Thread regarding Shell Oil layoffs

@OP+1jjw9hgc1 Are you still out there? Any other updates? I see "Do not get too attached to your first manager in March, they will probably change in April" has come true. What other secrets can you divulge?

To be honest, we've su-ked at performance management t. Too many people have been allowed to hide in the corners and get strong ratings. Instead of what's happening now, I would much rather the lowest ratings go out each year. As is, as a shareholder, iIm pi---d about how many high performers are on the way out, especially given some of those who remain.

@dx+1jjw9hgc1

You are missing the point. It’s not the change, it’s the lack of transparency and side sweeping. If you are making enormous change, as a leader you must inform people. This should have been implemented next year with plenty of time for people to prepare.

Instead leaders chose obscurity and then they wonder why leadership has such a terrible relationship with the workforce.

If you are relying on LMs at a lower level than you rather than higher management or EC to deliver these news then you are the problem and should not be a leader. Deflecting responsibility only makes it worse.

Also, I don’t know why leadership thinks they’re above the fray, today is the workforce that got the brunt of this but unless you’re Wael, no one is immune. And like this reorganization just taught us, everyone is replaceable at the company, the only thing that you have left after being let go is your integrity and how you treated people and defending this horrible lack of leadership shows how bad Shell is being run.

Leaders always have a choice to do the right thing.

@dx+1jjw9hgc1

i’m not sure i disagree with anything you’ve said regarding giving lower when it is deserved.

however, not that all people are being down leveled and so the high performers that you don’t want to be demoralized will also be down leveled and therefore demoralized.

if they only made lower actually get issued for the bottom 5% and no other changes, then im not sure we would have this much ruckus.

Long time listener, first time caller. I understand that a lot of you feel duped when it comes to ratings. The previous “1.03 average” rating system was extremely painful and time consuming but it forced the hard conversations between managers and their poor performing staff. In the current system, poor performers get a performance trophy and good performers are lumped in the same bucket. Demoralizing for good performers. Also, the 5% lower rating was a target that was never met. The result being lost opportunities address poor performances. Forcing the “lower” conversations is a good thing.

No manager should be surprised by the rating getting changed. Any changes made to ratings are visible to all managers throughout the process.

@ar+1jjw9hgc1

I agree, down leveling affects us all. And now it’s been confirmed on here whose employee was bumped down to “strong” instead of “higher”

So If you over performed and only got a “strong” you should also be questioning that because more than likely you were also duped

Lower rating is a career ki-ler in this new regime.

They are forcing people to leave. It is part of their plan to get the employee numbers down.

Look at what they do, not what they say

Wow this resonates! Applivable for the last years in this company.

I don't know about lower, but when I was in the ranking session I put in a higher rating for my best performing employee. All the other team leads and GM agreed. When the results came out in January the person had been bumped down to strong.

@ay+1jjw9hgc1

We are discussing IPFs instead because this radical change and forced quota happened in the dark. This wasn’t announced early 2024 this was them changing the rules of the game last minute. That means that all the work you did will not matter if you are the “chosen” one for a lower IPF. Now your BM will be lower, good performance was thrown out at their will depriving you of what you are owed for the work already done in 2024.

Now, you do the math, you say we have 80k employees, several with forced lower IPFs. Multiply several thousands of dollars per employee times however many got lower IPFs and you’ll probably get millions saved. I know it varies depending on JG but you get the idea.

Changes like these should be announced so the employee has a fair chance but instead you weren’t told until after it was done. Which is why someone mentioned on here it was wage theft.

I do agree the drastic downsizing of the workforce is a huge problem too.

@az+1jjw9hgc1 ...this was starting this new year per commenter below.

Thank you OP.

All the best to you.

I have 1 year left before I am done with this sh-t show.

If it’s a cost saving exercise why is the score card so high? Wouldn’t they just manipulate it down?

Why are people focused on lower IPFs being the target? The IPF system is rigged and always has been. People should be talking about the fact that we currently have over 80,000 employees, and if Shell's target is 60,000 employees maximum, there's a lot of people who are not "lower" who will be impacted!

@ap+1jjw9hgc1

let me ask you something

let’s assume we are all misunderstanding and that the truth is that this was always supposed to happen. that way more people are supposed to get lower ratings.

that outstanding should probably be “higher”, that “higher” should probably be “strong”. that the lower end of strong should have more “lower”s

why do you feel that is appropriate to order this down leveling now, in quiet, behind the scenes, at the last moment instead of having a transparent meeting with the company as a leader?

are you understanding that downlevelling doesn’t just mean more “lower”, and that it affects us all?

do you truly find nothing wrong with this approach?

It’s interesting that low performance rating quotas were implemented last minute at the time when end of the year was rolling out. After basically the year is over. And that you were kept in the dark until submissions were due. If this is not wage theft I don’t know what is. You worked the whole year and deserve to be paid your bonus as such

Just not true that large scale lowers have been used to reduce bonus bill, rather in prior years the spread that should have been used hasn’t. We are talking about 5% or less on lower

transparency exit stage right

Exxon has been doing this as well. Read the posts related to Exxon. So not only are we trying to target Exxon’s share price, we are also trying to target the same employee count and now their method for trimming employees. Easy to say your strategy is to copy others. I could have been CEO. This post just cancelled the excitement over the high BPF.

The same tactics are being used at BP. It’s very interesting that they are following the same playbook.

My LM told me they were forcing them to give low IPFs even if you performed well this year. I also confirmed this with another high-level manager from a completely different part of shell. This is actually happening.

saving money by announcing a cut to bonuses would be better in the long term and far more honest than pretending you aren’t cutting bonus and simply down leveling people behind the scenes

i think we are all aware that the company needs to make some buys or its in trouble

amazing lack of leadership and foresight and honesty if this is true. truly there is no reason to be so sneaky about it

This is another of Wael’s antics to steal from working people and stash shareholders with more dividends. Think about it this way lower IPFs means they don’t have to pay you the whole bonus. Which means it’s money they save and can use for more buybacks. If lower IPFs were a forced quota throughout the company how much money do you think they saved on top of record profits? You are no longer guaranteed even a strong score anymore even if you do everything by the book. This is one way to make sure there is no longer any incentive for you to perform. The process is blatantly obscure by design. Just like every other company it’s the executives that end up stealing the wages from individual contributors. No surprise there. For those of you left run while you still can.

Lower grades meaning lower IPFs?

Absolutely true that lower grades will be forced on employees starting this year. We were told this weeks ago.