I’ve been hearing from several sources about potential significant layoffs—possibly affecting around 10% of the workforce. Can any managers or individuals with insight confirm whether there’s truth to this or provide any additional context.
37 replies (most recent on top)
@er above $70 is unbelievable stock price. Super duper overvalued stock
ST&O and the Security Business Group were hit pretty hard. Particularly managers. That's been a growing trend to reduce the number of managers and increase the number of people each is responsible for. Based on my view into the two orgs, impact was about 9%. Products with flat growth were hit hardest
Firing up WebEx this morning, the requests from (former) colleagues asking for LinkedIn recommendations and "keep an ear out for jobs" was the usual mix of "yeah, that's not surprising" and "really, they got rid of that guy? He was doing the job of three people" , which tells the story of how these decisions are made, well above the people who have insight into the value each employee actually provides.
I was laid off today after just under 20 years of being there. Security org.
Just found out a coworker was laid off today.
(developer in the WebEx BU, Milpitas)
Starting to look like Cisco will do quarterly layoffs, but smaller numbers impacted, in order to avoid making a public announcement.
I just got laid off today at cisco
got laid off today at cisco from dev
They will ki-l Appdynamics. It was doing well but Splunk made it lose all traction
GVS about to change
CSAP kids been a mess from day one
Meraki guys are about to become the new 2.0 GVS
Meraki going to be hit hard. The experiment to make them anything more than overpaid order takers has, as predicted, failed miserably.
@er let’s LR more and push the number to 80 or 90 and keep the board happy
Confirmed layoffs coming in August 2nd week (week of 11th). Could be as high as 15% for BUs caught in a death spiral such as Wireless but more likely an average of 10% in engineering.
Based on the replies, I do not see any credible confirmation of layoffs yet. Everyone is just speculating and sharing opinions, fears, gripes.
Of course, Cisco does annual layoffs so everyone is correct in expecting one but I see no one on this thread with specific knowledge of this year's event.
From past experience, I have often seen speculated numbers around 10% or 10,000 with the actual, final numbers often being about half that.
There will be drastic change. The Gartner thing was big. Probably Security and Services will be hit.
Public Sector Sales / International
Last time they allowed voluntary LR a ton of good people were working at a Cisco competitor the following Monday after picking up a $150k+ check from Cisco the preceding Friday.
Even Cisco won’t be so stupid to do this again.
Highly doubtful with the stock pushing 70
all RSUs immediately invest
above good, but usually LR targets people with meaningful outstanding RSU, so i highly doubt there will be any ER in near future.. (hope i am wrong).
ER absolutely is confirmed. Same payout options as before, but age + years of service minimum was lowered by five.
What are the differences between an ER and LR in terms of compensation and benefits?
why do people even assume Cisco will offer any meaningful benefits?
as the layoffs continue, the exits will tend toward the minimum
it is even worse outside of Cisco, where companies like Amazon are just PIPing people now to get them out the door without any kind support
- "What are the differences between an ER and LR in terms of compensation and benefits?"
Took one of the original ERs. Can't remember exactly, but was like 15 months pay, all RSUs immediately invest, plus bonus, plus payout for leaving.
One other colleague from my team was eligible, he passed on it insanely. Good friend, he is still there.
I left and retired. Early 50s. Work on/off as part-time consultant indirectly. Indirect means my company does business with Cisco. I work much with Cisco still, but purposefully indirectly. Listen to many calls my colleagues have with their Cisco counterparts, and help work out process details with Cisco in the background.
At first, when I retired, I would work directly with Cisco contacts, on behalf of my contracting company. I have, regretfully, learned with time, to never directly attempt to verbally communicate with any Cisco "leader". Everything we do is through writing, and if process change, MSA is appended.
Some extremely, regretfully, narcissistic and somewhat unethical leaders we deal with. Things like taking on new departments during reorgs, then LR'ing many long term-employees, then having same process done externally via MSA. The process is then worked for years under the MSA. If you see a Cisco "leader" with literally hundred of red badges reporting to them; this is how that fake empire is built.
Truly sad and political. Wrecking hundreds of blue badge lives, as they get let go. The outsourced work is essentially more expensive to maintain for Cisco. It takes forever to automate, and very often the original Cisco "change agent" responsible for all the mess of recommending the changes, are they themselves asked to leave.
The LR mess has been great for my career long term, but was in a unique scenario. Could have all been avoided.
I am glad it all happened though, was so tired of internal politics. Just too many people allowed to be in control, when they should in no way be allowed to oversee the budget for internal Cisco departments.
your sources...are wrong.
With each LR, teams retreat even further into baseline survival, zero risk-taking, retreating from citing anything amiss or deficient in fear of being viewed as a liability...
I see this in my own org. Nice folks, really, but at this point they are so downtrodden that they can't even take basic action to improve anything. They might as well just be euthanized at this point.
Webex will be hit hard, I’ve heard 25-30%. Security IT and Networking will get 10-15% reduction. The fat must be trimmed.
@by wow you either don’t work at Cisco or a totally new.. either way P3 mf!
I’ve been hearing from several sources about potential significant layoffs
Name your sources.
What are the differences between an ER and LR in terms of compensation and benefits?
I haven’t heard any rumors of an ER, but I can always dream.
Spent how much for Splunk and show me anyone using it, no direction , no support, SPLUNK guys act worst than Meraki punks. Takes 9 months to configure a dashboard with no help or reference material, maybe the worst integration of product ever.
@bc I wish they would offer an ER (but it's not confirmed)!!
It depends on how many people take the ER first.
@af yeah that minimum severance pay ain't bad to be honest
10% LR Minimum
Splunk is a $28 billion sinkhole that keeps devouring resources. Splunk is still not integrated.
Webex has lost to MS (customers zoom or use teams, that's it)
Hypeshield is vaporware
AI Defence is a product without a problem to solve with so many limitations it can't be used by any customers.
AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI is devouring resources at an accelerating rate.
If you are c isco sales person ask yourself, has anyone bought an AI product from you or anyone you know?
How many more trends does the ELT have to miss before the board takes action? Would love to see some accountability.
GVS and Meraki will see big changes
Just count on it. Plan, save, network, and be ready. Because if it isn’t Aug, it will happen eventually. If you’ve been at Cisco shorter than 10 years, start looking now because if you get LRd you get the minimum severance pay. Nothing extra. It doesn’t pay to stay
No one knows with any certainty. The numbers at end of Q4, and analysis of market success/failure in various segments will determine what happens. With that said, from my discussions with colleagues in multiple countries the numbers are not looking good and the competitive pressures are huge and there is large attrition in the installed base. Cisco ELT, filled with hubris, been caught sleeping again when the market turned to AI - just like it did with cloud, SD-WAN, Security and others - and let a ton of others scoop up customers. No matter how much we say "AI" (AI mentioned 16 times on Cisco home page) customers don't buy into Cisco and AI now. Shameful failure of the ELT and CR snake oil machine. I foresee a large LR. Time will tell.
🤞