It feels like we have a new round of cuts every few months. When will it end?
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Back in stack ranking days, we had a junior guy on our team from China. Struggled with his English but worked HARD on it. Every month he noticeably improved in language and all other areas. He was a keen help on anything you asked him to do.
So, come stack rank time, he was placed in bottom of small team. Manager, employee and everybody else understood (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) it was a BS rating and he “would be looked after” in spite of it.
Fast forward and new manager arrives.
Zero bonus, zero increase and zero love. Top of the next LR list. Nice guy booted.
Five or so years later, I get WebEx ping from familiar name. Called him up. Speaks English almost natively, like going from Rambo to Shakespeare. Now managing a team, doing well, great employee.
Which is why I hate quota-based ratings and group-identity-based “fairness leveling” with a passion.
LRs is a way for Cisco to legally take back the stock they gave you. So it will continue until they start to care more about people than the bottom line.
Never be bottom 10%.
That's hard to do on some teams. Some teams don't have a lot of turnover and consist of 100% of the team all working above expectations. In that case, who do you put in the bottom 10%? And, if you put the same people in the bottom 10% year after year, then you risk losing someone who is good at their job and performing above expectations and then have to hire a new person who might not be as good, or as hard working, as the one you fired. Do you rotate the "bottom 10%" badge of shame around the team so that you don't lose anyone?
For teams w/ a lot of turnover, it's easier to just keep putting the new person at the bottom unless they really outperform someone more senior on the team and just keep a new person around as a sacrificial lamb to keep the core team safe.
I think the "bottom 10%" rating should be limited to those employees who are not meeting expectations and that LR's should come from those who do not meet expectations. Sure, cutting some late-stage career person who's "expensive" saves the most money, but if they're performing at, or more likely above, expectations, then cutting them and keeping some sub-par performer who is younger and cheaper, and replacing them with another younger and cheaper worker who may, or may not, perform at the same level as the displaced person only results in lower quality work getting performed slower than if you'd gotten rid of the underperforming staff.
Probably not for a while. 2000s edition was easily 5 years. Quarterly LRs. We will be good when they only do it every 6 months. Cisco way of life. Never be bottom 10%.
Stein's law: If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
No. Next question. Cisco is addicted to layoffs. They took a hit on that blunt in 2001, liked it and since 2008 have been hitting it every year. That's not going to change.
"Will you stop?!!" - Gorilla Monsoon
The layoffs will stop once Cisco changes the way we work, live, play, and learn.
They did that in 2001 by starting the layoffs. I'm pretty sure Cisco doesn't let you back in to play with the red stapler.
It's like shooting a fish tied to a cutting board.
The layoffs will stop once Cisco changes the way we work, live, play, and learn.
"I almost wish I hadn't converted from red badge to blue because I was making a LOT more"
The majority of compensation is issued in stock grants. If your blue compensation is near a red, you are a very junior individual contributor.
Cisco without layoff is like bread without butter.
Been at Cisco for 7+ years, basically seen lay offs every 6-12 months since I started so based off my experience no - the layoffs won't end
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Turns out there isn't a shortage of qualified people desperate for a job to take these contract jobs.
And some consultant companies can/do provide benefits--not as good as Cisco's but it's still 401(k), HSA, Healthcare, and/or PTO--at wages similar to, or better than, Cisco's wages _without all the Teamspace & V2MOM bullsh-t_! I almost wish I hadn't converted from red badge to blue because I was making a LOT more as a contractor in gross pay, but my benefits cost me more, and when I took unpaid days for all the Cisco holidays, Days for Me, and year-end shutdown plus whatever days I wanted/needed off for personal reasons, my take-home pay was about the same as what I make now. The only differences are that I didn't get mid-year & year-end bonuses and I didn't have to do weekly Teamspace check-ins and complete V2MOMs. Oh, and I wasn't eligible for a severance package, but then again, I wasn't let go either. Although, you could say that I was forced to convert or I would have been let go without the package, so I got a sign-on bonus, get ESPP now, and am eligible for mid/year-end bonus payments all for the privileges of playing the employee game, and I get a going-away present instead of an immediate goodbye.
But, I'm under no illusions that I'm safer as an employee than I was as a contractor. I just get a severance package to make it easier to not bleed money while looking for the next gig. I can honestly say that I've never worked for a company that doesn't have layoffs, just that most of them don't do it annually unless they're on the fast track to going out of business.
Pretty small layoff. Not sure why it even made the news
It's laying off full-time employees and rehiring through contract agencies. VPs obtain bonuses for cost cutting, and it's a simple method to cut costs.
No 401k, hsa, espp, stock, severance, healthcare, or pto with contract workers. Turns out there isn't a shortage of qualified people desperate for a job to take these contract jobs.
It will not end until Cisco really wants to be the best place to work.
Given what percentage of Cisco's development budget was bug fixing either you created problems for others or spent your time trying to fix that damage which means not only has Cisco not culled effectively but those that are comfortable with this are the people who need to go.
If you want to accomplish great things you don't want these kinds of unnecessary obstacles building up in your way, and that means some people have to go. If you can bring in a broader skill set to replace them both the company and its remaining employees are better off.
No, it will not. Layoffs in the IT industry have always happened. It is cyclical, there will always be more.
Revenues are up, gross earnings are up, the stock price is up, and the employee count is up after 22 years of layoffs. What force would cause Cisco to stop laying off?
It ends when Cisco goes bankrupt like Nortel did or gets acquired for a penny after having lost all marketshare in every technology domain.
IP switching and routing is still a growing market. Nortel died as high speed packet switching using IPv4 supplanted low speed circuit switching. Since IPv6 was started nearly 30 years ago and has by many measures failed what will replace IPv4 fast enough that Cisco will suddenly go bankrupt?
Just as IBM still makes mainframes whereas most kids won't even vaguely recognize brands like DEC and Gateway, Cisco will be forced to confront the fact that growth isn't infinite but with revenues that dwarf its competitors it has the money to inflict damage on their competitors when their technology cannot, so I'm guessing they'll plod along like IBM for a long time.
It will not end until Cisco really wants to be the best place to work. For now, it is just indoctrination, like a cult.
No other tech company more intertwined with layoffs than Csco.
Ben and Jerrys.
Titanic and Celine Dion.
Cisco and layoffs.
It ends when Cisco goes bankrupt like Nortel did or gets acquired for a penny after having lost all marketshare in every technology domain.
It will never end. You are a cog in a vast machine and when your number is up then goodbye. Absolutely forget loyalty. Anyone who things being loyal will get you places in the workplace is a misguided fool.
From a U.K. context, probably not. The Zombie congregation of VP+SED is sleep walking into a train wreck. Way too focussed in building their own fiefdom than the company or business. Bollocks as a Service.