#employeeengagement

It used to be when I asked people for help most of them would go out of their way to help. Definitely seeing a “ not my job” vibe since the layoff announcement. Anybody else notice that too?

Why did our All hands become this boring now? It used to be lively, fun and exciting and I always look forward to attending/watching it. The first few minutes I heard Alfonso talk, I closed the video.

For those who were unable to attend this morning's meeting:

HR acknowledged a significant decline in employee sentiment: overall NPS dropped 17 points, promoters declined 10 points, and employees’ ability to work in a way that meets their personal needs fell 13 points. Yet the presentation offered remarkably little in the way of corrective action. Several tactics and contradictions stood out.

1. Framing implementation as success while ignoring employee dissatisfaction. HR described the return-to-office transition as having gone relatively smoothly, citing strong attendance and no widespread parking or seating problems. But operational success is not employee acceptance. The survey showed a substantial decline in employees' ability to meet personal needs. Leadership focused on whether the offices were functioning, not whether the policy was working for employees.

2. Promoting flexibility while emphasizing surveillance and compliance. HR spoke about accommodating caregivers, illness, appointments, and weather. In the same discussion, it introduced attendance dashboards for managers to monitor patterns, investigate concerns, and involve HR. Flexibility was presented as a benefit, but the practical message was that employees are expected to comply with assigned schedules and deviations may be scrutinized.

3. Acknowledging uncertainty while avoiding meaningful answers. All info given was on past events that have already taken place. Asked about future return-to-office phases, HR repeatedly said no additional decisions had been finalized. Yet it confirmed that transitions were already underway in New Jersey and Ireland and that workplace and real estate needs were being evaluated across regions. No timeline, decision criteria, or meaningful assurances were provided. Repeating that decisions are not final is not an answer to employees seeking clarity.

4. Reducing transparency while claiming to value employee feedback. Leadership explained that detailed survey reporting would be reduced, arguing that historical results showed little differentiation across business units and leaders. No supporting data was presented. The company is asking employees to trust that feedback is being heard while providing less visibility into the results and limiting employees' ability to assess leadership performance.

5. A significant decline in engagement, but no action plan. Perhaps the most revealing exchange came when leadership was asked whether new action plans or initiatives would result from the survey. The answer was no. Instead, employees were directed toward manager conversations, empathetic listening, and existing culture and engagement efforts. After presenting some of the weakest sentiment indicators, leadership offered no measurable improvement targets, specific corrective actions, or accountability.

6. Deflecting responsibility downward. Throughout the meeting, the proposed solutions centered on managers listening, having conversations, monitoring attendance, and helping employees navigate concerns. There was little discussion of what senior leadership itself would change. The people responsible for implementing and enforcing the policies were effectively made responsible for managing the dissatisfaction those policies created.

Overall: The meeting followed a familiar corporate communication pattern: acknowledge the negative numbers, emphasize positive aspects of implementation, provide carefully worded explanations, redirect concerns to managers, point to published documents, and avoid making commitments. Leadership repeatedly said it was listening, learning, and adjusting, but explicitly ruled out new action plans.

The central contradiction is that employee feedback was important enough to warrant a dedicated company-wide meeting, but apparently not important enough to produce any new initiatives or measurable commitments.

I am new to the company so I was curious if the VoiceEX survey really means anything

I see they posted the results on SharePoint where it’s pretty vague but mentions compensation, RTO

Thanks for any insight

Remember how the results from the VoE came back, and they promised to discuss them with us?

Is that ever going to happen, it are they just ignoring them again this year?

Just wondering if Cengage still does the big holiday shindigs?

Questions asked internally are not anonymous. Ask yours here instead!

My team was shown out CES results… I guess. It’s laughable, and totally on brand, that they only show very very select portions of the results now. I have it from very good sources that this is all an exercise in gaslighting, to make it appear the issues are at the team level, not the actual complete systemic dysfunction the aggregate results actually show. Yet another demonstration the emperor has no clothes and we’re lead by a group of sociopaths.

Conspicuously absent lol.

Really felt like I hit the jackpot after graduating and I worked hard building my skills and contributing. It felt like “they take care of me, so I will do my best to make that worth it” Was an EP for several years.

9 years later and I don’t recognize this company. No transparency or empathy. Maybe it was always that way, and all the corporate buzzwords just don’t work anymore. They really do not care how much this impacts their employees at all. I just hate it here, it’s sad man.

How is morale in your team? I have been seeing a lot of people being walked out lately.

This is the official vent thread for the upcoming shít show.

• I'm not attending, fúck GK and the MC and their engagement, etc* Cool, we'll see you in the other threads.

I've completely checked out, and I don't feel guilty about it anymore. My workday is about getting through the hours, not proving how dedicated I am to a company that gives nothing back. Some days there's barely enough worth doing to fill the time. That's becoming more common, and I couldn't care less.

I actually have to stop myself from getting too enthusiastic about projects here. What's the point when the company has made it so clear how little employees matter? People give their best and still get treated as expendable whenever it suits management. CDW can have the effort it pays for, nothing more.

You can feel the change in the way people talk about the company. There's no excitement about new projects, and if you ask anybody about the future, they tend to just shrug. People are doing enough to get through the day, but the willingness to give anything extra has pretty much disappeared. I wouldn't be surprised if hundreds are already planning their exits.

Also, general sentiment is that if another survey was done now, the NPS will be even worse.

If you are getting knocked over getting to your desk by people who are desperately eager to start doing their best to work, ask your manager can you put protective armour on expenses

Agreed and confirmed 100%

Call Out. How many of us are here, but really don't give a fluffy?

Since we all know that the anonymous employee survey is anything but...and the results are carefully repackaged... Let's use this space to openly and fairly rank a few questions:

1. I would recommend PSX as a great place to work.
2. I am inspired by the mission and purpose of PSX.
3. I see myself still working at PSX in two years.
4. I feel comfortable providing upward feedback to my supervisor.
5. Leadership effectively communicates the goals and strategy of the company.

1 - Strongly Disagree | 5 - Strongly Agree

For me: 3, 2, 2, 1, 2

I always thought it was funny how the injury free days in campus sign is prominently (not) displayed by the back gate. Not the front gate. Oh and it also never seems to be working.

I remember an AOP years ago when Kirk Tanner asked who in the room was in foodservice. Only a few people stood up. He said, “We’re all in foodservice. Our families are in foodservice.” That always stuck with me.

Back then we'd bring new products home for our families to try. They'd tell their friends about them. It sounds small, but there was pride in the company and the brands.

Over time we started cutting the small things, then the bigger things.

Restructuring, layoffs, offshoring and now AI. Along the way, a lot of tribal knowledge and connection to the business walked out the door too.

I think we've spent too long trying to save ourselves to prosperity and forgot we're in a customer service business. Relationships, experience, execution and pride still matter.

You can invest more money in beverages and technology, but at some point you have to give people something to believe in again.

Employees have concluded that withholding feedback is safer than providing it.

https://overpaid.lol/#calculator

https://as.cornell.edu/news/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs

Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.

Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, research by cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introduces the Corporate Bullsh-t Receptivity Scale (CBSR), a tool designed to measure susceptibility to impressive-but-empty organizational rhetoric.

“Corporate bullsh-t is a specific style of communication that uses confusing, abstract buzzwords in a functionally misleading way,” said Littrell, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullsh-t confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is semantically empty.”

Although people anywhere can BS each other – that is, share dubious information that’s misleadingly impressive or engaging – the workplace not only rewards but structurally protects it, Littrell said. In a work setting where corporate jargon is already the norm, it’s easy for ambitious employees to use corporate BS to appear more competent or accomplished, accelerating their climb up the corporate ladder of workplace influence.

My location, I'm yet to speak to anybody outside of my manager for longer than a few words. Still have plenty of online meetings, though. So the whole RTO experiment is pretty pointless. But we all already knew that.

Has anyone been asked by their VP to put a prompt into their Copilot to analyze their personal work context from the last 60-90 days?

Results seem pretty subpar. Or maybe normal for 3M? I haven't been here that long

Any progress to report? I see a lot of promises but nothing material happening. Seems like it is a scam to get hipos promoted.

I’ve started wearing my badge upside down as a quiet act of protest against ExxonMobil and as a signal to others who share my feelings. Like an upside-down flag, it says “something is wrong”. Join me: wear your badge upside down.

https://cwa-union.org/join-union/how-organize

I was honest and direct. How about you all?

Do you know how to order a coffee? Soft skill.
Can you say "hi" to another person? You have soft skills!
Can you say "lev-er-age" ? What about "cap-it-u-late"? "Cir-cle-back?" Soft skills!

I thought the most important thing was IN-PERSON collaboration?? I guess it's important enough to eliminate WFH but not important enough to pay for a team to actually be in person in one place?

How am I supposed to inspire and build better lives and communities in these conditions?

Are they monitoring total time spent in the office, or is badge-swipe activity sufficient regardless of hours logged?

In the UK, we’ve been told we need to complete AI endorsement.

Who’s been brave enough to give it a go?

How did you find it? Any tips or advice before the rest of us take the plunge?

1000s planning pto work remote and december fun bonus and vacation,
No work ddat remote engineers group

John says we need to “stand behind our products and services” and use them ourselves if we expect others to switch to AT&T.

Here’s the problem, John. We literally implemented 5x RTO because apparently we don’t believe our own employees can work effectively from home, even though we sell the very services that make remote work possible.

How the he-l are we supposed to sell people on the benefits of AT&T when our own leadership doesn’t seem to believe in them enough to let its employees use that flexibility themselves?

Maybe we’d be more enthusiastic about our own products, more likely to use them, and more willing to recommend them to friends and family if we actually experienced the benefits firsthand instead of being forced into an office five days a week.

You want employees to stand behind AT&T? Start by giving us a reason to believe in what we’re selling. You can’t preach the benefits of connectivity and flexibility to customers while refusing to trust your own employees with it. Practice what you preach.

When this will happen this year? Did HR forgot about?