Can anyone speak of to even one personal story of anyone in management trying to boost moral or stem attrition?
Answering Employee Forum questions doesn’t count.
For anonymity, we don’t even need details. Just confirmation that a manager has spoke to you or your group about 1) how things will get better and/or 2) a reason to stay.
Remember remember when D.W. talked about a bottom - up approach for the study. Either it was actually top -down messaging or many business lines gave bad input..
Toxic leaders removed... wow, so will they start with DW and TG? It all starts from the top and filters down
Not me directly, but my network within US sites indicates couple of change teams being created for identifying toxic leaders, etc. BTL, OPS Manager are fair game
Toxic leaders are called managers. Leader’s lead. Managers cause churn, create road blocks and take credit for your work
No. My Supervisor wants to leave too, and has all the same criticisms and concerns as the rest of us. Everyone above him only gives smiles in the hallway….no words.
I get straightforward genuine talk from my FLS. He carefully gets a sympathetic point of view across. SLS is robot Company man and a master at spinning the decisions from on high. Always useless. The higher levels are decent people and therefore don't say much and adopt a posture of trying to get through it. However, the tide is turning fast in our realm. We are so shorthanded with the best people leaving we are basically in work planning damage control mode.
It was brought up at a site leadership meeting in the Q&A portion. Two questions directed at it and the managers danced around it. Regarding attrition - the only two reasons people are leaving is because they want to make a move and don’t feel good about the companies long-term vision; or because when the pips and layoffs happened they started applying for jobs and getting their resume up to date.
I get that a site manager would think it’s all out of their control, but at some point you have to have the courage to stand up to corporate and make the work situation better for employees.
Like - “ok Dallas you want us to cut 10 engineers, fine. We’re not doing stewardship, lps, ocvm, etc unless it helps our site’s bottom line. We’ll do work we need to do since you’re going to arbitrarily cut staffing with no knowledge of how the work gets done here”.
Or blow the whole thing to smithereens and put only NREs and REs in NSI and PIP. Make them guaranteed to get a corporate lawsuit. Fight fire with fire.
Crickets where I am.
I did ask a Division Manager something along these lines and he said,
'The hangman also wears a hood, y'know.'
Well they can begin in the gulf south. Should be able to cull plenty toxic managers and department heads. They shouldn’t be difficult to find either. Start with engineering and then migrate to the ops sls. Not all are bad but the ones that are are brutal.
They are worried about their own hides. Got no time to worry about the worms under them.
XTO controllers got to wear jeans for 2-3 years when the rest of XTO (landmen, engineers, traders, etc) moved to Houston. Does that count?
I expressed my concerns to my manager. The manager understands we are all in a bad situation. He reassured me that most likely I wouldn’t be PIP’ed but whoever was they would fight to make sure the PIP’ed people passed because they can’t afford to lose anyone else. They have lost too many already and are having trouble meeting external requirements. They also know anyone eliminated won’t be replaced.
About the nicest empathetic message I have heard since the pandemic started.
Here’s my own little positive: We live in a world where the employees are at least 6 mo disconnected from management-realization. It’s made me start to think of myself as an Oracle. I say “I see attrition is a problem “…..6-months later, the company is like “Wow, attrition is a BIG problem.”
I’m almost ready to go fat-Buddha and start wearing a robe to work.
Nope. My manager understood that our profession was treated wrongly by Exxon higher ups. He and my previous manager couldn't do anything to help, even though they wanted to. Section head, group head, etc shot down any progress. He was sad that most of us left the company, but was supportive on us taking an opportunity from another company. Because they will treat us better than what Exxon will ever provide
No. Though I think the lack of engagement is a form of my manager’s self-conviction/ethics. They have been told nothing, so cannot make any promises to their employees. Their disinterest in communicating any positive sentiment also speaks for itself. Kind of like if I were asked to do campus recruiting right now. …I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
No. However, I do have multiple stories about interactions I’ve had with managers who are open and honest about the whole situation and how to make the best of things, which may even include leaving the company. Coincidentally, those are also the managers I’d be happy to stay and work for. Again, “focus on what you can control”. Your immediate manager is a far bigger factor in your daily happiness than anything that happens at the macro level.
Not me directly, but my network within US sites indicates couple of change teams being created for identifying toxic leaders, etc. BTL, OPS Manager are fair game