#employeerelations

You don't have to share personal details that would compromise your identity but after being placed on one myself, and deciding to quit soon after; I always felt it was unwarranted, unexpected, and retaliatory (but not enough to form a fuss over it and pursue any type of action after I left). After dedicating so much time (including lots of overtime and weekends; and going above and beyond with above average annual reviews), I always felt it was never about performance but something else but hard to prove. Hence why PIPs are always the tool for companies to use to get rid of someone.

Anyone else care to share if you feel comfy?

Even for iconic brands, the cracks eventually show.

Over the past year, Milady, a company that helped shape beauty education for nearly a century, has undergone a dramatic restructuring that many employees say signals the slow dismantling of the brand they once knew.

First, the Product organization was absorbed into the larger Cengage structure. Then Marketing followed. And immediately after the close of the fiscal year, the next blow landed: the Account Management team was eliminated.

Not restructured. Eliminated.

Employees were reportedly told they could “reapply” for newly created roles, a move that many viewed as deeply disrespectful after years of service and relationship-building. Instead of accepting the uncertainty, many chose to walk away entirely.

And honestly? Good for them.

What’s happening isn’t just corporate streamlining. It’s another example of a legacy company losing the very people, culture, and institutional knowledge that made it successful in the first place. The pursuit of operational efficiency and consolidation has slowly hollowed out once-thriving business units, replacing identity and loyalty with spreadsheets and restructuring plans.

No one is safe anymore!!

https://share.google/BgSnNob21yil8h0YY

EM announced a target of 30% India, 30% Spring, and 30% sites. Hidden in those numbers are at least 30% of the people at Spring will be from India and 30% of people at sites will be from India. So real target is 50% of all EM employees will be working for 1/8 normal salaries.

They want as many people on normal salaries to quit as possible, or exit via the NSI layoff scheme.

Announcing the % of normal salary employees that Need Significant Improvement prior to the start of assessment is actually just a layoff target without notifying the Texas Labor Board.

How did my HGO OD not get impacted. He does not live in the operation. He is out of touch. He states everyone that does not agree with him or do what he says should be fired. Maybe he is should be fired. It is his way or the highway. He does not play well with others. My RM says he needs to go. My SE gets little support from SEM and SSEM. JA, look at the HGO numbers. New leadership is needed in HGO.

I was laid off in 2024 after 18 years at Cisco. It was a weird time leaving because people just stopped talking to me. It was as if I was gone in a snap. People I thought I knew and worked with everyday, people I considered a friend went radio silent. I remember who they are.

I myself had survived many rounds and I’m 1000% sure I failed in reaching out to those hit to connect before they left. When I was let go, I knew what it felt like.

So all of you who survived this one and the next one, you have an opportunity. Reach out to those you worked with who’ve been hit. Write a message, make a call, or set up a webex do what’s best. You have no idea how much that means to the person impacted. They will remember you.

Next time it could be you. When you’re on the outside, you’ll need to network to find your next job. People will remember how you made them feel. They will answer your call.

We’re all doing our best. Remember those who go before you.

When you retire from AT&T now .............. do you get any benefits as a former employee .

Intuit has limited budget for severance package.

Mine is the ultimate micromanager, always hovering, always clueless. They prove every day they don't understand our work. But promote someone from the team? Heaven forbid.

I guess that confirms a higher paycheck puts a target on your back. Fine. But why never any follow-up? There's a reason those people were paid more than the rest of us. It boggles the mind that management expects us to pick up work none of us actually knows how to do. I'm not acquiring a whole new skill set just to work more for the same pay.

Corporations are not necessarily pulling the plug on AI, but the initial, unbridled "gold rush" has definitely hit a wall of operational reality. The corporate approach has shifted from a frantic race to adopt any AI tool to a much more cautious, calculated, and sometimes frustrated effort to find actual business value.

The current landscape reveals why companies are reconsidering their initial "rush" strategy, pivoting toward a more structured approach:

1. The Productivity-to-ROI Disconnect

During the initial hype, the assumption was that massive individual productivity gains (like writing code or drafting copy five times faster) would automatically translate to corporate profitability. It hasn't. Recent data, including a 2026 enterprise study by Writer, shows that nearly half (48%) of C-suite executives now call their AI adoption a massive disappointment, and only about 29% are seeing a significant return on investment (ROI). Companies are realizing that adding expensive AI tools on top of messy, inefficient legacy processes just creates faster chaos, not better outcomes.

1. Strategy "For Show" vs. Reality

There is a growing, uncomfortable realization in boardrooms that early AI roadmaps were built more for investors and public relations than for actual internal execution. In fact, three-quarters of executives admit their company's AI strategy has been "more for show" than actual operational guidance. Leaders are hitting severe bottlenecks when trying to scale experimental pilot programs into production-ready enterprise workflows.

1. Culture Clashes and the "Two-Tiered" Workplace

The rush to implement AI has triggered significant internal friction.

The "AI Elite" vs. Non-Adopters:

Management is aggressively rewarding power users while planning to phase out employees who resist the technology.

Trust Deficits:

According to Cox Business research, nearly 50% of employees hide how much they rely on AI at work due to a lack of clear corporate policies, paired with a lingering fear (around 47%) that the technology will eventually eliminate their jobs.

Loss of Top Talent:

Gartner warned that companies focusing strictly on cutting payroll rather than training their people to use autonomous tools risk losing their best specialized AI talent to competitors.

1. Severe Security Gaps ("Shadow AI")

When corporate IT departments didn't move fast enough to provide official AI tools, employees took matters into their own hands. This explosion of "shadow AI"—workers dropping proprietary code, sensitive financial spreadsheets, or customer data into unapproved, public LLMs—has terrified risk officers. Two-thirds of executives believe their companies have already suffered data breaches or compliance risks due to these unmanaged tools, forcing a hard pause to establish strict governance frameworks.

The Shift to "Agentic" and People-Centric Models

Instead of backing away from AI entirely—corporate spending remains incredibly high—organizations are drastically rewriting their execution playbooks. The "rush" is being replaced by two specific trends:

Moving to Agentic Workflows:

Companies are moving away from simple prompt-and-response chatbots and focusing on specialized "AI agents" built to handle specific, cross-functional business workflows with centralized IT guardrails.

The 80/20 Rule:

Forward-thinking organizations are abandoning the idea of total human replacement. Instead, they are structuring roles around an 80/20 model:

80% of roles are "human-led, AI-augmented" (the Ironman approach, where human judgment is non-negotiable), and 20% are "AI-led, human-supervised" (for high-volume, low-risk, repetitive tasks).

Ultimately, corporate America is learning that while adopting AI technology takes weeks, successfully restructuring a workforce to actually benefit from it takes years. The current pause isn't a retreat; it's a strategic realignment.

_

Were there calls held with various teams about the upcoming layoffs? Was it only a Directors call only, AD call, or were the calls held with the teams potentially affected. I am in an affected group per these post but was not invited to any call Friday.

Visual Concepts, known for WWE 2K and NBA 2K, has conducted numerous layoffs. Several former employees announced their job losses on LinkedIn. A software engineer, Brittany Thibodeaux, confirmed many staffers were let go. Game designer Nina Marotta was laid off while on sick leave. The article does not specify the total number of affected employees or a reason for the layoffs.

https://www.psu.com/news/visual-concepts-has-reportedly-been-hit-by-layoffs/

I could have sworn Sirini said point blank “layoffs are done for the year” at the last town hall a couple weeks back. Yet here we are with another big wave this past week. What gives?

Verizon CEO cuts to the chase on new layoffs and AI future:
As a new wave of job cuts hits Verizon, leadership delivers a blunt reality check on future plans and an AI deadline.

May 11, 2026 5:37 PM EDT
Dan Schulman, president and chief executive officer of PayPal Holdings Inc.
Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The leaner era of Verizon Communications has entered a new phase of targeted reductions. On May 7, the company confirmed a new round of workforce cuts that will affect hundreds of employees.

This move arrives less than six months after the company completed a massive 13,000-person reduction, the largest in the telecom provider’s history.

The heaviest impact of these new layoffs is expected to be concentrated at the company headquarters in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

According to Business Insider, the latest reduction represents approximately 1% of Verizon’s overall headcount.

And while the company has been conservative with specific headcounts, a recent State Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing in May confirms that 121 employees at the Basking Ridge headquarters are scheduled to be laid off on August 7, 2026.

Behind these layoffs and the company’s shifting profits lies a larger story of finance and AI-driven infrastructure aimed at improving efficiency.

Verizon’s $5 billion efficiency mandate

The latest workforce reduction follows a transformative milestone for the company. Earlier this year, in January, Verizon finalized its acquisition of Frontier Communications. The $20 billion deal expanded Verizon’s fiber footprint to 31 states.

During the Q1 earnings call, CFO Tony Skiadas also revealed that Verizon is aggressively pursuing an operating expense (OpEx) savings target of $5 billion by the end of 2026.

The telecom provider has also set an ambitious target of $1 billion in operating cost synergies by 2028.

As Verizon absorbs Frontier’s merger and expands its fiber footprint to almost 30 million passings, the company is also prioritizing automation to manage the expanded network, albeit with a smaller human headcount.

“We have begun to see meaningful cost benefits from our transformation efforts as we take out legacy structural costs from the business,” said CEO Dan Schulman during the call.

Skiadas detailed a relentless strategy to permanently remove $5 billion from the company’s annual spend.

“We’re off to a great start on the $5 billion of cost transformation,” Skiadas told analysts.

The strategy is multi-layered:

Workforce reduction: The 13,000-plus layoffs since October 2025 are the primary driver of savings. Skiadas noted the company is “running leaner” and is cutting “third-party contractor and outsource spend” to keep savings in line.

Legacy decommissioning: Verizon is decommissioning old copper network elements, recycling and “monetizing” them by selling scrap metal.

Real estate rationalization: As the workforce shrinks, the company is also reducing its real estate footprint across administrative and network sites.

The most vital aspect of Shulman’s turnaround is the AI tech stack sprint, designed to address customer pain points by automating digital sales and service.

Verizon, through these AI-enabled channels, aims to lower the cost of retention while defending its customer base.

Schulman, who has usually been upfront about AI’s role in the future, told investors that the company is on a timeline that would have been impossible a year ago.

“We are going to be substantially complete with that entire AI tech stack by July, and we hope to be fully done by November,” he said on the call.

To hit this mark, the company has recruited several “AI-savvy individuals” over the last seven months, adding that “we’ve done more in the last three months than we’ve done in the last three to four years around this.”

Verizon’s stock is up 15% year to date.

The Frontier factor and Verizon’s record profits

The May layoffs coincide with Verizon’s most successful quarter in recent years. According to the company’s recent Q1 2026 financial release, Verizon achieved its first positive first quarter “postpaid phone net adds since 2013.”

Its adjusted EPS also rose to $1.28 per share, a 7.6% year-over-year increase.

By integrating Frontier’s fiber network, Verizon expects at least $1 billion in annual cost synergies by 2028. This merger allows Verizon to stop paying third-party access costs and automate its network management, albeit now with a significantly smaller headcount.

Analysts, meanwhile, remain divided. Morgan Stanley recently raised its price target on Verizon to $50 from $40, keeping an equal weight rating. Noting the improving subscriber growth and competitive intensity in wireless was “encouraging,” the firm said.

However, Este Group downgraded Verizon to hold from buy, saying the company’s earnings growth still lags behind the broader sector average, according to TheFly.

As Verizon works to complete its AI tech stack by July, the company’s message is clear that it intends to continue this cost transformation well beyond 2026.

https://www.thestreet.com/employment/verizon-ceo-cuts-to-the-chase-new-layoffs-ai-future

A commenter said: “leadership needs to be realistic about the culture issue. There are people on both sides who clearly don’t even want to be here anymore. Fine — give those people strong packages and let them move on. That is not the reality at VZ. It was demomstrated that VZ is a cliquish club. They downsize those who they dont like. They dis not care about performance.

Cisco doesn’t care about you, why should you care about Cisco? Why work hard to make projects successful.

Someone I know was let go for continuously clogging toilets in Biggs. I was told this by someone on the People Team that would know. And no they didn’t clog them the way you think, but rather they were caught flushing wads of paper towels and plastic ware from the cafeteria. Very strange and she didn’t go into details how they knew it was person, but they were able to nail down who it was. Has anyone else heard about this yet?! Apparently the perp was doing it for a couple months and then got really brazen when they started dropping spoons and forks in the toilets.

Anyone at thousandeyes impacted by layoffs?

Novartis is trimming its biomedical research arm. This follows recent staff consolidation moves. A company spokesperson confirmed individual impacts to a select number of employees. This strategic decision is difficult for those affected. Novartis employed 5,720 professionals in this department at the end of 2025.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/novartis-cuts-select-number-roles-biomedical-research-arm

https://old.reddit.com/r/BPOinPH/comments/1ojffsi/life_in_wells_fargo/

Translated:
""I posted here already like a year ago asking for suggestions on which company to choose.

Well, I chose WF only because of the salary and it's fairly convenient since I’m just one shuttle ride away. I didn’t expect the situation here to be like this. The micromanagement is intense. At first, I was only getting sick once a month, but now it’s every week because of the stress. I really thought I could handle it, but my body says otherwise.

Honestly, it feels like my salary didn’t even increase because I’m absent so much. (It’s unpaid now because I’m always sick). I’ll just force myself to endure it until next year, and then I’m going to resign. :((

My LOB (Line of Business) is EDB. 😭"

No one here knows when a lay off is going to happen. There might be 4 people maximum that know prior to VPs getting a heads up day of

everyone should reflect on their personal contributions and what theyre bringing to the table Respected efficient top contributors aren’t on here getting scared or fear mongering - so reflect on where you fall and make the case for staying

To the trolls: unless you have founded proof - stop ruining people’s days. You’re literally
Making this worse for everyone.

Any idea if the greater Texas Wellmed case management team will be affected with the May or June RIFs? RN case manager just wondering if we are next.

Long ago MDT was all about patients and customers and everyone lined up to support that. Then they started to get functional leaders who thought their functions were more important than the mission.

HR used to be a support function with a generalist per dept or function that knew people, helped hire, fire, promote, set pay..... then HR decided they were too important to work that way and needed to specialize to be more efficient., so they pulled all the features apart and created leaders for each.

Now you have, maybe, a generalist who might know you but they are spread across many teams.

You also have recruiters, who are called "talent acquisition" with all their own rules.

You have job leveling experts who review individuals against the job family rubrics to decide if they agree someone can be promoted.

You have compensation experts who decided what people can be paid.

You have "human capital insights" who run the global voices survey.

You have the Org design experts who know how you should be structured, spans and layers and such.

You have data teams, HR systems teams, who hold all the info.

You have pay disparity teams that go through your organization and send you a mandate to change someones pay to make things more fair (though never with any incremental funding to implement, you need to find it in your own cost center)

And you of course have D&I considerations.

As a manager, this has made work so much more complicated and difficult, but its done in the name of excellence in HR?

Now you see it repeating in Operations, etc...... All at the expense of the mission, patients and customers.

Intuit fires people due to Covid. Intuit fires people due to AI. Intuit fires people silently from time to time. Intuit only cares about $.

Hehehe an entire team is about to put in their notice because of the way this company is being run

I was not able to make it. How was the food? Was it crowded? Did everyone get stock shares or a car?

might as well say what we all know. each day is like watching a trainwreck even latest clueless strat team knows emrs poor planning and short staffed centers wont work. investors coming to collect in 2027 the worst for patients and staff is coming. referrals to a handful of places no lcsws and demotions for all the poor staff left holding the po-p bag. playbooks trainings and daily new workflows wont stop the terrible reputation centerH$ll now has. psa: riffing people then posting their jobs that week is trash.

Here’s a punchier version:

To everyone who comes here wishing they’d get surplused — your wish just came true.
The rumors are real. Cuts are coming, and they’re happening fast.
If you hate this job, go tell your supervisor to put your name on the list. Do it for the person who actually needs this job and is about to lose it.
Stop complaining. Start acting.

I was LR‘ed early 2024.. and today I am happy it happened then and not now. Cisco does, like most US companies, not care about employees and are unable to do a proper AOP planning - at cost of the lives of tousands of mother and fathers who have to provide to their families. I hope Karma will one day catch ELT and greedy investors like Blackrock. I am now on a better place where they hire more carefuly.

Layoffs in 2026 are inevitable and I can’t help but chuckle when people come onto this board to whinge about more layoffs are coming.

Are layoffs stressful? Absolutely. No one is denying that. One thing you can do is change your mindset.

Control the controllables.

You can’t control whether you are going to be laid off or not. What you can control is finding a new job. It’s not easy to find a new job in this market, so start looking now. Don’t wait until your job is impacted to look for a new role. Who knows… you might get lucky… engineer yourself a redundancy when you have something else lined up. To do so, you have to be smart. You can’t be bitter. It takes weeks to engineer a redundancy so get your ducks in order! There is life post Citi. You might surprise yourself. You may enjoy life after Citi more than you enjoy life at Citi. Food for thought.

Business Insider announced new employee cuts. Jamie Heller announced the company's staff cuts. The Insider Union reported 10 staff members were impacted. Management aims to sharpen coverage and invest in key areas. This marks the fourth staff cut for Business Insider.

https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/journalism/business-insider-layoffs-fourth-year-in-a-row/

I was laid off a couple of month's ago.
Out of curiosity, I sent a test email to my old address to see what happened. There was no bounce back reply from the server.
Does that mean my mailbox is still active and someone like my old boss has control of it now?

I've been in "corporate america" long enough to understand that the decision to surplus you often goes beyond just performance or willingness to improve, it often hinges on the fact if your supervisor or leadership chain like you. If they don't like you or you're always seeming to cause a problem, you're likely one of the first to be selected.

It might happen... but people are jumping from accounting math to headcount certainty. They said fewer than 4,000 jobs in Q4. They also said notifications start 5-14 and continue globally based on local laws and regulations. OK, makes sense - it su-ks but it makes sense... That alone explains why some costs roll into FY27.

The remaining restructuring charge does not automatically mean another 4K or 5K people in Aug.... It can include severance paid later, benefits, legal and administrative costs, country-specific consultation periods, delayed effective dates, and other restructuring expenses.

Could there be mre cuts later? Sure. This's Cisco afterall. But that is different from saying Aug is confirmed...

Unless someone has an actual internal list, mgr confirmation, country schedule, or filing that says another wave is planned for Aug, the aug number is still speculation... people should stop treating it like a confirmed fact just because the 1B charge is split across Qs.

Have you opened ER case before regarding your manager or team lead or performance rating？
What was your experience like?

I used to think HR was there to help employees and actually went to them with a complaint. Big mistake. Their only goal is to protect the company from us. They don't care about what happened, just how they can sweep it under the rug. Don't make the same mistake I did of trusting them.

Some one tell him stop with the navi hoodies and high tops. I am embarrassed for all of you

Augusta Sportswear will close its Coburg facility. This closure is scheduled for July 17. Up to 83 employees will be laid off. A limited number of employees may transfer. The facility produces Pacific Headwear custom hats.

Coburg, Oregon

https://www.klcc.org/economy-business/2026-05-14/georgia-based-clothing-company-to-close-its-coburg-facility-lay-off-up-to-83-people

Mental Health Awareness meetings - really?after folks have been laid off and more layoffs to come - this company is either clueless or really twisted with its cruelty