I'm a Director (level 13) and have had absolutely no inclusion/participation in anything RIF/layoff related. Weeks ago were asked by our VP boss to give very brief rundown of what each of our direct reports was working on. That was it.
I don't know if one of my direct reports is getting laid off until they actually are.
Found this buried in an older thread's replies, I thought more people should read this, as this question gets asked a lot. The OP is @e2+1m2gtzksc.
@cv Seems to me that they are only looking for quick fixes. It would take too long to figure out who’s valuable. And besides, they think that only VP and above are worth anything.
There will nothing left but trained monkeys and their handlers. We are already witnessing the results of that “vision”
No one ever tells the replacements that the training documents even exist. You can spend 90 days creating the best training documents possible, but it will not matter because that information will never go to the people who need it. It is a complete waste of time.
They are going to figure things out the way you did whether you create the documents or not. The last person who will read those documents is you.
Lydon can kiss my a-s. He's one of Frank's minions and he doesn't give 2 sh--s about the majority of job functions.
They're laying off a ton of labor to send to India. I'm on a 90 day notice and I can already see that in my group alone, they didn't think that far ahead and don't realize how much sh-t I actually do until I'm gone.
I don't give a sh-t. I'm not training any replacements and I'm not creating SOPs for these a--holes to follow. Let them figure it out the same way I had to.
@fm it’s decided by the SVPs, not the VPs. The SVPs provide a pre-determined list to the VPs, Sr Directors, and Directors, and then these individuals negotiate to determine who they want to retain. Believe me, I (VP) fought tooth and nail to keep all of them on the list because we were already short-staffed. However, we had a number of positions that we needed to cut, and we had to choose from the list. No choice
@fn do you even work here?
The higher up the food chain, the less work these people do and they get paid obscene amounts of money.
They are laying off people to pad their own paychecks. Let's be real.
@fk By that logic, every VP and SVP makes too much but are still very much employed, so who's really using broad strokes
Also a level 13 Director here. Likewise, I have absolutely no insight into layoffs, not even my direct reports. A few months ago I had a direct report out on FMLA leave for their parent passing away unexpectedly. They were laid off the day before they were returning to work. I only found out after the call was over.
@cn I didn't get cut because of performance. I got cut because I made too much and they want to send half our jobs to cheaper Indiana labor.
You need to be a fly on the wall at these layoff meetings.. because you're using a the broad brush of assumptions.
@cv Love that people write full think pieces on this site. Have you ever actually worked at Fiserv? What exactly did you expect from this post, a TED Talk?
@cj Isn't that essentially the whole point of rebadging employees to companies like Infinite? Fiserv is deliberately moving those employees off its direct payroll and shifting the cost of performing that work to an outsourcing contract. The idea is to reduce costs, transfer employment responsibilities to the vendor and give Fiserv more flexibility in how that work is staffed. Sure outsourced employees still represent a cost to Fiserv and those contracts absolutely should be evaluated for productivity, performance, value etc but I think you're looking at this primarily as a question of individual employee performance when management is making decisions about which functions it wants to keep in house versus outsource. Even if a long tenured Fiserv employee is more experienced or productive than someone working for Infinite, mgmt may still prefer the outsourced arrangement if it believes the total cost of delivering that service is lower.
The bigger question IMO is whether Fiserv is actually realizing meaningful savings from these decisions once you account for lost institutional knowledge, reduced productivity, service quality, additional work being absorbed by remaining employees etc. Eliminating positions might look good on a spreadsheet but that doesn't mean the company is operating more efficiently.
@cj Where have you been? Under the rock? Fiserv layoffs have never been based on productivity or experience. People keep posting here precisely because it makes no sense. And from what I've heard, the Infinite folks have a fixed-term contract of about 3 years, but that can end with no guarantee either. Fiserv doesn't pick the best performers, it picks whoever the dartboard lands on.
Why aren't employees who were transitioned to Infinite or other outsourced companies being evaluated as part of the overall workforce review? Are their performance, productivity, and contributions being assessed as well?
While these employees may no longer be on Fiserv's direct payroll, they still represent a cost. If some are not meeting performance expectations or delivering sufficient value, shouldn't those positions also be considered.
Rather than laying off long tenured employees who bring years of institutional knowledge, expertise, and proven experience, wouldn't it make more sense to evaluate whether those employees could fill positions currently held by transitioned staff who may not be performing at the same level.
Workforce reductions should be based on performance, productivity, experience, and overall value to the organization notsimply on who is directly on the payroll.
@bj It's not about positions, it's about which VPs like you most.. I just hope the dirty-playing VPs and SVPs get their turn at tribal council.
Still do stack ranking
So VP's control the levers on who gets axed? What about SVP's and above? They just tell their VP's "I need you to cut $200K in your department" and then the VP finds out what positions can be eliminated to hit that target?
I know the past year they have targeted positions only to eliminate. They aren't targeting specific individuals. Recently they got rid of client trainers, administrative support, data analysts making dashboards, etc.
Our director said the same: he found about the RIF 48 hours before. The VP made the calls based on the roles, not the people.
@OP I was asked the same question by my VP months ago, and both he and I (was a DI) were let go and they kept my directs. LOL
I can laugh about it now, since i was lucky to have already been looking to move and was already in the final stages of accepting my next position. So i got a nice severance plus the new gig . it worked out nicely for me.
I visit here to see if anything's changed but its looks worse.
@ad same thought here. I’ve not heard of any long term plans or projects. Only thing I hear talk of is who/where to cut further.
Seems they are only focusing on layoffs. Sounds great for long-term. This has to be the most id--tic f-kedup place I’ve ever worked at.
Fiserv will almost certainly fail within the next year or two anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about layoffs at this point.
@OP "Weeks ago were asked by our VP boss to give very brief rundown of what each of our direct reports was working on" - is exactly how is starts. And news flash for yourself, if your directs are mostly deemed to be working on fluff you will likely also be seen as fit for RIF.