#compensation

What's up with moving the Temps to MNOP and moving the MNOP's to Floaters? I've heard that with Amphenol coming they are trying to get rid of the higher pay people just to have the lower pay since they only start out at $16hr

But if I do stay, what’s the point of getting invested in my work? Hard work and skills aren’t rewarded here. They’re punished. Because in the end, they just come with a higher price tag.

After a few years at Oracle, I was let go, not because of performance but because of this AI nonsense. Still, I’m not surprised when I took this job, I knew this company didn’t care much about their employees, but I was happy to have a paycheck and lucky to pay my bills. I'm just very disappointed…

Below are a few takeaways:

My coworkers were amazing. Everyone was great to connect with.
Significant amount of training..
Compensation was below average, but it paid the bill.
Great healthcare.
Work from home.

The negative:
My management was mediocre. Some teams had great managers, but mine was a total disappointment. All he cared was to look better for his director.
No raise, work harder. No one get a raise.
The amount of work to meet your metric was nonsensical. Always under the g-n!
I worked over the weekend to do a great job, and that is the thank you!!
You learn a lot in the first year, but you get stuck in a role you will never move up!! Your skill get stagnant.
The manager only selects a few for a raise.
Manager control the amount of work you get and purposely try to sabotage you it seems. No transparency.

Bottom line
I'm sad I'm gone, but it's better I deal with this now, than waste another five years of my life in this company which I would have done.

I see many posts asking if the layoff will be over.
Be realistic with yourself. Oracle will lay off more people next year to fund its investment in AI. It's a high-debt company, and they need to trim peoples. All you can do is have a safe backup plan and upskill. Don't work hard for this company!

Oracle is all about cutting cost now, and to increase its stock value. Their new Ai platform is already a total mess. They don't care about their customers or improving their tool set.

Maybe I'm wrong with all of this but that my interpretation.

Wish everyone the best!!! Don't stay too long there!!!!

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/job-hopping-is-out-job-hugging-is-in-for-fearful-workers-338fe1e6

Employees reluctant to give up job in today’s rocky job market

By: Callum Borchers
Sept. 3, 2025 9:00 pm ET

They don’t seem happy, they don’t give 100%—and they don’t quit.

Cranky workers are clinging to the jobs they have instead of moving on because, well, what’s the alternative in the current economy?

The extra pay that typically comes with joining another company has practically vanished. Disengagement is so widespread across the U.S. and global workforces that cheerier pastures are hard to find.

And resigning without a plan feels more reckless now than in the good old days (2021). Back then, you could get by on pandemic savings and stimulus money, live the #vanlife for a while, then watch your inbox fill with interview requests from businesses on hiring sprees.

How times have changed in just a few short years. Today, employees are unwilling to risk change and simply go through the motions. The number of Americans quitting their jobs, and the openings available to people looking for work, continue to decline, according to federal data released on Wednesday.

The trend of staying put out of fear is known as “job hugging,” a sharp turn from the job hopping of recent years.

Like a bad penny

This is a new headache for employees, bosses and the economy writ large.

Go-getters hankering for promotions might lose out if mediocre co-workers refuse to vacate the next rung on the corporate ladder.

“When people were moving during the Great Resignation, that allowed others to get promoted, perhaps ahead of schedule and have a stretch job,” says Alan Guarino, vice chairman of consulting firm Korn Ferry. “Now people can’t move up and they potentially get demotivated because of the lack of opportunity.”

Managers, meanwhile, were only a short time ago complaining about low retention rates. Now, there might not be enough healthy turnover to reinvigorate their teams.

Leaders usually have ways of managing out unwanted employees. There’s “quiet firing,” basically sidelining someone to underscore the writing on the wall. Another favorite tactic is a performance-improvement plan.

“Truthfully, being put on a performance-improvement plan means, ‘We do not want you here,’” says labor attorney Kim Cramer. “That sounds really harsh, but in my experience, performance-improvement plans are not meant to help the employee.”

Instead of taking the hint, though, more people are riding out their employment as long as it lasts. In recent weeks, Cramer has had a surge of clients ask her to review their severance agreements after being terminated. She estimates 60% to 70% of them knew they had fallen out of favor a while ago but didn’t leave.

Exceptions to the rule

The prototypical job hugger is a drag on the team, but not all are like that. Some are average contributors or even high achievers.

Doug Yakola, a former McKinsey senior partner who is now an independent consultant, notes many workers no longer take an up-or-out approach to their careers. Instead of leaving for a bigger title and greater responsibility when they hit a ceiling, more people are willing to remain in neutral if the pay and work-life balance are decent.

A tech worker I’ve known for 20 years is in this position. He sees no upward mobility and resents his employer’s rightward political turn. But he earns well and has a sweet, hybrid schedule that affords ample time for hobbies. He keeps putting in a good-enough effort at work because the job, though unfulfilling, serves its purpose in his life.

B-teamers like him can be valuable to companies that can’t realistically expect everyone to be an all-star, Yakola says. This is especially true at businesses like the ones he advises, which often need turnarounds and aren’t exactly magnets for top talent.

“I actually like job huggers in a weird sort of way because I can’t replace employees very easily, and I need to keep the experience,” he says.

There is also a strain of type-A job huggers. They reached the upper echelons of their organizations but feel blocked from the very top. They are disillusioned yet too risk-averse to break away. And it’s not in their DNA to slack off.

“I work with somebody who hates being a lawyer but she’s amazing at it,” says Alisia Gill, a former corporate HR chief who coaches midcareer women. “She cries in her car every morning before she goes to work, and then she goes in there and does her job because she doesn’t know what else to do.”

Gentle shove

In cases where a company wants someone to leave, but the person keeps hanging on, firing seems like the obvious solution. But managers say they would much rather have an employee leave voluntarily.

It’s often cheaper, since businesses might owe severance pay to people they let go. A resignation spares the boss an awkward conversation. What’s more, it can preserve relations with the rest of the team. It’s easier to manage people whose friend took another opportunity than it is to lead employees whose pal you just canned.

Research by University of Chicago economist Virginia Minni suggests a relatively simple strategy can help nudge job huggers toward the door: reflection.

She and colleagues studied roughly 3,000 white-collar workers whose employer put them through a series of exercises to suss out their sense of purpose. Overall productivity increased for a few reasons.

“This actually encouraged some people to leave on their own,” Minni says.

While others found better-fitting roles internally, being forced to confront the drudgery of their jobs was enough to make a bunch of low performers quit.

So, if you are hugging your humdrum job and your boss strikes up a philosophical conversation about the meaning of life and work, you’ll know what’s going on.

I’’ll start:

Yearly pay raises close to or exceeding inflation
Accepting salary based on 35hr/wk, flash forward, management expectation of 40-50, no adjustment
Pressure to ignore benefits paid by lower salary like RFC for “azz in chair” time

Tell me what you think will happen from now until April.

My predictions:

Cable stripped to bare bones. CBS completely restructured.

Most fully remote employees cut in November (I’m fully remote) so they don’t have to relocate anyone. International fully destroyed.

Mass exodus due to RTO.

Engineering and streaming jobs all posted in LA, NY, SF with below median compensation.

DE outsourcing everything he possibly can to Oracle.

DE buying more IP with his dad’s money.

And I say all this as a person who absolutely loves our company. I hate what this has become. I hate to be a glass half empty person. And I’m not trying to hate on any department or division of Paramount. I’m just being completely realistic about what is going to happen here.

Ok, let’s hear it.

I am writing this as a longtime Cisco employee. I am an individual contributor and have been for almost 20 years. I like Cisco, I like most of my managers and colleagues (not all, of course but that is true anywhere)

Am I worried about getting LR'd? A little but since I put this plan into place several years ago I am not worried about finances. Not one bit.

You can't change the wind but you can change the set of your sails. The most important of which are your financial decisions. Strive for financial independence now. It is not too late. jump to end for TL/DR version:

1. shift to maximum frugality.
   This is not the "latte factor" where your $4 coffee will change your life but rather an entire philosophical shift. Embrace frugality as a desirable and enjoyable lifestyle (it is). Focus on both the small rocks (the daily expenses like coffee, doordash and money su-kers). not to sound s-xist but money su-kers are typically gender aligned. Women spend a lot on nail care, beauty and the like. Men spend a lot on autos, gadgetry and beer. obviously stereotypical but you get the point.
   Eliminate, DIY or change the frequency.

2. Big Rocks.
   Housing, Healthcare, Transportation, Insurance & Education are typically the most expensive components. Start here. Be relentless. remember that New car smell is the most expensive fragrance in the world and no one really cares about what kind of car you drive anyway (except for you) get a reliable, safe used vehicle. strive to pay cash for a car as it will force you to save & research. Same concept applies with the other big rocks. The amount you spend on where you sleep at night and keep your stuff should be minimal. This is true whether you rent or own, strive to own a decent home in a good neighborhood.

3. Max out your 401K, open a Roth and build a freedom fund.
   What to do with all the money you save? Buy a boat? (no!)
   First, build a cash cushion of at least 6 months of expenses, the good news is that the more you relentlessly drive down your expenditures, the lower this amount needs to be. Put this in a Money Market (many are yielding 4+ %
   Then, Max out your tex deferred retirment account. the target date funds are a great one-fund set it and forget it option. you could balance that with a 100% stock fund (US Equity Index) say 50/50 so you are tilted toward more growth, especially if you are young. There are 1,000 asset allocation strategies you will be bombarded with, this is a good middle of the road, reasonable, strategy. It is way more important to get started and be consistent (autpilot) than to get all the knobs perfectly right. Most people do way more damage that way, especially you smart ones. (Doctors are notoriously bad investors because they think they are smarter than everyone else)
   also start a Roth IRA and fund it as well (Roth is post-tax but has significant advantages)

4. The best things in life are free.
   National Parks, Conversations with Friends, gardening, reading a used book (the paper kind) long walks with the person you love most. Do the rocking chair test; imagine you are 80, sitting on the porch in your rocking chair and ask yourself what you would have done differently back then. I guarantee the make/model of car will not enter your mind even once.

TL/DR
Reduce expenses relentlessly, start with the big rocks.
embrace a mindset of "frugal is wonderful" because it leads to financial independence.
MAx out retirement funds (401k/IRA/Roth IRA) with a simple set and forget it Asset Allocation
100% Target Date Fund (based on your retirement year) or 50% Target Date Fund + 50% US Equity Index if you are more risk averse.
Build a 6 month war chest full of cash

Are we being brutally honest or holding back? Inquiring minds want to know! I’m laying it all out. It’s nothing I haven’t already said to my leader on multiple occasions.

Has anyone taken on a consolidated role? Why/why not? I’m staring one down the barrel & I think I’m going to walk. I’m getting dodged when I ask if the extra fill time responsibilities come with a pay rise…which means no.

I started recently here and my manager let me know that the baseline expectation is a 9 hour work day for bonus-eligible employees. I learned from a coworker that non bonus-eligible employees are expected to work 8 hour work days. It sounds to me like it’s not so much a bonus as it is just pay for your additional labor. An extra hour a day comes out to ~6 additional work weeks in the year. Do bonuses far exceed what you’d need to make that extra time worth it?

Is it available anywhere?
Or can someone chime in with the range for VP, VP II, and SVP?

What is the severance policy and payout for employees with less than 5 years of service?

If you are waiting for your exit date, you will be left waiting. Humana is stalling for time while they try to liquidate the funds to pay out the ERPs. If they file for bankruptcy, you get nothing. If they sell or merge, you get nothing. Anyone they can term, you get nothing.

Good luck getting out of this h*llhole until you are no longer useful to their benefit. It's one lie upon the previous lie with Humana.

Do you know that in EMEA they cancelled all company cars, no more. All savings, everywhere. If anything happen with OpenAI deal for 30B$....

And said toodaloo M’fkas :)

I've been back at full time office for almost 2.5 years. I saw the writing on the wall and decided to do 5 days even before that mandate came out. Loved the initial months of WFH but the days became longer and longer. I was averaging 53-55 hours per week. Now I do a straight 40 and leave. When asked about working additional hours I cite an after-work obligation I need to attend to. I continue to receive good reviews, decent bonuses and team awards. The quality of life improvement in taking back those 13-15 hours a week is amazing. I get the downside of RTO for the masses, but I'd like to know if others have recaptured the additional hours they were giving away for free before 5 days a week in-office was mandated.

Mine was 11% very early in my career, so numbers were low even though the % was fairly big.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/insiders-elevance-health-sold-us-120011661.html

Article makes note of the fact that the senior leadership team is NOT buying Elevance stock, in fact they sold 6.7 million in stock. The story indicates that there was a purchase of 2.8 million in the last year but fail to mention that 2.4 million of that was a one time purchase by Gail B in July. SLT better skip buying watches this year and buy more stock to inflate the stock price if they want to get their undeserved bonuses!

Review google for leadership salaries. They also need to take a pay cut. You could gather 1 million dollars easily. Perhaps a flatter organization

Word is effective 9/1 - they now have Prime and overlays vs. Traditional Oracle Model: Prime and Prime.
ERP/HCM/FIN are the Primes - Industrial, Construction, etc are overlays.
Comp Plans are being re-issued ?? Been in the works for awhile if Ops can turn comp plans on a dime.
This will lead to a SaaS management and rep/sc sla-ghter.

Foreshadowing of the DP Org.

Please confirm if this is accurate.

When companies talk about “transformation,” it usually sounds like innovation, growth, and opportunity. At Verizon, though, transformation has quietly turned into something else — a reshuffling of its workforce.

Over the past decade, Verizon’s headcount has dropped from about 135,000 employees in 2016 to just over 100,000 today. The cuts have come through layoffs, buyouts, and big outsourcing deals, like handing off IT operations to IBM or tech support to Infosys.

The people leaving aren’t random. It’s mostly long-tenured employees — the ones with higher salaries, pensions, and strong benefits. When they walk out, so does decades of knowledge and experience that helped keep the company running.

At the same time, Verizon is still hiring. New roles are opening in software, data science, and AI. Public filings show some of these jobs paying between $140,000 and $220,000. Younger engineers are coming in closer to $100,000 to $130,000. That’s good money, but it’s still far less than what many veterans were earning before being bought out.

The result is clear: Verizon isn’t just cutting jobs, it’s swapping its workforce. Higher-paid veterans are leaving, while newer, cheaper, or visa-sponsored hires step in. To Wall Street, this is packaged as “AI transformation” and “efficiency.” Inside the company, it looks a lot more like cost-cutting.

So is Verizon right to do this? On paper, the math makes sense. Lower costs protect the dividend, and pointing to new AI hires pleases investors. But on the human side, the risk is real. You can’t replace years of experience overnight. And if service quality slips or morale keeps falling, those costs will show up later.

4000 RIFed times average salary of $100,000=$400M include
4000 times vested RSUs which are clawed back on an average $150,000 = $600M
Bottom line Savings of ~ $1B.

Oh, by the way, they offered more. Best of luck in India.

Feeling so disheartened and disappointed.

This firm truly prefers teacher's pets and individuals who are less deserving when giving recognition, appraisal, raise or bonus.

I have slogged my a$$ and all of my manager downplays everything I did, undermining my contribution.

Hello is anyone heard if RICOH will be giving raises this year? They have completely fallen off track with the cost of living and they need to do something to retain the workers that they have left.

Laid off this morning (US). Outstanding performance reviews, raise last year, RSU's, etc. At least they gave us a month on payroll for the RSU's to vest.

https://www.advisorhub.com/vanguard-to-pay-19-5-million-for-failing-to-disclose-advisor-conflicts/

According to Fidelity’s Advisor Compensation plan, Fidelity uses “complexity” as a factor in determining variable advisor compensation. But it does not necessarily mean “complex for the client to understand.” Instead, it could mean complex according to Fidelity’s internal judgment. A client may find a Treasury ladder or an index fund “complex,” depending on their experience. Does Fidelity classify those products as “simple,” meaning advisors don’t get as much credit or bonus for recommending them?

Don’t Fidelity Advisors earn more variable compensation for steering clients into Fidelity’s managed platforms or annuities and keeping them in those managed products or annuities? Doesn’t the structure ultimately bias recommendations toward Fidelity’s higher-margin products?

I guess alleged vagueness might protect the firm because “complexity” is not transparently defined. Fidelity can flex its meaning internally. Is it possible that it's difficult for clients to independently verify whether a product was labeled “complex” or not based on their needs or simply because it’s more profitable to Fidelity? Therefore, is the use of “complexity” subjective and firm-controlled and appears to be more aligned with Fidelity’s profitability and not client comprehension?

Since we've Reimagined the values on which this firm stands, let's get rid of the Toast to Ted and Toast ELT:

You've truly discovered the secret inGREEDient to success.

The revolutionary way in which you've enriched yourselves and your friends while subcontracting to outside consultants and ChatGPT "deliver" on your work is quite innovative to the wealth management industry. Who needs partners to share the work when you and your homies can grab a greater share of the wealth while getting someone else to do that pesky work, right?!

May you never have to hear associates whine about job security, pay reductions or their 4th reorg in 3 years that did nothing to improve operating efficiency while enjoying the buzz of your buzzwords and $10k bottles of wine.

Cheers!

To a years of service + age = magic number for full retirement pension, a lot would just retire without a severance offer. Looks like this would cost the company less and get the salaries off the books and onto the pension program. Then they could hire 2 for the cost of 1.

It used to be that options after ten years would be worth more than your salary each year. Now, fear getting fired and letting go of options for zero. Many execs have lost millions in the last five years. What a sad story'

If the firm expects or wants remaining associates to stay with the firm, you’d think they would give them a reason. Where’s the enhancements to comp, benefits, profit sharing, etc. that were dangled nearly two years back and mentioned again a few months ago? Haven’t heard a peep about any of that for a while.

The firm’s below-market pay already made it difficult to attract experienced talent. Now it has a bad reputation which will make recruiting even harder.

If leadership doesn’t act quick they are going to find themselves in a talent black hole. Attrition is going to spike through the roof which is maybe what the firm wants but who is going to fill those vacated roles? Candidates the firm wants aren’t going to accept mid pay AND a toxic culture. The money they’ll spend course correcting to attract talent will greatly exceed whatever savings they just captured from these layoffs. I’ve seen it before and it is not pretty for management’s pocketbook. The clock is ticking to get ahead of this disaster before it’s too late.

Amazon Sits Out AI Talent War — Here’s Why

By Eugene Kim, August 28, 2025

Full story: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ai-talent-wars-internal-document-2025-8

Amazon, one of the world’s largest technology companies, has largely sat on the sidelines of the AI talent war that is reshaping Silicon Valley. While competitors such as Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft are actively pulling in high-profile researchers and engineers, Amazon has failed to make equivalent moves. A confidential internal document and testimony from current and former employees help explain why this has happened, and the picture is complex.

The internal memo identifies several major challenges. It lists location restrictions, strict compensation bands, and a reputation for lagging in AI as the central reasons Amazon is struggling. It states: "GenAI hiring faces challenges like location, compensation, and Amazon's perceived lag in the space… Competitors often provide more comprehensive and aggressive packages." These constraints, insiders argue, have placed Amazon at a significant disadvantage at precisely the moment when demand for AI expertise is surging.

Compensation has emerged as one of the most hotly debated issues inside the company. Amazon is known for its cost-conscious culture. From the earliest days, founder Jeff Bezos embraced frugality, with the company famously using doors from Home Depot as makeshift desks. This "door desk" philosophy became a symbol of Amazon’s careful spending and has continued to shape its culture decades later. In AI recruiting, however, frugality has clashed with the reality of the market. The company’s adherence to fixed salary bands and its reluctance to adjust ranges for highly specialized roles mean that many offers fall short of those from rival firms. The memo warns: "The lack of salary range increases for several key job families over the past few years does not position Amazon as an employer of choice for top tech talent." Amazon’s stock compensation model adds another challenge. Its vesting schedule is heavily backloaded, making it less appealing to new hires compared with upfront-heavy packages at competitors. Even executives receive few cash bonuses, which makes the offers less flexible.

Amazon’s workplace policies have further reduced its ability to compete. The company’s strict return-to-office mandate, combined with its "hub" policy requiring employees to relocate to specific offices, has limited its talent pool. The internal document plainly states: "Hubs constrain market availability." Recruiters note that candidates have started turning down offers, even when salaries are competitive, simply to avoid relocation or commuting. One recruiter admitted: "We are losing out on talent." This policy has made it easier for competitors to poach Amazon employees. Bloomberg reported that Oracle alone hired more than 600 Amazon staff in just two years, citing the rigidity of Amazon’s RTO rules as a key factor.

Externally, Amazon also faces a reputational challenge. SignalFire, a venture capital firm, reported that Amazon ranks low in engineering retention compared to Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Jarod Reyes of SignalFire explained: "Amazon hasn’t clearly positioned itself as a leader in the generative AI wave… Engineers are paying attention and they’re voting with their feet." In other words, even if Amazon offers competitive pay, many engineers do not see the company as the place to work on groundbreaking AI research.

Amazon has responded publicly by insisting it remains competitive. A spokesperson initially emphasized that the company is adapting its compensation and work arrangements. Hours later, the response was updated to call the story’s premise "wrong." The spokesperson also insisted: "Our compensation is competitive, but we also want missionaries… there’s no better place in the world to build." Despite this, the internal documents and accounts from employees suggest that the issues are systemic and not easily fixed.

Amazon is not entirely absent from the AI landscape. It recently brought in Adept’s CEO David Luan as part of a licensing deal, placing him in charge of Amazon’s AI agents lab. It also continues to build AI capabilities through AWS Bedrock, its cloud-based generative AI platform. Still, the company has seen key departures, including senior leaders such as chip designer Rami Sinno and Bedrock vice president Vasi Philomin. These departures reinforce the perception that Amazon is not keeping pace with rivals.

Plans are underway to address the challenges. The internal memo describes upcoming strategies such as refining compensation and location approaches, hosting events to showcase generative AI capabilities, and creating specialized AI recruiting teams within business units like AWS. However, multiple insiders told Business Insider that no formal changes have been implemented yet. One manager noted the company’s reluctance to abandon long-standing systems: "Based on how we run our business… there are more risks than potential benefits from changing an approach that has been so successful for our shareholders over the past several decades."

This caution reflects Amazon’s broader identity. The company has long prioritized efficiency, frugality, and consistency. These traits have delivered strong results in e-commerce and cloud computing, but in AI, where talent is scarce and competition is fueled by high spending, they may become liabilities. Amazon risks being left behind while rivals make bold bets on generative AI.

The consequences of missing out on AI talent could be significant. The pool of world-class researchers and engineers is limited. Without them, companies struggle to push the boundaries of large language models, computer vision, and multimodal systems. Amazon has yet to deliver a breakthrough product to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude. Instead, it is relying on incremental progress through AWS services. Investors are noticing. On a recent earnings call, a Morgan Stanley analyst pressed CEO Andy Jassy about fears that AWS is falling behind in AI. His answers did little to reassure the market, and Amazon’s stock slipped.

Some argue that the AI hiring frenzy may itself be overblown, driven by hype and investor pressure. Indeed, a few of the high-profile AI hires made by Meta have already left. Yet the risk for Amazon is clear: if generative AI fulfills its promise, the companies with the strongest teams will be positioned to lead. For now, Amazon appears to be struggling to convince both talent and investors that it belongs in that group.

In summary, Amazon’s cautious culture, rigid pay structures, and strict return-to-office policies are limiting its ability to compete in the generative AI talent race. While the company insists it is adapting and remains a strong player, insiders and analysts point to clear signs of weakness. Whether Amazon can overcome these barriers and reassert itself as a leader in AI will depend on how willing it is to adapt the very cultural and structural elements that have defined it for decades.

Source: Eugene Kim, Business Insider, August 28, 2025

Hey guys, I think the title pretty much explains it. You won’t be left jobless you would be jobless and carless so hoping getting an enhanced package.

I have heard a rumor that the Research/Engineering EMTECH Organization Charges $400+ USD per hour to an Affiliate for EMTECH Services in 2025. Is this True?

Pre-2020, the cost of an SME in EMRE (now EMTECH) was only $230 per hour and the cost of a Junior Engineer was $180 per hour.

Why is EMTECH so expensive in 2025?

Hi, for fellows here, anyone know how to milk best fridge benefit before the last day?

1. ask for training , Cisco pay for a training 1 week after the impact.. and then cancel and reschedule to future months, some of the classes are good and last 1 week
   some training are free while you are at Cisco, and getting it require no approval.

2. anything else to sign up? like employee discounts and etc?

some of my past fellows did msoft discount, apple discount and etc.. travel discount. one of them went through training 2 months down the road. cost nothing.

anything else?

I left State Farm about 2 years ago and had only worked for them 8 years. Last week I got a letter stating they were buying out my pension based on ERISA and IRS guidelines and gave me a link to a web-site for more information. Did anyone else get this? Obviously I have to take the money and they gave me a deadline of September 15, 20025. Thoughts?

Companies have to be competitive by relying on cheap indentured labor or outsourcing work to sweatshops. If NM don't, fall behind in the market. To see real change, elect politicians who will protect American jobs by banning H-1B visas, reducing immigration, and placing tariffs on outsourced services from cheaper countries.

Retiree here who lost all subsidies. Premiums on individual marketplace plans set to spike. Mercer says employer based premiums set to rise 10% for 2026. Will this huge spike lead to more job losses at the company or will benefits be reduced even more ? Got to believe it will lead to more layoffs for those over age 50 and a combination of benefit cuts and price hikes this Fall. Many companies are laying off already because of this and higher interest rates. GLP-1 dr-gs are killing the system leading to bat schit crazy panic setting in with CFOs. 50% of all costs go to overhead w/insurance companies who pay C-Suite Execs millions. Something needs to be done.

A company is competitive by taking advantage of cheap indentured labor importation and outsourcing work to sweatshops. If you need to see change then elect politicians that will change laws to protect American jobs by banning H1B, reducing immigration and tariff services from India

You can add additional funds to your HSA, above what you may have withheld, and transfer them to an investment account. Granted the investment account options from HSA Bank are limited but after separation from the company you can transfer those funds to Fidelity or some other account where you have a lot of investment options. This money is yours to keep and grows tax free and is not taxed on withdrawal IF used for allowed medical expenses.
When taking early retirement in 2018 my account was $53000. I paid Cobra health insurance premiums and later my Part B Medicare premiums using the HSA. Now in 2025 my HSA balance has grown to $90000 despite these significant withdrawals. (Note that withdrawals for normal health insurance premiums such as Obamacare or supplemental Medicare insurance premiums are not tax free.)
If you absolutely need the money you can withdraw it and pay the taxes, you are free to use it as you see fit.