For those of us newer to Schwab or from TDA, what are the skip meetings like, and do you think they’re really a precursor to layoffs, or is that overblown?
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I have skip meetings 2 - 3 times a year for the past few years. I am a manager, and would estimate my director I meet with has 10 to 12 people to meet with each time. The meeting are a nice chance to catch up since the director is in a different city. Mostly talk about Blue Green team integration and crosstraining.
This is going to depend on the size of your organization. Some orgs are very large, bottom up. You may have dozens up to 100 staff (developers, PMs (excuse me Scrum Master), etc.), that has many direct managers, that support up to one MD. It would be impractical for the MD to have skip with everyone. Some other orgs, its not as bottom heavy, and the skip level manager may be able to meet with everyone, if not once or twice a year, or maybe once a quarter.
I would not worry, or be offended if you never had a skip level meeting.
@1trh+1omi3JvC in over 10 years I can't recall ever having a skip-level meeting here at Schwab. I guess that says something about the quality of 'leadership', eh?
Skip meetings are very normal. It's a change for your upper leadership to get to know you and to hear your feedback directly. Good leaders do this.
What is a skip meeting? Means you are scheduled to attend a meeting which you don't show up.... hence skip meeting. What does it feel like? Feels like I didn't attend a meeting.
They are called Skip-level, it just means your boss's boss or your manager's manager has a meeting with you. Honestly its a little bit of both seeing what upper management thinks you are doing, but also what I think, is if they get rid of your manager, you are not completely surprised working for the next level up manager/director.
WTF is a skip meeting?
I usually skip any meeting, that is not related to something I am actively working on development work on.
Nothing to worry about …just gives upper management a sense of what you are doing, pain points what you want to see more of or issues you are having. Great chance to show them what you are working on as well