too.

Tracking participants count #general Slack channel in Oracle One workspace, as the fastest available proxy indication of ongoing layoffs.

• may01-may31: 2241 reductions, and 942 additions
• apr01-apr30: 2286 reductions, and 1583 additions
• mar01-mar31: 12446 reductions, and 844 additions
• feb01-feb28: 943 reductions, and 1143 additions
• jan01-jan31: 1604 reductions, and 1834 additions
• dec01-dec31: 1031 reductions, and 844 additions
• nov01-nov30: 1614 reductions, and 1327 additions
• oct01-oct31: 2504 reductions, 1762 additions
• sep02-sep30: 6275 reductions, 861 additions
• aug14-sep01: 733 reductions (based on Slack very few data points)
• aug01-aug14: ?2900 reductions in IDC (based on media reports)

Regions outside IDC and NA usually have a significant delay when laid off people are disconnected from Slack (e.g. 1 month in Pacific regions, perhaps longer in some EU countries), so this is a floor estimate with additions reflected immediately, but reductions lagging behind on average.

What is called "layoff estimates" are partially part of normal attrition, limitations are covered in details in comments.

I will post daily in comments on the count change and running current month total while this post is still on the first page.

We've been bleeding talent, whether through attrition or layoffs, and the best people are gone. There are very few of us left who can actually do the job, and the workload is impossible. I guess nobody really cares.

Every morning I wonder if today is the day they decide I am out. Leadership flips on people without warning and I have seen it happen too many times. The rules change weekly, nothing is written down, and I get blamed for not reading minds. I am running on empty and too scared to speak up because anyone who complains disappears. This crew has cycled through everyone multiple times since I started. They call it natural turnover but it looks much more like a sla-ghter to me.

has announced his intention to leave the business effective June 6." This departure marks yet ANOTHER high profile exit from AT&T.

I would rather just stay understaffed than keep watching new people come in, fail to learn a single thing, and leave after a few months. Every time I end up explaining the exact same things over and over, doing their work and mine, and then starting all over again when they quit.

Watertown City Council adopted its new budget on Thursday. The approved spending plan includes an 8 percent property tax increase. This budget will result in three employee layoffs. Affected positions are a police records clerk, a library clerk, and a code enforcement officer. Ten other positions were eliminated through attrition or vacancy.

Watertown, New York

https://www.wwnytv.com/2026/05/21/watertown-adopts-budget-with-tax-increase-layoffs/

Wow, I was surprised not to find any public forums regarding state farm employees to chit chat, but I wanted to post here and say my whole onboarding group going into 2019 from various sections in the company are no longer employed with state farm. I ignited an old group chat out of curiosity. 17 in total and the last person to leave was in early 2025. Most people were let go or left around 2022-23

I found this metric interesting and worth putting out there. We all got sold on how it was a life long career and investment into your education for financial and personal growth.

Didn't get much detail but it seems the majority were right to worked for various little reasons primarily with the legacy benefits package. (Pension)

I found Robin Vince’s LinkedIn post last week… fascinating. He calls it a “full circle moment” with his Goldman buddy Lloyd Blankfein, yet it plays like another round of leadership cosplay. It might even be touching if BNY employees weren’t here describing a workplace stitched together with fear, offshoring, and corporate theater. Nothing says “excellence” like inviting a billionaire mentor to discuss humility lessons learned at Goldman while thousands of his BNY employees beg for clarity, stability, or even basic honesty.

Vince praises Blankfein’s lessons on uncertainty and values — meanwhile BNY’s workforce is drowning in ambiguity, morale is on life support, and “risk taking” mostly means gambling with people’s futures.

He talks about embedding values “every day,” yet avoids the very public concerns about layoffs, offshoring, collapsing trust, and a workforce treated like expendable inventory in a never-ending transformation cycle.

The real full circle moment won’t be a photo op with a retired Goldman titan. It’ll be when Vince realizes that inspirational quotes and curated leadership moments don’t fix morale, don’t slow attrition, and don’t rebuild credibility.

The Lee County School District informed 457 employees their contracts would not be renewed. Of these, 275 affected employees are teachers. The district faces a $46.7 million budget deficit. Another 407 teachers will leave due to attrition next year. Some non-renewed positions may be preserved or reallocated.

https://www.wgcu.org/education/2026-05-20/more-than-half-of-457-layoffs-in-lee-county-schools-will-be-teachers-275-get-notices

LinkedIn votes PepsiCo Hyderabad as the top companies for career growth. Is that true?? I have heard horror stories and frequent attrition.

Joe Martin (CCO) barely made it to a year and he's already out! Fossil can't seem to stop burning through executives, can they?