Anyone who thinks 9 years of DEI quotas, aggressively pushed down from above, hasn’t contributed mightily to Medtronic’s downfall is either a beneficiary of said practice or isn’t being honest. You can’t push thousands of folks with decades of industry experience, know-how, and relationships out the door in favor of unproven quota hires and not pay a heavy price down the road. MDT is now down the road.
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My organization no longer has any people of color. They were all let go and they were super talented. More talented then folks that remain. So stop with the “special treatment” during layoffs nonsense.
If you worked at even a couple corporations you would know DEI is a focus for all of them. I’ve worked at five Fortune 500 companies and they all have this initiative. They also all had their ups and downs financially.
I can guarantee you that any of the best performing major competitors to MDT have a DEI program. DEI is not the root cause for Medtronic’s current problems.
I’m also going tired of people dragging this issue out again and again as being THE problem. It just shows how ignorant some of these people really are about what is standard across the board these days. The sad part about it is that it distracts from real dialogue about the real root causes.
@jfj+1meZQYcy: let me guess, the "highly accomplished and high performing female" you had to lay off was NOT diverse, true or false?
It’s time for you to just retire.
These complaints about DEI are d-mb as he-l. The company is hiring qualified applicants either way, so why does it matter to you what their race, gender, or s-xuality is? You anti-DEI dorks are really telling on yourselves every day.
For reference, I’m a straight white male who got two different engineering jobs without having to go through any technical interviews.
@jke+1meZQYcy? No idea what you are talking about? I was a Director in Sales with an Engineering background when I started my career. I was there 8 months before the old SI crew/Bob/GM ki-led my business. It was my opinion I expressed that when you tell someone to "f themselves" that maybe your attitude is your issue.
Post ID: @lmb+1meZQYcy - how many business units have you ki-led (4 that I recollect) resulting in loss of thousands of job because of your failures?
Hey Mr. Executive confronted with firing a highly performing employee...
Do they not give two sh--s about what you think? Does Geoff just call you up one day and randomly pick a name out of a hat? Is there ANY fu----g rhyme or reason to this process?
And if there isn't, how can you still want to work for this sh-t management team, especially at the exec level? How much longer till good ol Geoff picks your name out of the hat?
DEI was pushed hard and I've seen it get out of line first hand in hiring conversations but those initiatives are nowhere near the top of the list of problems which lead to where we are now. The entire structure has failed for several reasons but mostly comes down to every org for themselves mentality the whole architecture encouraged. We have all the various organizations setting up processes to minimize their own workload and nobody pushing back high enough up to say what doesn't make sense for the company overall. There is nobody accountable to make sure b the saved costs in one group don't end up costing more from another group. For example, in Mounds View, we had the shipping/receiving docs basically stripped so they were no longer making deliveries, probably saved them tens of thousands a year from facilities or whatever group pays for those services. However, engineers end up spending their time retrieving the packages or looking for lost packages and nobody is tracking those costs. It's just buried in engineering labor which is probably substantially more expensive to the company. Another example, look at the finance group, they set up process so that they don't need to update invoices so now instead of them making the invoices for received goods match the PO, they bounce it back to engineers to revise the PO to match the invoice for overages of 5-10% which is in the policy to accept so our vendors consistently send 10% overage and we have to go into the system to make the PO match the invoice and then track the invoice once the PO is approved. I don't know who's time is more expensive but that work is shifted away from finance to engineering so now engineers are able to as much of what we're paid to do because finance saved some money out of their group. I can't imagine I happen to be unlucky enough to be the only person or role affected by deficiencies like this. I am sure it happens everywhere and that's a huge part of why we have this mess. If you can show where DEI has had a real significant costs, than show that but else your just speculating a bunch of BS. I am sure there is some cost but the "diversity hires" I have known have been stellar performers for the most part. At least on par for any other demographics.
Lower the bar to fill quotas leads to lower quality.
Been that way forever.
Applies to anything whether you build products, write books, hire/promote people or anything else.
This quota garbage has been around for decades it is just more prevalent in this day and age.
I don't agree with it but I do take advantage of it.
When did I say I was high up the totem pole? I didnt and I am not.
My layoff came as a direct result of the Snr Director having a guiness with GM in Ireland and being best mates with Bob White from SI days. He then became the Snr Director while the existing Snr Director and all of those beneath were laid off. He told me this all in real time. If I was part of the old white dudes drinking in a pub in Ireland I would have saved my job. There's the diversity initiative I should have pushed for.
The woman commenting about engineering...lol. Women are on the totem pole of diversity, but nowhere near the highest. First and foremost racially diverse people are given extra special consideration during hiring and reorgs. Even racially and s3xuality diverse men are higher up on the totem pole than women in general. White men are not even looked at, just ignored. When you are a leader at Medtronic you see diversity chosen over ability, merit, and talent every single day. If you don't realize this, then you are just being disingenuous on purpose.
MDT looks like are run by bunch of White Pinko commies & their DEI bi--hes…
All DEI, here is free tutorials, go learn some ECG shiiit:
https://geekymedics.com/understanding-an-ecg/
I am Executive Level and have always been encouraged to hire the most qualified candidates, while ensuring the candidate pool is diverse. I am very proud of our diverse talent, amazing accomplished humans contributing mightily to our Mission (at least in my circle). I was confronted with having to layoff a highly accomplished and high performing female this time.
Yeah, not buying DEI as the issue here. Medtronic has plenty of problems to work through, and makes plenty of mistakes, but that's not the issue. Let's not blame everything on the "culture wars."
This is utter garbage. I am a female Engineer with a PhD in Eng and was laid off at the 8 month mark. This is entirely due to failed strategy: overreliance on M&A, lack of stromg portfolio strategy and focus taken off quality and innovation.