I’ve been hearing about people being let go one by one or in small groups, without any announcement or big talk. They are trying to minimize the upset and the erosion of morale by quietly laying off peeps? If that’s the reasoning, they are too late. I’ve been here for a while, and can’t remember the times we felt less motivated, layoffs or not.
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I’ve read the entire ESPP policy and FAQs as well, and I also get the impression of a 2 year hold like the other poster said. I agree that you can sell shares immediately, but the materials make it seem like you can’t access those dollars until after 2 years (sold or otherwise), it doesn’t make any sense to me so I have avoided participation out of an abundance of caution. They really should clear that up in the language, or at least in the FAQ.
There is no 2 year holding period.
I sold as soon as the stock was vested the other week.
You pay short term gains tax vs long but the discount makes up for that.
This is not investment or tax advice
To @bwq+1tEPHGIm: there absolutely were WARN notices last year. This very forum was flooded with them. They were published the morning layoff announcements were happening, if not soon afterward. Because the company gave most of those impacted 60-90 days notice before severance kicked in, they got around announcing it any earlier.
The ESPP is a bit of a scam. Sure it has a look back, which is better than most offer, but it also locks you into the stock for 2 years. You’d be better off investing that money into some equities where you can actually manage your risk and probably gain more even if you didn’t react to risks.
To the guy who didn't buy stock...smart choice. A lot of us didn't expect it to tank. It should have been 3 digits. Now I'm holding onto a prayer that I at least break even.
I'm pretty sure they avoid the WARN notice with severance deals. There was no WARN for the 5000 people last year. They're allowed to lay off anybody who has been with the company less than six months without consequence or compensation. If they give you two months of severance pay and benefit continuation at least they get away with it I think. Not a legal advisor and I'm pretty stupid.
If they keep layoffs to low numbers and spread out it avoids the WARN notices
They've done this before but I think they will do a formal announcement with the number of effected employees like last year. in the next week or two. Only reason it seems on the money is that the stock fell to 11 year lows and the bump it saw from the layoffs last year was short lived. And I saw a lot of QEs and other positions permanently retired prior to the layoffs last year so they do both.
I imagine they do this to pump the stock so they can get out of an underperforming company. I don't have a vendetta or let KL or anybody at CVS live in my head rent free but she has shown she cant improve the company even with mass layoffs it's going to go down to damn near 20 year lows soon. Thankfully I never engaged with the employee stock purchase plan so that execs can pump and dump.
I am going to tank the next survey and the next and the next. I've also already reached out to employee relations to get my issues on record in case I am targeted for retaliation.