It seems like there are senior leaders that peruse this site. If they were to ask your feedback about the upcoming org changes and layoffs what would be your recommendations?
18 replies (most recent on top)
If massive layoffs are coming, I would have expected broader cost cutting measures first. But I’m seeing a lot of travel and lavish catered meals. How does that add up? We see this spending and it makes the message about financial discipline harder to take seriously.
@dy If this company wants to be a tech company it needs to hire within house and in the US. It needs to go back to basics where it worries more about quality, efficiency, trust and customer satisfaction…that starts from within and with people who are right here to do it. The focus on trying to make a quick buck has strained this company.
@ed we are ceasing to be a tech company with this new breakup. Network expansions on hold, decision recently to outsource tech that we were doing in-house. Back office systems planned to be scrapped in favor of the "NewCo" 3rd party groupings of systems. Innovation is gone. We failed. The company is now going to switch to more of a COTS implementation.
@dy what does a “tech company” even mean nowadays?
If this company wants to be a tech company it needs to fire a whole lot of executives who aren't capable of running one.
I second “Listen to feedback from the frontline employees and cut unnecessary VP bloat and eliminate redundant teams before cutting essential employees. Prioritize retention and sustainable growth over rigid office attendance metrics.”
There are SO MANY teams driving strategy who have never ever experienced frontline. So many bad ideas that are impossible to execute because they don’t know what the frontline actually deals with. So many teams leading those who they don’t know anything about their day to day struggles. And they don’t take feedback. There is no real feedback loop.
Instead of forcing a 4 day in office rule, why don’t you force a 1 day every week working directly next to teams you lead/set strategy for, in person.
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Value the people actually doing their jobs, those doing the right thing, and those who have given a lot of time and grit to the business. They should not be expendable every time Oct rolls around. Chaos from the last restructuring has left a bloated VP + level and teams have lost valuable positions/people and are having to do the work of what used to be MANY more employees. There is extensive turnover. Training for new hires is not sufficient because of all this. The system has slowed way down with many jobs going overseas - efficiency is not the same. In my opinion, building back trust between the company, its leaders and employees would make a significant difference. But It starts from the top and valuing those who make Comcast what it is.
@OP I recommend - either no more layoffs orrr lay all of us off
@ae the reason they are threatened by you is BECAUSE you do good work and be-doverbackwards. This is the Comcast culture playbook - cronies get hired, but they’re incompetent cronies, they bully and kick out the competent because that person makes them look bad. Comcast can put their online trackers on all they want, continue to read, and not change. It is common for a company whether through their legal or marketing or PR depts to do daily tracking of sites that might mention their name. This isn’t new. Trust it’s done across social sites too. Anything we raise now isn’t new and they’ve heard for years whether internally or sites like this. The culture will stay, the bad leaders will stay, the cronies will stay, the toxicity will stay, but the company will not. You can save billions but if you keep putting it in the hands of dishonest and incompetent cronies, it will happen again until nothing’s left.
Brian.. is that you?
Place transformed into Thanos with a bunch of Elizabeth Holmes. Gives you the look! iykyk. I have way too much common sense to be fooled.
I'm not sure how many more times this can be said, because it's been said all over this board. But here it is on repeat.
If senior leadership has to come to this site to figure out what's wrong with the company, that says everything. The data already exists. Pull the HR files and exit interviews. Look at the eNPS scores. Read the Your Voice surveys. People have spoken up in every one of those places, over and over, for years. If leadership still needs an anonymous board to find out what's going on, then either nobody looked or nobody cared. Either way that's a shame.
Someone on here called this place a company full of manipulators and people with no conscience, hired by more of the same. I hate to say it but I think that's dead on. They hire each other, protect each other, and everyone below them has figured it out.
Honestly I don't think they care. They're going to make the cuts they're going to make and nothing on this board will change that. But since the question was asked, here's what I'd change.
Cut the VP layer first. VPs reporting to VPs, collecting a check, adding nothing. Then the SVPs who built this mess.
Stop hiring and promoting friends. The same people get recycled into new titles every reorg and it gets called progress.
Look at the leaders, not just spans and layers. Have they grown at all in the last 5 or 10 years? How did they get the role? What do their eNPS, attrition and HR records say? It's all sitting there.
Protect the leaders who actually develop themselves and their people. They're usually the ones whose teams get cut so the toxic ones stay safe.
Most of us have stopped expecting anything to change. Every fall it's another reorg with the same faces, and even Angelakis is part of the same circle coming back around. This company can't change because the people who would have to change it are the problem.
That's how we got here.
Give respect to the people who have BEEN THROUGH IT. I have been here less than a year and my leader, left, and my job has changed multiple times and I am not under a leadership that talks negatively about me (I overheard and people have told me), (threatened by me-idk why I have bent over backwards to help every day, and has no interest in supporting me in doing what I am passionate about in my field in this role). It's not only insulting to one's intelligence, but I have been in my industry for 10+ years. I know what an insecure manager who does not have leadership skills looks like; I know that a departing very senior leader (who told me privately to GTFO) as soon as you can. It's a mess, and to think I could be laid off at the end of the year would be icing on the sugar-free, dry-a-s cake.
lol those higher ups do not give an EFF what is said here… and why would they? They get millions of dollars in compensation to run this place straight into the ground
As an employee, I have completely lost interest in our company, the work we do, and the future of this place. Actively looking for my exit as nothing good ever happens here.
Communicate internally first, not to investor conferences. Say something, anything, that outlines the purpose and objectives of the reorgs we’re undertaking, however high-level it has to be. It doesn’t matter if every detail isn’t finalized. Say what you don’t know, be honest about the uncertainty and anxiety this creates, and offer a timeline. Every day that goes by is a lost opportunity to build trust.
Similarly, articulate a vision of the future for the company. Tell us what to prioritize and start building momentum. What does a “technology” company even mean in this day and age? What are we trying to be? Speak honestly. Record a video or host a town hall to do this instead of sending a stale ghost-written email. Build connections and visibility with the employee base and make yourself seem attuned to their concerns.
Be bold. Don’t assume that tenure indicates value (especially at higher levels). Understand there are entrenched systems, processes, and ways of working that people want to protect. Question fundamental assumptions about the business and product(s), and consider if it’s worth continuing certain work. Ask the people closest to the execution of existing work (or at least closer than floors 52/53 and McKinsey’s offices) what obstacles exist to getting things done, and be willing to listen without judgment.
Get. rid. of. the. cronies. People are hired and kept simply because they’re friends with the right people while being completely incompetent to the role. Those same people are toxic to actual talent fearing that keeping talented ones around will expose their own incompetence. You have people in external facing roles who the public absolutely hates and finds rude. But your people are in fact rude because they are friends with the right people internally and know they can deliver a narrative that their boss friend won’t check behind because they’ve manipulated that boss to “trust” them. Comcast has lost a lot of large government and public-facing deals because of this but were probably told by their subordinate “friend” it was just a deal being proposed to difficult people. The real is that their subordinate “friend” sabotaged the deal by being rude or non-responsive because a successful deal would have caused that friend more work where they’d rather sleep, yoga, or golf. I’ve witnessed power players state not to bring Comcast to the table because of the rudeness and trouble they constantly face from them. And the cronyism needs to happen from executives on down. It is a deeply penetrated culture of cronyism that has led to incompetence or laziness across all departments and severe toxicity.
Listen to feedback from the frontline employees. Cut unnecessary VP bloat and eliminate redundant teams before cutting essential employees. Prioritize retention and sustainable growth over rigid office attendance metrics; recognizing there are time-zone differences amongst team, commuting demands, and flexibility needs to enable employees to deliver results. Hold leadership accountable for meaningful business outcomes.