#morale

I mean, at these point executives have not only become tone deaf but truly cynical. At least we know that these surveys are completely worthless. No matter the results, they will label them as "opportunities".

I have been part of the business for nearly two decades, and it’s clear that the IT department is in need of a significant overhaul. The current approach of allowing offshore teams to make critical decisions is creating disconnects with our actual business needs.

Recently, a data engineer who had been associated with AAP for 11 years on contract was let go with very short notice. Before his departure, he was required to train other team members for several months — far beyond a standard knowledge transfer. This decision not only undermines morale but also poses a serious risk to business continuity.

From a humanitarian perspective, the timing of this decision is concerning, as finding new employment during November and December is extremely challenging. When employees feel insecure about their positions, their performance and commitment inevitably suffer.

Morale is horrible across the board. Unless you’re in leadership or close with someone who is, you’re on your own. U.S. employees are treated like they don’t matter, while offshore teams get better support, flexibility, and recognition. It’s discouraging and unsustainable- and yet no one seems to be able to stop it. US employees (not in leadership roles) need to unite and demand changes immediately.

Getting kinda scared by the figures some folks are quoting on here…if 20 or 30% of Verizon is leaving then what does that mean for those left behind? I think some employees will not be able to cope with that amount of change and a huge shift in workload

It’s been five years since John Stankey took over as CEO in July 2020, when AT&T’s stock was around $23 a share. Since then, it’s dropped as low as under $15 and today it’s barely above where it started, roughly $24.

Five years. Billions in spending. Countless reorganizations. Massive layoffs. Zero value returned to shareholders or employees.

How does this guy still have a job? At what point does the board finally admit this isn’t working?

If this is what “leadership” looks like, it’s no wonder morale and performance are at rock bottom. The numbers don’t lie it’s time for real accountability.

Super sad to see what TR is becoming and just corporate in general. I can’t say who or how I know due to confidentiality but I found out some managers goals are to reduce people on their team by implementing AI/automation. It is literally apart of their performance review. I was sad to find this out. My morale is shot.

My boss spends her entire workday talking. All day, she is “stakeholdering” with people, then comes to us to get all the actual information. After that, she passes that half-baked information to superiors behind our backs, making it look like it’s all her work.

Many times, the leaders above don’t even know that we have spent countless hours solving problems or working on a solution. On top of that, she is too lazy to even put it together in slides — she expects us to do that so she can go behind our backs and present it to her VPs or what not ?

Do we need her ? I do not know but she will stay and people who are doing actual work will be fired.

I've said it before if they let me go I'll see to it they never win root again or any other awards they may use instead.

We just lost some of the best people on our team, and it finally hit me that no matter how hard you work or how good you are, the people at the top still see you as replaceable. From now on, I’m done putting work before my family just to feel secure. No more missed birthdays, no more late nights trying to prove something that doesn’t matter in the end. I'm done.

Last year we were on a 3-day RTO schedule and things were working fine. Then, because of the (now admitted) broken presence report, everyone was punished with a 5-day mandate. Since then, leadership has acknowledged that the data wasn’t accurate and that the small group of actual abusers has already been dealt with. They’ve all either left or been terminated.

So why are the rest of us still paying the price?

It’s time to end the punishment and bring back a balanced 2/3-day model. The people who stayed have proven their commitment to this company, even through frustration and burnout. Rolling back to 2/3 days would be a genuine show of trust and a much-needed morale boost.

If leadership truly wants to rebuild culture and retain talent, this is the simplest and smartest way to start.

These people gave each other the leg up and none know what the other is doing! I was impacted and frankly I’m relieved! I know the workforce is hard and we all need our jobs but a couple of months paid to figure it out sounds better then the BS Ive been dealing with! I wish you all the best and my prayers go out to all impacted! But since this new leadership has taken over over it’s been a disaster and the ones who laugh at the ones impacted, the ones who were kept, undeserving if based on metrics and performance, your time will come! You survived not for being a leader but for kissing the right butts!

What’s the point of these celebrations when the very people that made this happen are let go? No meaningful strategy when it comes to these layoffs. Those at the top are coasting while those who do the actual work are treated like cr-p. Trust, confidence and motivation to drive is lost and they really expect us to be excited about these “celebrations”?

long gone is the morally, ethically right culture of Transunion. Say hello to layoffs for thanksgiving.

All these layoffs su-k. They absolutely su-k. But I think in time for those of us still here, it’ll eventually be OK. I just hope these layoffs don’t start to tear away at the culture.

Forced on-site work for most teams, useless middle management, directors/VPs getting to switch shoes and retain/upgrade their salaries despite abysmal failures in the orgs they preside over, corporate leaders throwing out dead and played-out initiatives that also fail constantly (because they are all outdated, obsolete, and largely ineffective), morale in he-l, frustration across departments boiling over from increased workloads and decrease team sizes causing burnout. I'm sure there are others to add to the litany, but I'm wondering, when does the straw break across the camel's back and we take back power as employees. Do we continue to drink the koolaid or speak up and pushback on these incompetent leaders and processes? Please, if you feel or deal with any of this, it is time to start writing letters or something. This cannot continue. We're in the age of modernization yet things feel so artificially dystopian. Do not play the side lines. Make your voices heard!

I’ve been here for almost a year and a half. Top performer in my store, we’re a small store not super high volume. I was wanting to move up to Assistant Manager and eventually Sr Manager Retail. But I don’t see that happening. There’s no new stores being built around me, nobody is being promoted, my store managers have stayed the same since I was hired. why would they promote a top performer when they can just keep performing?

Over the past year, I’ve watched some of the most hardworking and impactful people on my team be let go. At first, I didn’t understand why morale across the organization felt so low... but now I do (sigh)

It’s hard to stay motivated when it feels like merit and dedication don’t matter. The people who consistently overdeliver, who take ownership and push projects forward, are the ones being cut. Meanwhile, others who do the bare minimum remain and often get the credit.

So if performance and impact aren’t the criteria for layoffs, then what is?
Is it tenure? Favoritism? A random lottery? Because from where many of us stand, it certainly doesn’t look like the decisions were based on contribution or capability.

Reducing our paycheck amounts in 2026 with this 27 week pay period non-sense, increasing our out-of-pocket health care expenses and still pushing us to buy EH stock because nobody else wants it??? Seriously Executives, stick your head out of your million and billion dollar bubbles and see how everyone else is trying to survive with the low merit increases and next to nothing AIPs now. Buy EH stock with what??? We don't have anything left at the end of the month after we pay our bills thanks to the C suite pocketing all of the company profits.

Tomorrow is the last day for the employee survey. How many have completed it, because nothing ever changed from the past surveys. I’m not sure of the purpose of the survey, so why waste my time. I don’t trust anything here anymore, the company has completely changed as of definitively September/October this year, noticeably the targeting of employees by management and HR for minor things are strange behaviors.

My manager has this way of talking that makes you question your own work constantly. He acts like we are lucky to even get a paycheck here. I see my teammates come in every morning looking completely defeated. It is really hard to watch good people get treated this way. I wish I could quit.

I thought I'd feel great this weekend, make up for lost sleep. I was very much wrong. I still feel like cr-p, I still can't relax, and I still have trouble sleeping. I think this whole thing has been hanging over our heads for so long that it'll take us a while to go back to normal.

No matter how long you stay or how hard you work, promotions just don’t happen. I don't know if this is just my group or a company-wide issue, but we're losing great people due to that.

I wasn’t laid off but I’m over Target. My 7 year old could run the company better than their current leadership team at the moment. Everything feels messy and too much uncertainty. It doesn’t align with my values and I almost wish I was laid off. How do I continue to work for a company that operates as such?

Over the last year or two, this place has gone way off track. Morale’s at rock bottom. People are grating on each other mercilessly. We’ve got RTO mandates, turf wars over desks, and middle managers acting like it’s a contest to see who can show the least empathy. It feels less like Ford and more like the opening scene of Anyone But You - chaotic, tone-deaf, and completely detached from reality.

Executives talk about “transformation” but can’t seem to manage basic humanity. Families are being disrupted left and right child pickups, elder care, medical needs, nanny arrangements, all brushed off with the corporate equivalent of “we don’t care.” Instead of solving problems, leadership doubles down on punishment, turning “accountability” into cruelty. Somewhere along the line, we turned into a bad sequel to Office Space only this time there’s no stapler to steal, just another RTO badge swipe to prove you exist.

Yet here’s the thing: there’s nothing broken that can’t be fixed if your heart’s still in it. The people who post here, the ones who still speak up even through the noise are the same ones who once believed in this place. We cared. We showed up. We tried to make Ford better for our coworkers, our community, and the future we were building together.

If you’re having a rough time, I’m here for you in spirit. You’re not alone. At least one person at Ford is rooting for you, hoping you find your footing again, hoping you remember what it felt like when this place still had soul. We used to laugh here. We used to smile. There was a time when people genuinely looked out for each other. Now it’s like everyone’s trapped in The X-Files: trust no one.

All of us “perfect” people with the “perfect” lives seem to be locked in this quiet war, trying to survive, trying to look strong, and sometimes tearing each other down in the process. Still perfect-looking, maybe. But far from perfect, me included. I’m anxious, nervous, a little bitter at times. I don’t trust people the way I used to, even the ones I probably would’ve been friends with if the company showed a little heart.

I’ll be honest, there have been moments where I’ve cheered in the face of others struggling, not out of cruelty but from my own exhaustion, my own hurt. When you’re fighting to survive, you start finding light in the grimmest stories, just to remind yourself you’re still standing. And for that, I’m sorry. We’ve all been there. We’re all driven by love of this place, even when it’s buried under layers of anger and frustration. Sometimes we’ve inappropriately found cause for celebration in someone else’s pain because it meant our own survival. But no one truly hates you. No one here wants you to fail. That love is still there, even if it’s quiet.

We can all be cruel at times. That’s what makes us human. What matters is that we move forward, making the best of bad situations while still offering support to the people who need it most.

There’s still a chance to fix the vibe in this palce. But it starts with empathy, not metrics. Maybe we all need a little more Ferris Bueller and a little less Fight Club. Remember when we built things instead of tearing each other apart? Yeah. Let’s get back to that.

All the member-centric, one team/one dream and right care/right time/right place blather can pay the bills. But you realize what a charade it all really is after it resurfaces for the third or fourth time at the same starting point.

Doesn’t lend itself to fulfillment through meaningful work, that’s for sure.

Seems as though we’ve lost all our people in the know on this board??

Wondering if the lack of info being shared on teams at risk and future of more waves is because there’s nothing to share, they’ve been warned about leaks and gone silent or are more and more people (including our informants) getting dead tired of any of this talk and don’t care anymore or have left themselves.

Lots of job postings, not India, what’s that about, fake? Hiring back same roles for less?

Please!!

Who else finds it shameful and offensive to employees that Ricoh has can spend millions on a useless Dealer meeting in Nashville (following Printing United) amid a freeze on merit increases and rolling layoffs? Who are they kidding?... Most of what was presented - except for A3 MFPs and Brother-A4's cannot even be sold by their Dealers.

How is morale at the office? My team has lost so many people this year it feels strange to go into the office and have basically no one around. How is everyone doing?

America feels like it’s falling apart. Prices keep climbing, people are barely getting by, and the pressure from every direction is unbearable. Schwab treats workers like disposable parts, piling on more stress while paying wages that can’t even cover the basics for most frontline employees . Yet somehow, everyone keeps showing up, pretending it’s normal, pretending nothing has changed. It’s madness, and everyone feels it, even if no one wants to say it out loud.

Our terrible RE management strikes again! We had 2 Directors: one everyone loved and respected who was onsite, the other we all complain about in our Pulse surveys who is in a completely different office and is horrible to work with. A reasonable person would think if they had to cut one of them it would be the ineffective Director. However, LG is personal friends with the AVP. She and her husband go to dinner with AP and her husband, so when a choice needed to be made, AP decided to save her friend rather than the most suitable candidate. Now our team is stuck with the horrible Director and her nastiness. Typical of our terrible leadership at USAA Real Estate.

Payslips downloaded?
Contacts and needed docs saved?
Be strong.

Heavy sigh

In the past 2 years Prabhat Singh had lead the group to sink. He is not allowed to hire. Everyone is leaving him. Teams have shrunk by 50% because people we're unhappy. He expects people to work on the weekends so outages will happen on Saturday and customers won't notice. We have an outage every single day.
Someone had shut down the flow on SBG and the whole group is on a KTLO mode. It's just a matter of time until there's going to be a massive cut but the best way it to shake down top down and not bottom up

What a joke. These EC member elitists are getting millions in stock options and salaries and then are giving us merit increases less than what inflation is. Then they expect us to be happy with an extra 10 percent bonus? The RTO answer was a joke as well. Rick needs to open his eyes if he hasn't seen top talent leave. I can't wait until we get younger leadership and not anyone from McKinsey

They will tell you in Townhalls that other places "like" the Open Plan, unassigned hoteling.

The truth is that if you actually speak to any of those "other places" (San Ramon, Perth, etc.); none of them have a good thing to say about it.

HMP is a slow motion disaster, designed to get you to quite without severance.

Their fragile egos just refuse to take any accountability. Of course culture and morale are high when they don't have to answer to anyone (the board of directors asleep at the wheel), don't have to worry about being laid off, and collect fat bonus and merit increases no matter what. Don't accept their relentless gaslighting and keep speaking up on their lack of leadership and poor performance.

Are you feeling that?

My team is beyond the breaking point. And being told that we are empowered to say ‘no’ to incoming tasks isn’t working. If we say no, the action gets escalated, and then it comes back around with more weight, more visibility, and a stern warning.

How does this continue? Folks know the industry and job market isn’t great so they stay and swallow the pill (and their pride), but everyone is so stretched that quality of deliverables is decreasing, opportunities are being missed, communications are being overlooked, and morale issues are sort of acknowledged but swept under the rug.

Anyone else seeing what’s happening in GVSE right now? From what I’m hearing, any new roles are being restricted to grade 7/8s. Combine that with all the automation initiatives being pushed on us (auto discounts, auto del reg approvals, auto emails via Gong), and it really feels like the intent is to make these “Early in Career” roles going forward.

For those of us who’ve been here for 5+ years, it’s hard not to feel like they’re trying to clear space for younger, cheaper talent. There’s almost no room left to be strategic or to bring real experience into the process. Leadership has done little to help us adapt to this new pod model. No real enablement, no clear direction, just constant change with minimal support.

Honestly, I’ve never felt more de-motivated in my career at Cisco. It feels like the GVSE space is slowly collapsing, and we’re being left behind in the process.

Wondering how everyone else is feeling in the GVSE space. Am I just being paranoid?