Decisions are still being finalized, but as of now, communications regarding this matter will begin sometime next week.
The goal is to flatten organizational structures to avoid having a position report to another position at the same hierarchical level.
There will no longer be reporting lines between vice presidents, between directors, and so on.
Further adjustments will be made next year, before February 25.
I do he is liked and just manages up. Saw my belly full of that over my years with the Company
There’s no way the tech spot rumor could be accurate. I was on a call with the top enterprise sales person who brings in a great deal of their revenue, and they got one of the emails.
@bm He-l, I know an SVP with zero reports. I don't understand how that even happens.
It's interesting to compare the uptick in H1-B activity to the number of cuts being made. Hmmm....
@dc for context, the divisions was about 1200 actually laid off (not including those who found jobs in regions or HQ).
@dc 179K is the number of global employees which would include field, customer service, sky, NBC etc… assuming 7k pertains to exempt Comcast cable / business and the regions then it would be a much larger share.
@a8 assuming that 7K is the correct number being axed then that's hardly a deep cut. Wikipedia says current headcount is 179K. So, 3-10% jobs losses is hardly doing to make a dent. Working under Group Product I can tell you that there's so much jobs duplication within the group despite much of the lion's share being done by external manufacturers. A lot of the projects are merely a pipe dream. There's a consensus amongst employees that if we are reduced to half our size, work will still get done. This feeling is shared by employees in other departments as well. 7K cut is not really transformative.
Funny some teams have entire chains of VPs
Especially with McKinsey on Bloomberg talking about how AI will change the way we work. Save money, cut costs, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-0fZ9ZZcU.
@bk I got one, another Mgr got one, and so did 4-5 people that report to us. All of us had either an old phone or laptop that had to be returned. We were def all on a list, just not sure what type of list. We work closely with the IT Tech teams that manage employee hardware/equipment and asked around, and the consensus was that one/some of their engineers heard they were getting laid off and left a surprise for the day after they left, which triggered those notifications. If that is the case, I can’t blame them. Kinda funny
I suspect a March layoff. I was given goals until March but whenever I push about long term career development I am stonewalled. Which if my leadership does not know budget wise, they can just say so but they are leaving me in the dark. Just send me with my severance and il be on my marry way at this point,
@c5 I was being sarcastic when using the term “run it”
@bn “at the rate we are going, we all need to pack our desks. Robert’s, Angelakis, and the team in India can run this place.”
Run it? More like bury it. But they wouldn’t know what’s really going on because they don’t work with these teams.
Saving money in the long run? Not a chance in he-l. How has that worked out for other US-based companies trying to save their a-s? It hasn’t.
When you decide that customers and genuine, hard-working local employees are worth nothing to you, then expect the business to fail.
There are a lot of SVP’s to the VP’s and SD’s to the Director levels. There are also two layers in sales- a manager and a supervisor. The sup does most of the work. My question is, why has there ever been this senior double layer of positions to begin with and what do they actually do?
"There will no longer be reporting lines between vice presidents, between directors, and so on.
Further adjustments will be made next year, before February 25."
This tracks with what I've been hearing about a re-casting of role levels and timing. Curious if Comcast will go "Big Tech" route of role levels like the FAANG companies, while flattening hierarchy. This will create a competitive environment b/w orgs, which "could" be interesting if they really want to be a tech company. And/or it will cause chaos while alliances are made on the fly and/or close friends "taken care of".
From a timing perspective. I keep hearing that March will be the next round of lay-offs, so the Feb date trends.
@bm Hopefully VPs as well.
@OP So everyone's new boss is gonna be a VP that has 50 direct reports?
That should work great.
@bj at the rate we are going, we all need to pack our desks. Robert’s, Angelakis, and the team in India can run this place.
So essentially, anyone with the title Manager 1 or Director 1 or 2 with no direct reports is fu---d. Gotcha.
@af the tech spot lists went out before McKinsey came in. Don’t think they’re related. I got one for an intern that left three years ago.
@af I am the lowest title in my org and have no direct reports but I received that tech spot communication in June. So based on your logic I should start packing my desk.
So layoffs before Q1 earnings as well is what you are speculating, OP is that right?
When will employees be notified? Keeping everyone on edge is abuse but typical of Comcast
So you are saying 7,000 employees get $650M in severance? If my math is right, that’s an average of $93,000 in severance per employee. Does that sound right?
We have ~980 Vice President level employees.
While not 7000, that is is a start.
@OP If you are from HR, then thank you for your candor.
Your numbers line up with the ~7300 employees who recieved emails and techspot tickets on June 1st to turn in their equipment due to 'termination'.
An apology email went out later that day that it was a mistake and that we understand how upsetting that must have been.
However, my internal communication with HR was along the lines of "we (HR) really messed up" and "someone pushed something forward that they shouldn't have".
So back in June there was 'a list' and someone or something advanced it forward just a bit too far.
It seems like this layoff is strictly a math problem and and that McKinsey and Co. are 'helping' our senior/aging leaders out with the math and that in the long run it will all just work itself out.
Except for the customer attrition/satistfaction problem.
The closer amount has to be a $2-$3B charge. Maybe under $1b for the first wave, but more is needed.
this was actually useful, rare for this sub lately. and yeah the point about layoffs is spot on, half the people cut last year just resurfaced somewhere else with a new title new team but same old them.
@a6 you still have the illusion that employees are more than just numbers on the balance sheet. The majority of the folks let go in the round that snagged me were senior guys, some going back 25 years. It is nothing personal, the bean counters need to get expenses down as quickly as possible. In one of my previous jobs the company always reduced headcount for in November, so that it could skip annual bonus payment as well as 401K match (the matching contribution was made annually in one lump sum).
I believe Comcast Cable has around 70,000 employees. If the number is really 7,000, that is roughly 10%.
Seriously, that is supposed to be the big reset?
For a company this bloated, 10% feels more like housekeeping than restructuring. Honestly, Comcast could probably cut 20%+ and most customers would never notice the difference.
And yes, this would fit the pattern perfectly: another classic Comcast decision. Too little. Too late. Just enough to say something was done, but not enough to actually fix the underlying problem.
That seems to be the recurring theme with this company. Leadership is very good at making announcements, reorganizing departments, changing reporting lines, and creating new names for old problems. What they seem far less comfortable doing is making genuinely hard decisions.
So no, I would not be surprised if it is only 7,000. That would be completely on brand.
The real question is whether 7,000 changes anything. I doubt it.
If Comcast is actually serious about turning the business around, they probably need to cut at least twice that and, more importantly, finally decide what work should simply stop.
Traditional TV development? Put most of it into maintenance mode. The product is mature. It does not need endless reinvention.
Comcast Labs and various internal “innovation” playgrounds? Maybe it is time to ask what measurable value some of these organizations are actually producing.
IT development? Take a chainsaw to it. There is an enormous amount of duplicated work, unnecessary complexity, slow delivery, and projects that seem to exist mainly because there are teams available to work on them.
And the list goes on.
You cannot keep every department, every project, every layer of management, and every pet initiative, cut 10%, and then congratulate yourself on a transformation.
That is not transformation. That is trimming the lawn while the house needs renovation.
At some point, leadership has to stop trying to make every difficult decision painless. Turning around a company this size is going to require decisions that upset people.
Otherwise, we will get another reorg, another PowerPoint about “focus” and “efficiency,” and in two years everyone will be wondering why nothing really changed.
Where are these 7000k employees coming from? They are cutting here that many but hiring on the job postings in the CIEC?!! What is really happening here?!!
If severance doesn’t include the options/RSUs that mature in early February, there will be lawsuits for discrimination coming from every direction. The precedent of weeks pay calculation, annual bonus, and RSUs must be followed or it will be clear that this was done to cut experienced (read:older) employees in order to save money.
@OP just at HQ? What orgs? Also “same hierarchical level” - does this mean literally the same title (VP-VP) or is it “level” more broadly as in SVP-VP both being in the “vice president” tier? This is just as confusing and unclear as anything else here.
Not buying this as fact from this "HR friend". Speculation that duplicate titles/positions on the org chart are being evaluated to reduce redundancies has been going on forever. Are we really talking 7k by December? However given the CFO recent comments at the Goldman Sachs thing it seems as good as guess as any we've seen here.
Im more on the grunt level...what about us? This sounds like what they claimed they did last year laying off middle management but then they hired them mostly back under different titles.
Will this include the rumored consolidation of regions? Any orgs or teams expected to be completely dismantled?
There’s not 7k titles reporting into the same title.