And why? Layoffs happening this often shouldn’t feel so acceptable. We hear about them, stress through them, move on for a month (or two if we’re lucky), and then rinse and repeat. How did we let things get so very, very wrong?
9 replies (most recent on top)
@ac+1k
That’s not true, in my experience.
I’ve worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies, older and larger than Nike. While small cuts and individual team re-orgs are normal, constant company-wide or division-wide re-orgs were not. They were typically reserved for severe downturns in the business.
Stanford GSB wrote an article that re-orgs are an admission by senior leadership of their failures and may do more harm than good for the company.
Nike is slowly turning this ship around!! These layoffs are necessary considering how bloated this company is!!! Mark my words, Nike will become #1 again in sports!!
FTE just means ETW with better bennies
Let go of the illusion of permanence at this or any job
Long as we keep listening to id--ts from Bain and PWC it will keep happening.
And yep @b7 those empire builders creating team bloat are to blame also.
Looking at you LP.
If middle management and certain VP's didn't go on a free for all and try and build empires we might not need layoffs. Best to just do your best to either keep at a salary and level that you can justify to the company, or go all in and ride the wave, knowing you it will break before too long.
It starts with the status and power that headcount gives you. So when things look good you bloat your team and inflate the role Titles. Then come consequences, you had way more people you needed and too many people more senior than needed. Repite the cycle and you have layoffs every few quarters.
Executive leaders don't operate in a bubble, they follow the herd mentality and if you pay any attention to macroeconomics and human capital management philosophy there's been a shift over the last decade (particularly the last 5 years) that employees are now viewed as the problem and not the solution to maximizing profits. So it is now a badge of honor and an accelerant to getting the stock price to bump up a few points to announce layoffs on a regular basis. If it feels like layoffs used to be on a much longer time cycle you'd be correct. Historically it was a roughly 8 year business cycle. That's been shortened dramatically and now we're down to annual if not quarterly layoffs. This is not a Nike thing...this is a capitalism in America thing. Can't fight it, just have to hope you can survive it.
Um, if you work at a Fortune 500 company you should expect this every year. We are just soft and crunchy up here. Expect a re-org every year or 18 months as business climates change.
Welcome to late stage capitalism