Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

You have to be aged 50 or older and have 5 yrs of service to be eligible for the Retiree Medical Access Plan, or RMAP.

I was LR'd at age 49 1/2 the week after I completed my 5th year of service.
Tell me that's not age discrimination disguised as cost. If they didn't put an age limit on the RMAP eligibility, then letting me go just before I hit the eligible age to save money wouldn't be age discrimination.

God I hate bean counters. All these tricks they use to sc--w over employees. I hope they get hit w/ the same axe we get hit with down the road.

If you are 50 you can keep the health insurance plan.

They call it RMAP, but I don't know what That acronym stands for.

Oh ya , probably Retired MedicAl Plan.

Or something like that.

Contractors are on their own, as they should be. If your contract firm doesn't take care of you financially then you should probably find another firm or quit contracting. One is exclusive of the other.

Not as they should be. I'm an employee of my contract firm, just like you're an employee of Cisco. The problem is that there are NO contract firms that take care of their employees like normal corporations do. I'd LOVE to quit contracting, but too many companies don't do a lot of direct hiring in favor of "try-before-they-hire" contracting. It's much easier to find a candidate via a contracting agency, keep them a year if they like them and then convert them or terminate them quickly and let the consulting agency replace them if they don't work out than it is to hire and then fire someone who doesn't work out.

I'm paid well, but my biggest problem is the lack of notice for termination. CA requires 30 days notice for large groups and then Cisco adds a severance package on top of that to prevent lawsuits, but contracting firms don't even give 30 days notice, much less severance. I'm fine w/o the severance package as long as I have the notice so I can start looking for the next gig.

The other problem is that corporations tend to deal with "preferred vendors", so you can't pick and choose which company you want to work with unless that vendor's clients all allow remote work. If not, you have to deal with the vendors who have "an in" with the clients that are local to you and they may not take as good of care of their employees as other vendors do.

Based on the way you seem to feel, I worry about you when Cisco LR's you and you have to look for your next paycheck in the real world.

Contractors are on their own, as they should be. If your contract firm doesn't take care of you financially then you should probably find another firm or quit contracting. One is exclusive of the other.

I think I got a free gift from the company store after 10 years.

As a managed service, I can get PTO, but it lowers the overall pay rate. They have 401(k), but no matching. Ditto for health benefits, they offer them but don't contribute to the cost so it's very expensive.

I'm managed by my company and I submit bi-weekly status reports on what I've done. The client, or end customer, manager is the one who assigns tasks and priorities.

Pay raises? Cisco doesn't provide pay raises to temps or managed services. I've been making the same money for almost 4 yrs now. If my vendor is fighting for additional dollars, they're not sharing it with me. In fact, my SOW says I'm supposed to work "onsite". While no one is enforcing that during the pandemic, I'm told that I'll return to the office once they reopen even though most Cisco employees will only go into the office to access labs or have face-to-face collaborative meetings on an occasional basis.

I wish my consulting agency was more proactive about finding us the next gig. They promised that they try to have Cisco provide them with advanced notice so they can find the next gig ASAP, but the reality is everyone on my original project is gone and most were told that morning that today would be their last day. Only 3 or 4 people were given two weeks notice before being terminated. And, our agency terminates our healthcare benefits at midnight of our last day, so we're not even covered until the end of the month.

Share your company name. Who knows, I might want to come to work for them.

The comments about managed service workers may be true for some firms, but it's 100% untrue for the firm I work with. We get PTO, 401(k), healthcare (a bit expensive), the firm manages the workers, not the end customer. They check in on us to see how we're doing, talk about pay increases that they fight for on our behalf, if our contract is ending they are proactive about finding the next one. They host tech seminars for consultants, with consultants as guest speakers. Generous referral program, sometimes $3-$5k. It's a great company.

I don't know what you call "close to retirement age". To me, that is about a 2-year haul. When I am in that situation, I learned from past survivors that everything is pretty much a double hand one finger salute to anything that comes down. You simply don't care. I had a co-worker that told our manager he would never work more than 35-hours a week any longer, don't expect any over-time, and don't expect any amount of work that would cause stress. He even went to his doctor to provide HR with stress reduction due to health as a concern. He told his manager to lay him off with the package every time one rolled around. Every time the manager didn't do it, he worked less. When he was finally given the layoff, he had only been working 15-20 hours per week leading up to retirement. This was after 3-years doing literally nothing. He got the 6-months and enjoyed life.

Never let a company put you in a F You position. You always want them in an F You position. Once you don't care about the company, life is so much better.

10 years at Cisco is a disadvantage in the labor market. A candidate with 10 years of Cisco experience is not viewed favorably by hiring managers.

Not necessarily. Maybe in the networking industry. Project managers, IT and data center workers, system/storage admins, and executive assistants or other roles that are common in any tech company are not having issues.

What were the qualifications for the last ER?

It had more qualifications & restrictions than the one in 2011.

Basically, you have to be over age 50, have 7 yrs of service, and the combination of age plus service had to equal or exceed 62.

This meant age 50 + 12 yrs of service or age 55 + 7 yrs of service, or something in-between.

Additionally, you could not have been hired in the past 12 months. With the 7 or more yrs of service, that was targeting previous Cisco employees who'd returned in the past year. There may have been some restrictions about a high individual performance factor (IPF) or being a fellow/professional engineer, but I don't recall the details.

10 years at Cisco is a disadvantage in the labor market. A candidate with 10 years of Cisco experience is not viewed favorably by hiring managers. Leave and get some real experience.

If you qualified for the ER from 2020 and didn’t take it, you are now more likely to get LR’d than anything. Those ER’s happen very rarely. Sorry to break the bad news to ya. Don’t get greedy with Cisco; know when to fold’em.

What were the qualifications for the last ER?

I just turned 50, I hope the package becomes available again.

I've got a feeling tech is focused on transitioning to temp/managed service employment. Companies no longer have to compete for talented employees.

The problem for "workers" rather than corporations that transition to temp/managed services is that employers who provide the temp labor or managed service to corporations do not treat their employees like employees.

These companies hire workers as hourly workers and give them no benefits: PTO, paid holidays, 401(k) matching, ESPP, etc. And these workers are constantly impacted by the client's work furloughs where they pause the work/service for a week or two to cut operational expenses in a bad quarter.

If large corporations are allowed to convert a significant portion of their work force to managed services, it's bad for us. I can see a point in time, where the workers of managed services will be able to sue a client company like the contractors of old sued Microsoft and win.

I used to be a Cisco employee. Now I'm back as a managed service, working on the same team, doing the same job, attending all the same meetings. The only difference is that I don't get the benefits, bonuses, PTO and I don't have to keep up with Teamspace goals.

short naswe : No

And the companies that provide the temp/managed services do not provide any benefits to their employees who perform those services. Hourly pay, no paid holidays, no PTO, subject to client furloughs, no notice for termination, no severance pay, no 401(k) matching and no ESPP. Health benefits are overpriced and minimal services.

I can foresee a point in time where managed service workers will win a lawsuit like the contractors at Microsoft did because they were treated like employees, did the work of employees, but got none of the benefits/profits of employees.

I was a Cisco employee for five years. Now I work as part of a managed service contract. The only difference is that I don't have any reviews, a.k.a. Teamspace. I work the same hours, do the same job, attend the same meetings, but I don't have any benefits, time off, or bonuses.

I've got a feeling tech is focused on transitioning to temp/managed service employment. Companies no longer have to compete for talented employees. Due to constant mergers & acquisitions, there are only a few major corporations that handle most of the hiring.

Not sure what RSU situation is currently.

It was worth staying as long as possible to those of us who started in 2000s.

Guessing Cisco not so generous with RSUs for the common folk nowadays.

Lucky to have hired early 2000s, several generous rounds of the older pre-RSU regular options were common. Then RSUs took over. Still ok but nothing like old RSUs.

After my ten years in, I had a pretty decent chunk of change between options, RSUs, and ESPP. That was just as G9.

Glad I stayed a good long term but not sure if I would have if it hadn't been for the stock benefits.

Not sure where tech in general going with stock options for the common workforce into 2020s.

No defined benefit plan (pension) so no boost there.

You pick up a couple of extra weeks of PTO...which still cap.

You qualify for a higher tier of anniversary rewards...wooohooo for that.

Cisco has done 2, count 'em 2, early retirement packages in 12 or so years so the next one would be (if Cisco survives that long) somewhere in the 2030s so the extra severance isn't really going to have an impact.

My advice? If you are unhappy, nervous about getting LR'd, start looking for a new gig with a fresh, new and vibrant organization, strike out on your own as an entrepreneur or change careers.

The advice I was given a long time ago: choose your path before one is forced upon you.

No. You get additional week of severance for every year served after 10 if laid off. It help with the math of making you eligible should another early retirement offer come along (very unlikely). You don't even get to choose a 10 year anniversary gift from the merchandise catalog any longer.

I suppose it could also help with the math if you wanted to sign up for the retirement health plan, but that is it.