Worry more about attrition. With as many people leaving as they are, work for those of us who stay will be he-l if they don't backfill those positions. And I haven't seen any new employees in my department for more than six months, which means they're in no rush to bring in new people. Being expected to do much more than we physically can is a much bigger threat to us right now than layoffs.
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Less work per meat-machine? That means less profit. I doubt that will be a concession any GM leader makes willingly.
I've seen people laid off purely because of politics and bullying.
I'm not worried about getting let go from GM. I'm worried about being underpaid for the rest of my life.
It's an IT employees' market and if you're willing to go through the process of application and interviews, you should be able to move your career forward outside of GM.
It's no secret that the company is not able to attract talent at all, at least in IT due to low pay. This, coupled with the fact that most of those who left the company were the most competent means that there is more work left to current employees, and the current employees aren't very competent on the whole.
Those who were smart enough to see this have taken offers for $200k+ at other companies and moved on. Those who are good at their job but don't know their worth will continue to do the work of two other people since the other two sit around and pretend to work all day.
You would also think that GM would reward those that contribute the most, but it is not the case. The company gives you a slightly higher raise, a slightly higher bonus and even a quicker promotion, but none of that matters.
Take the recent "salary adjustment" as an example:
In an effort to reduce attrition, they bumped up the base salary to new hires by about $20k. Now, they also went in and adjusted the salaries of L5/L6s who were "below the midpoint", which means that many received a 8-25% pay boost. Aside from a few recent hires, those who received it were generally the underperformers and those who pretended to work, with the end result being that this group is making 90% of what the competent employees are making while putting in 10-20% of the work at best. Add to it that a lot of promotions are based in part on nepotism, and you get the picture.
So, to wrap up, if you're in the minority of employees who actually work, you have nothing to fear about having more work, or layoffs:
- If you're given more work than you can carry and your compensation is not reflecting this, you need to see the writing on the wall and move on to better things.
- You generally don't need to fear layoffs unless you're over the age of 50. The ones most afraid of layoffs are those who are afraid that the gravy train of sitting around and pretending to work might finally come to an end.