Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@2kli+1mJK6ss6 you mean to tell me that management said one thing and are doing another!?? I for one am shocked. Shocked I tell you!

Yeah not really. Not even a little bit.....

The funny thing about RTO was back in 2020CY from Hackett / Farley / Kumar / Phillipe they were all quoted as saying that we would never return to the office. Now case and point when there were builds or signoff you then go in. I had no issue with that.
So what will change when people show up? WEB X will still be in use and you will see many people sitting at their desk calling into the same meeting using that same WEB X including management. SO WHY?
85% of the problems are management driven -Deming (smart guy). Nothing will change because the culture that was there when I hired in is gone. We no longer play to win but to go with the flow. Just look at the LIONs the last 50 years.
Jim Farley & Bill Ford sorry to say it will not save the company. Their vision and Plan are a pipe dream from Star Trek. Jim Farley you can not trust. He says one thing to the press and the employees get a different version.
He quick to point out the problems when all he really need to do is look in the mirrior.
So called car car (his own words) so since he hired in this so called marketing genius has lost market share and our products quality is in the toilet. Then he has the gull to bring up complexity and buildable combinations... Who drives that? Not the engineers Oh no .. We are told what to do..
Well I am glad I left in 2021. I had a few years left but I lost confidence in Bill Ford and his selection of a senior management team. They remind me of the 07 Lions.. 0-16...So with that I hope those close to a milestone like 55 or 30yrs in the company make it.
But with the current people at the top I am sorry to say just don't get it.

I think a great RTO strategy is to just do what a friends and family slacker did in my department.....just sign out a company m-plate test vehicle and mysteriously leave the office and conduct your personal business while telling everyone you are 'visiting a supplier'. Plus you can keep the vehicle overnights and get free gas+insurance+plate fees. Heck, you don't even need a personal vehicle any longer if you are slippery enough.

It worked for that do nothing bull cr-pola salesman slacker at least 15 years by my count.

@1ikc - I'm also a GenX and WFH definitely shouldn't mean being unaccountable. Nor does being in the office suddenly create accountability if you're management was slacking and not holding people accountable before.

Ultimately working in the office, at home, or in a plant is just a location and may be necessary due to the work performed. Or not necessary and end up being more of an impediment to productivity than expected boost. As had been said before, one size doesn't fit all and painting all of the workforce with the same brush isn't a good idea.

Some of us were hired remote and living elsewhere. We never had opportunities to work for companies like Ford before unless living in Michigan. It’s sad to think people think we are slackers when I’m working my bu-t off from home and so excited to be able to get the chance to work for the company, despite its issues right now.

1wvq+1mJK6ss6

Some of you office whiners need to come work in a plant for a while! You could learn something about manufacturing and might also learn to appreciate your cushy jobs!

RTO oh how I love thee.
6:30-7:00 pre-work meeting hosted by the ringleader and her gang where they select people to humiliate and blame for issues. They plot and coordinate stories to steal credit.
7:00-8:00 department meeting where they implement their plan.
8:00-10:00 coffee and walking club hosted by the ringleader where they crow about who they framed, blamed and shamed in the department meeting and make their plans for the 10:00 team meeting.
10:00-11:00 team meeting—repeat of department meeting.
11:00-13:00 Drinks and Eats.
13:00-14:00 nap
14:00 quitting time

Ah yes we eat the young, new hires and the highly skilled. Yum Yum.

Yes there is a strategy to get the non-believers to leave on their own without needing to fund severance.
Being in the office is a waste for me and current team situation. There is not a one-size fits all. Not to mention the state of the facilities is deplorable so really not a nice place to be.

Where is the whining from home post? Too many snow flakes, I guess...

RTO comes down to poor leadership.

What does it matter where you are as long as the cascaded objectives are met? Too many old school types that think leadership is walking around and seeing butts in chairs. How'd that work out for us for all those years? After all, there should have been no dead weight if 100% of the teams were in the office prior to Covid, right? Right?

If I have a deliverable that requires being on site, then I will be on site. If my deliverable is something that can be completed remote or is working with teams in another geographic location, then I am going to do that from home. What the real issue is, I do not see clear deliverables and objectives. This miscommunication is top down.

Why NOT RTO? We did it for many decades. We made arrangements and paid for child care, family care, pet care…. We paid for gas and packed (or paid for) lunches. We drove in when there was snow. We had family and nice neighbors who would let service workers in to do home repairs or deliver furniture/appliances. We scheduled dr. appointments, hair appointments… around work schedules. We took vacation days for kids events. We made work a priority and figured it all out. It’s not always easy, but all manageable. Sure, I would MUCH rather WFH and be able to control my time exactly how I would like, but I also understand a company that is paying you to work should have the authority to define when and where this work takes place. LOL - here come all the down votes!

If other companies keep going with WFH the ones that force office work are going to lose workers to the competition that all wfh. Then there is other costs like office space cost, property taxes etc. maybe bill ford is making this happen because he bought that train station in Detroit. That also have a income tax if you work there. Then there is the old mentality because we have alot of 50+ year olds in this company that don't like change so there is that.

I honestly don't care if we wfh i would probably care more if the work was in a high cost of living area or if I hated SE Michigan or wherever the plant I work at is located.

@1aio I know the back story on one of those plant shutdowns due to software changes.
It has nothing to do with WFH.
There is a software maintenance roll-out process that was coded and maintained by a tech-spec who was SIRP in 2019. That process worked flawlessly for 15 years.
After 2019 a GSR8 claimed he was “fixing” the process. The GSR8 who is a self-proclaimed genius was making a hash of things, nothing worked after he touched things.
For two years a senior GSR behind the scenes was undoing every the self-proclaimed genius did and rerunning the original process late Friday night without telling the genius (so all was well on weekend rollout).
Then one day the self-proclaimed genius realized what was going on and complained to the LL6 and LL5. The senior GSR and the rest of the team was not listened to. The senior GSR was disciplined and retired.
Self-proclaimed genius has been causing outages and/or plant shutdowns every time he rolls out changes. He and the incompetent LL6 and LL5 are blaming others right and left. Currently they are blaming software/hardware vendors (super fun listening to those meetings - NOT). It is all a load of horse s—t. The guy is flat out incompetent. Very sneaky though; he deletes all his outputs after he does work thinking he is covering his tracks. He is too incompetent not to realize his teammates see what he is doing in the system logs. Everyone is lying low keeping out of the crosshairs, all the while knowing the incompetents will somehow get a promotion out of this mess.
And there you have the rest of the story
Oh and on our one day a week we are required to be in the office. Boy genius is in his seat for three hours. Rolls in at 9, lunch at 11, back at 1, leaves at 2. All blessed by the LL6 and LL5.

Follow the money. RTO is all about needing workers in commercial zones to support the local economies and boost tax revenue. The company receives tax breaks for selling its workers to the local economy. They need us in restaurants, cleaners, gas stations, etc. Once again, they win. We lose.

@pxp+1mJK6ss6 "Ford and all other companies will lose quality people"

Ford already lost a lot of quality people during the SRDs, SIRPs, forced retirements, and attrition. It looks that Ford is willing to lose more quality people by outsourcing to Mexico, India and Brazil. In other words, the stupidly blind Bill Ford and C suite have shown they don't care about the workforce, not realizing that good workers are the ones making a good company, or better yet, the lack of good workers can bankrupt a company.

The guy below that talked about municipality revenue and taxes is spot on. Bill has been getting inundated with calls from local leaders all the way up to Witchmer's office about getting people back into the office 100%.

And just because it isn't happening yet doesn't mean it won't. The plan for a full RTO with occasional WFH with LL4+ approval is coming! This thing started as a whisper in upper-management and has continued to pick up momentum.

There are logistics that have to be in place to support this. All of that is in the works. Everything from additional building staff (including cafeteria staff) to the number of desks available. This why it will come AFTER the big layoff. The thought is that with letting 8-10k people go, there will be plenty of room for the survivors.

Also, the prevailing thought is that the survivors will be so happy to still have their jobs that they'll gladly come back to the office 5 days a week.

If you want to make sure you're are part of the next round of cuts, start making noise now that you do not want to ever RTO. That will get you on the list for sure.

I dunno WFH Software Engineers shutting down the plants with their software changes or their "I am not paying attention to what I am doing as i am walking the dog" deployments and shutting down the plant.

So yeah I can see why they are making people RTO not that I don't think careless Software Engineers will continue to do careless things.

Reasons for RTO include municipal commerce and tax deals as well as commercial real estate collapsing.

RTO? No teams have walked back hybrid arrangements and pulled people back into the office full time.

@syp I think we all know that people have different aptitudes and personalities. Not better, different.
Just as everyone who dribbles a basketball does not have the aptitude, talent and determination to make it to the NBA, not everyone who write with a pencil can be a good quality engineer and not everyone who can type can write quality software. A small percentage of people can seemingly effortlessly and consistently produce error free high quality software/ engineering designs. Their brains just work differently.
The problem Ford has is that they give everyone a medal, and actually punish and drive away the most talented workers. The least talented never realize how poor their skills are nor do they have any incentive to improve their skills at Ford. After all their job title says they are a senior/lead engineer so by golly they are a grand engineer.
Of course the trust talented can always find a better place to work, Ford’s loss.

What areas are these RTOs occurring in? My area has not said anything about mandatory RTO, just voluntary.

Farley personified (cousin Chris did it better):
Meyer Briggs ESFP Personality Type: Characteristics & Career Paths
ESFP personality
The ESFP personality type is often referred to as "the performer" or "the entertainer." They love being the center of attention and are often described as "class clowns.” ESFP is the opposite of the INTJ personality type.

Meijers Briggs is a college way to categorize people. And make a buck. Someone from ford probably got a kickback from they meters Briggs company to test employees..just more d-mbness for people to talk about to make themselves feel like they are smarter than others.Made up bs and people eat it up. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/my-brothers-keeper/202002/in-defense-the-myers-briggs

@lpx My DEI boss found a way to thrive in the WFH world. Before COVID he was a meeting attender, know-nothing blow hard, and DORF approver. Now he is still a know-nothing blow hard and a meeting attender (through webex), but now he takes daily 3 hours siestas. This guy is livin large because he is a chameleon. He adapts to the environment and his boss is none the wiser because she is in Europe.

INTJ = rockstar (just sayin')

4. Blackrock

real reason. The F&F and DEI deadwood are easily exposed with WFH.

Something people might not be aware of. Years back there was an internal Ford HR push to have all the employees take the Meyers-Briggs test. The thing is that leadership did NOT like the results and buried it. Literally all of the best/most productive software engineers were INTP/INTJ. And none of the leadership or favored employees were INTP/INTJ.
Invariably what happens is the best engineers grow weary of the blowhards spouting nonsense and claiming credit for their ideas and leave Ford. The FCGs who are INTP/INTJ invariably quit before they complete their rotations.

Now go to successful high tech software firms and the population of INTP/INTJ engineers is well over 70%. This is remarkable given less than 3% of the US population is INTJ/INTP. Now watch the people Ford “steals” from the high tech firms, they are not INTJ/INTP.

So yes it is all about leadership games.

AOTA

It’s all control… this is an attempt for corporate execs to remain control of our tasks/time. What they fail to realize is that the world has changed and evolved since the advent of 9am-5pm and working in the office 5days week. Top talent will begin to demand working from home as part of their package. Ford and all other companies will lose quality people demanding ppl come back in.

If you truly don’t want to RTO I demand you speak up and express your opinion. Stick up for yourselves and show you still remain in control of your time/work.