Current 3M employee here. Not sure for how long with everything going on. In my group we have several people with same title, same job grade and same job duties. All 6 hired at the first of the month. (So no official employee review cycle yet..we didn't even do mid review). They let 2 of the 6 go. Why those 2?
What is criteria or process....why was I not let go when I do the same thing as the other two? Seems pretty messed up! I'm considering leaving, because that is total BS and not fair to the ones let go.
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In this round it was initially a grade target and also morphed in to “what don’t we want to continue to do work against?” cut those ROLES.
Later, legal said… no no no, You can’t layoff those (legal identifies people that cannot be laid off) PEOPLE (even though some had behavior and documented performance issues).
In early August the legal list came back and the direction was to find new PEOPLE to replace those that legal wanted removed from the action. Catch the mismatch?
There was a special training for those giving the layoff notices. Some of those individuals were later laid off themselves. There was an NDA for the project.
Part of the issue is that some managers had small teams across multiple areas so as a manager they chose the teams to remain that would keep themselves employed. Without oversight or direction, they were able to capitalize on the effort to benefit themselves. Failing leaders still got to pick off their teams instead of held accountable.
Due to NDA, project participants weren’t able to discuss their role elimination choices and many missed synergies among the groups. The aftermath is frustrating.
Several of the individuals laid off were top performers with exceeding marks in 50% or more of their last 5 years. I’m sure there were low performers too but not as many as previous rounds.
I noticed more than one manager who let go of only females despite having more males in their area or one that let go their only
entire teams of females. Possibly
coincidence but raised an eyebrow. Unsure if HR considers gender or diversity factors. Given many areas are male dominant, males should be more than half of layoffs and not just less. They also calculate average age to try to keep out of discrimination issues. They may request to replace roles on lists with new people that will even out the tally. When a company wants to become more diverse, decisions should include that desire.
Agile and big room planning appear to have been targeted as cuts or “Stop activity”. Product Managers, RTE’s, big room organizers and process owners were among the cuts. The SVP who spun up the big room planning and caused excessive spending for the process remains in place along with the current leader of the process.
I was given the number of people and asked to identify them. No guidance given and all verbal. In my case I selected the people who were adding least value whether through performance or fit or just job spec vs demand. HR then verbally reviewed the list and the logic behind the choices, and I believe there is also then a legal review. Very difficult as a manager to have to make those life-impacting decisions for your team, but it’s clear that the number is the number given “what the company can afford”.
For the managers that were told who to eliminate, were you able to reveal to your employees it wasn't your decision or were you under a gag rule?
Went through that as a leader at 3M some years ago. They just asked me for names, oftentimes lowest performer or the person adding the lowest value was chosen eventually. It’s not really fair when you have a team of 5 or so good performers, but there is a decision to make at the end.
Retired leader here. The process is sometimes simple, for example, if you have 6 employees and 1 is clearly performing at a level below the others.
At other times, especially lately, as a leader you are just told to ante up a person or two m if you don't choose, they will for you. I suspect in your case either your leader or his/her boss told the leader give me two names. They probably chose the newbies because they were contributing less since they were just getting on board. This isn't always about cutting the highest paid person. Sometimes, which I think is the case under roman these past few years, leaders are burned out having to fire people every 6 months so they just roll over and use a random number generator to pick the fired.
Hang on for the severance. 6 months pay isn't a bad way to go. Get you resume out there just in case. But don't go without making them pay you off. You deserve something.