Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

I don't disagree that this is a valid point at a normal company. But in my opinion Nike culture is extremely good at devaluing work or contributions that at other companies are just typical to supporting a business. Somehow this seems to be exacerbated by the perverse overemphasis on stating and restating value of what is typically just normal sh-t required to operate a business. Layer on the bureaucratic absurdity of program and it's enough to create a machine of pure nonsense.

The advise to "Not speak up" could not be stressed enough.

The leadership and HR/ER are very organized against anyone who speaks up. There is no wait until RIF , they will let you go before you know.

The brazen, adverse actions against employees who speak up are horrible, and those left behind are more broken and afraid, emboldening the toxic leadership to thrive!

Breaking News! - Speakup Portal and remaining Anonymous is Myth!

The stock hit 52-week low today. While the overall market has grown 30%, Nke has lost 30% value.
Sure, we can blame HFunds for manipulating, but the toxic env stories flooding on this site and Oregonlive about bad leadership along with bad product are responsible.

Like they say - Happy employees = happy customers.
Employees are your best ambassadors and Nike has stopped valuing it's top talent!

The meaning of 'survival' is misunderstood at Nike by many. Not surprising as the massive turnover over the last 10-15 years (for many well know reasons) at Nike has changed the classical definition to being the 'most appropriate' for the Nike environment. Not 'best' or 'fittest' or 'most committed' or 'qualified' or 'skilled' or 'experienced' or 'proven' or 'trusted' and certainly not anybody willing to 'taking responsibility' or dare I say 'being help accountable'.

'Most appropriate' at Nike rewards a top down behavioral system focussed on 'looking good' rather than 'acting good'. Quick wins, promises, accountability avoidance and army's worth of consultants re-writing other peoples ideas, external hires based on paper (or worse) credentials to come in and create chaos while brining in even less qualified friends from their last gig before all leaving when its time to deliver. ,Internal promotions of people who were terrible candidates but even after being incompetent as interim-leader still getting the job as its the only way for the hiring manager to not look incompetent as well. Numerous external facing PR initiatives, billion dollar internal programs making only the tech and other vendors 'fitter' and other Bain (price-level) appearances to slice up the same Nike pie causing an avalanche of internal renaming, rebranding and other non-productive efforts only needing more explanation and more Bain work later with the next wave of leadership. None of this helps getting real things done. Not a better product/ Change for the sake of change.

Bringing EH is a good move. The task for him is to weed out the talkers and replace them by do-ers at every level. Till then huge parts of the organization Nike does need will remain occupied with figuring out how to survive while the talkers and pretenders will thrive.

It’s so incredibly sad that this is actually good advice now for surviving here at Nike. It just goes to show how diluted our people managers and leaders have become.

“The one thing that I would NOT do is speak up. It does no good at Nike and will put you on the sh*t list and you will be retaliated against (eg, cut off from important communications/meetings, bad assignments, no promotions, job eliminated during next RIF). Nike likes brown nosers who make their managers look good.

Do not rock the boat.”

Sounds like a few teams within IDSA.

I got whacked in Feb. my team has had 4 managers since then and no real work assigned to them. A peer didn’t get whacked and she has had 6 managers in that time and no real work.

My advice would be to stay as long as possible the job market it very rough now. Just go with the flow and if you can move teams that’s fine too.

The one thing that I would NOT do is speak up. It does no good at Nike and will put you on the sh*t list and you will be retaliated against (eg, cut off from important communications/meetings, bad assignments, no promotions, job eliminated during next RIF). Nike likes brown nosers who make their managers look good.

Do not rock the boat. Start looking for other jobs within the company (some teams are better than others) or outside the company.

Just move to a different team at Nike. There are better teams out there. GT is fine as it is. Don't listen to any of these people talking bad about GT.

The wasted money we spend on tech vp’s and sr directors is atrocious. Clueless leaders who continually need their worker bees to explain the basics of tech and what their own teams do to them.. CIO needs to cut them or move them out of tech and into marketing or sales. Nothing but road blocks.

Hateithere nailed it.

"Tech directors with 0 hands on experience" and no fugging clue about how technology is implemented or how code gets written is the norm at Nike.

A singular moment in my 30+ year tech-adjacent-ish career was explaining to a Nike engineering tech director what smoke testing was, and that there are different stages of testing, just as there are different environments that code gets pushed into. She, MW, literally thought devs pushed some button on their desktops that automagically pushed code live to prod, no other environments involved. She easily made triple what I did after being there for 10+ years. Note that I'm not a dev, nor an architect, nor a devops lead, I just know the bare minimum of how software gets made after being responsible for it for decades.

Nike is failing because everyone, especially leadership, attacks and undermines everyone else at Nike, rather than focusing that anger and aggression towards their competitors. Winning isn't for everyone if you don't know who to win against. It's a company that sees its own employees as the enemy. When Hoka and On kick Nike's a-s repeatedly on its own turf, Nike doesn't get mad at them, they get mad at their own employees and lay off thousands and still refuse to make products customers actually want to buy. It's the most incestuous, culty, insular, backward-a-s culture I've ever experienced.

Imagine what we could do if just once, leadership asked themselves and their teams, "How does this help our customers? How does any of this make a customer want to buy a Nike product?" Nike is the only place I've ever worked where decision-makers never once mentioned customers. They only care about what somebody else at Nike thinks. The results of that mentality speak for themselves.

You could be describing my life at Nike for the last 5 years in global tech. Mediocre performers who think they're awesome.. From first line developers to directors. Tech directors with 0 hands on experience are taking decisions with no clue about design and architecture, scalability, cost of maintenance etc.
Unfortunately it doesn't get better. It's just too toxic and the higher ups are d-mb as described above or just concerned with making shiny slide decks and managing up.
Only plus to the whole sh1t show is that i have plenty of time in my work day for family, exercise etc.
Depends on what you want. If you're looking to move, leave ASAP or it gets harder as your skills atrophy (speaking from my example).

Are you working in the same team as me? This sounds 200% the same as what’s happening in HR

@ds+1jh0wgsky New ERP system has issues ? What ? Isn't ACN doing a fab job..

This is IE in TO? Must be.

Nike is where careers die. Just when you find the area of interest to pursue, you’ll soon learn that any openings are already secretly spoken for by people doing stretches or are personally close to the hiring manager (not merit based hire). There really is no future and given the last two layoffs/reorga, nearly every department is a mess of veterans holding it together or newbies running down the clock. I wish it would be better, as the pay is competitive for the Portland area.
Lack of movement potential
2% pay increase August 2024, what will happen next year? Predicting 2,5%
People wasting time, while others struggle to grind out the work, while managers don’t properly delegate or know how to hire qualified candidates. Worse yet, they’re always gone.
Stock tanking and with upcoming USA tariffs, likely to fall to 50s
Consumer interest has moved away from Nike and sadly to anywhere else. Shein will massively impact global retail.
And of course, there are too many managers, and not enough hard working Individual contributors.
The new ERP solution continually crashes or lacking in performance to get anything done compared to our pre July systems.
I truly believe the entire company is in for a major wake up call over the next 2 years, even though EH is fantastic. I’m putting my head down and holding my tongue in the office. I have a family to support and can’t move anywhere anytime soon.

Sounds like my team.. only its the person who moved to my team is completely incompetent.

Leave?

Sounds like you work in GPS?? If so I understand exactly how you feel.

Same exact experience for me…agree with the advice on spending more time on sport or working out. DEFINITELY start a side hustle.

common nike experience

Sounds like you work in SRE….

It’s unfortunate for those who relocated to work here only to be let down by this situation. If you’re considering making a big sacrifice, like moving across the country for a role, my only advice is to thoroughly research and talk to as many people as possible before you make a decision. Especially members of the prospective team. Life is all about calculated risks after all.

Just as well, it could have been me writing this post. Sheer mediocrity here being touted as great work is exhausting. I love the advice of finding a hobby rooted in sports. If you don’t grow here professionally, at least you will grow physically.

Develop a hobby you can do at work. At Nike, the safest and most productive one would be to start working out/getting active. It’s going to help you look and feel better both internally and externally. A win x win at Nike that values people who are athletic or seen as athletic. You can also reduce working hours dramatically this way. Old coworkers used to arrive late to meetings or forget to deliver on mandates, but when you log onto Zoom wearing your Boston marathon medal no one says sh-t.

I went the route of starting a hobby that was also good for money making. I could easily spend hours researching and engaging with that community while doing Nike “make work” during my workday. Took 5+ years, but now that hobby has allowed me to quit Nike and still make money. Annualized it’s not quite as much as my last salary at Nike, but it’s still quite meaningful.

💤 sleeping at work!!!

Work is measured by value it adds to the customer. Customer being internal or external.
Just because you don’t see it as valuable work, doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Is it possible you don’t understand the customers of your new team?
Everyone plays an important role but not everyone understands how it all connects.
If you don’t value your everyday work or the people you work with, it’s time to move on.
For your sake, and theirs.