RIFs are coming in the next weeks across multiple orgs. Do we know the total impact or when it’s happening? I thought we had a “fortress balance sheet”. Once again I am watching us allow outside consultants determine who is laid off. And in this market? It does not feel as though they are putting the livelihood of their employees over their shareholders.
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@6m0 this makes no sense. They let the lowest earners in many departments go if they wanted to save money they would’ve let the higher earners go.
@6m0 Well said
@a8r so pathetic to treat people this way. They are not treating the next round this way either. that is leaving in october. absolutely awful end to a once great company. They should repent and rehire people they let go asap in my opinion. They will have to anyway somehow if they want to be any form of successful. A lot of these people they had only hired less than 3 years ago!
@1vw as someone that was part of the March '24 RIFs (probably the only one outside of Oregon that was RIF'd at that time), they did not let me touch my laptop, cell phone, etc. after they told me I was being reduced. They then perp walked me out of the facility.
As evidenced by COLM stock prices today. This short-sightedness is costing the company. Having a new marketing approach to better reach key demographics really won't be effective if the underlying tech stack is on fire. Offshoring core capabilities is never the right answer. The corporate landscape offers up many examples of bigger and better companies that have tried this and have failed. It's sad to see what once was a great company on such a decline. Leadership should be held accountable by shareholders for this nonsense.
It does appear that these RIFs have been to shift employees out of the US and into India. The savings on a salary basis is about 2x. That gap will close over the next handful of years due to inflation and Columbia will be right back where it was. They will of course ask everyone to continue to push more work 'left'. Train your future replacement.
That hasn't proven to work. Those people eventually move onto other jobs in 2-3 years because they have incentive to make much more at some other gig.
It feels like leadership at the C level has a hard time playing the game to win. They focus on numbers instead of growth, being afraid to take business risk to grow the company. They are too focused on saving money. They got rid of some incredibly valuable and highly trained staff to hire a bunch of replacements with little experience. Innovation will likely fall off a cliff.
Culture is defined and pushed down from the top. The culture appears to be to outsource and stop hiring employees in the US. The company is effectively a shell of a US company for the hiring of people anywhere else in the world that might save money.
@2hd Perhaps this is part of the GCC strategy and outsourcing to india all the IC roles. Ive already seen scrum lead roles posted in india.....
That spinning noise? That's Mrs. Boyle turning over in her grave. The company sure has gone down hill since she passed
From what it looks like, unofficially, the RIFs seem to only affect no one higher than the line managers and individual contributors (with isolated, random exceptions). If the layoffs were being strictly executed to improve the bottom-line, seems like there could have been a more conscience effort to impact fewer people by targeting some of the very inept, Sr Mangers, Directors (and above) to achieve the same goal. It is very disheartening to see so many extremely talented people lose their livelihood while other zero-value, non-contributors remain employed. Time to look for employment somewhere else before I’m next. I had pride when I first started working here, and like many others, now I can’t get out of here fast enough.
@1e1 - Unoffically it seems to be near 62. More coming in September that received extended notices.
@1vw - I actually secure wiped mine just prior to driving in. I had a feeling about a week prior and I surgically removed all my personal information. Today I handed them a brick. This was a good reminder for me to adhere to my strict rule to not co-mingle my personal stuff on a company issued machine. The data thing goes both ways, I do not trust them with my data anymore just as they have shown me how much they valued the years that I put in for them.
Anyone else think it’s ridiculous that they won’t let anybody get personal information off their computers. I don’t remember the last RIF’s being like this. It’s like Columbia is dead and it’s a different company already.
Too hard of take?
Could it be they are prepping the company to sell it? I dont see how it will function with all the knowledge lost this week and no chance to document or knowledge transfer
Meanwhie contractors for projects that could be done in house are held on at high cost and just renewed for months.
Part of the RIF today. Seems totally arbitrary and uninformed given work in flight. Temporary leadership is borderline clueless... who will be long gone when dealing with the aftermath. Sad to see a company with good core values slowly deteriorate and add more evidence to the Peter Principle.
They took no care on who they let go, in flight projects, or anything. This is really awful.
Over 1/2 of my team, including me were hit today. Based on this, I can only imagine that the RIFs will be brutal today.
Team member cut this morning, CDT. Probably for the best for all parties. 😕
When are they happening? Who will be impacted?
I'm hearing that this will be both wide and deep, centered around CDT and some in the business side. Can't confirm numbers but I believe that they are looking at straight percentages (not strategic org reductions) across technology.
@OP Confirmed — more RIFs coming across multiple orgs in the next few weeks.