Well, fellow employees, This was a fun week. Quite a few great employees with a fantastic knowledge base of our processes and procedures were let go. Of course, those who were promoted via Murphy's law still are here. So the question I pose is this: are staff being chosen for layoffs because higher-ups are scared of their knowledgebase and wish to be the only employees available to' incorrectly' answer questions ?
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I like the "clown car" description; although it is more like a clown cruise. Some of the fat has been cut. I give the Prez credit for ending the cruise for some of the clowns who are major culprits in "our" demise. There will be much more to come. There has to be if the Prez is preparing "us" for a sale; hopefully not a fire sale. The cuts are much more targeted and less conspicuous so "we" stay under the radar. Combining IT and SOB is clearly a clarion call for surgery and frankly an admission the patient is Stage 3. Not dead yet but unlikely to recover. There is no miracle, experimental drug. Service levels now are atrocious. Students can't contact advisers because many have been cut and student loads have been reassigned and increased so much that they are unserviceable. This is not a formula for success or sustainability; it is merely sticking a finger in the dike; but that dike will not hold back the failure for very long. I predict three to five years at the current pace. More than likely there will be more consolidations and a sale. How can anyone be productive in this environment? Why would anyone marketable continue to serve this titanic of a university. Staff are being chosen for layoffs based on numbers, not fear of their knowledge by higher-ups. Whatever cuts required to make UOP profitable from one quarter to the next will occur. The for-profit education experiment has reached its zenith and is now fading fast. It isn't just UOP that will fail, it is the entire industry. Education, and for that matter any crucial function or entity vital for maintaining the social order or the commons like police, fire, corrections, and military should be non-profit. Education should never have been put in the hands of Wall Street or the vagaries of a for-profit entity. When push comes to shove, profit is the winner, and in a for-profit organization it should be. Yes, the market does regulate itself; however there are too many countervailing forces for the market to contend with such as fraud, greed, corruption, avarice, and collusion. These forces ultimately overwhelm the market and make it much more difficult to self-regulate. If I was advising the remaining for-profit's, I would recommend privatization like UOP and if possible transform into a non-profit entity.
Who, Elena Mastors?
Broad cutting personal is not the way to save money. Losing talent and knowledge will only make the ship sink faster. Use the employees you have more effectively- cut from the top.
The way to save money is to strategize and implement processes that will keep students engaged and in attendance. Attended meeting this week and enrollment in two psych programs is being put off- to determine pricing structure (per PC). Sure, by the time January rolls around, we will have more expensive programs and less staff to help increase student retention.
What a sh-- show
Correct. My direct boss is heinous. At times, we wonder if her medication altered her thoughts. Extremely bipolar, vindictive, and passive aggressive. We are all ignorant, yet she is brilliant.
It is a clown car leaving the knowledgeable ones at the station. I wonder if the ones that were let go have experience at Uop which means they were paid more. This is my third corporate buyout and the two that cut experienced personnel to save money ended up going out of business. Good luck to all.