Thread regarding Nielsen layoffs

Leave now! Your future self will thank you!

My advice is to stop talking and start doing.

Take action to take control of your future, and stop putting your efforts into dead end paths. Nielsen is a dead end path no matter where you reside (TAM, Gracenote, field ops, data science) so move on and leave the bad management and finger pointers in the rear view mirror.

Nothing worse than seeing perfectly capable people not rising to their potential and claiming to be victims of circumstance around every corner.

If you have no options it's because you've created none for yourself, so get off the couch, social media platforms and boo-hooing and start figuring out your next steps.

Previous poster mentioning automation for the FR roles. Can you elaborate please?

Don’t waste time applying to oracle they are doing sweeping layoffs as well. Try small local companies that will actually give you an interview and can’t afford to offshore jobs.

The MAWW comment is discriminatory in general. Nielsen is still a dominantly male company which is probably why MAWWs aren’t getting laid off at the same rate. They have too many discrimination lawsuits to layoff the women on the teams that aren’t fully offshored without productivity stats to back it up. They have fired some MAWWs, I have seen them disappearing in chat. Of course more men get laid off when there are more men in the first place.

We all hate it here but they have us in a head lock. There are barely any real tech jobs right now. I don’t know about you but even with all this BS I need this job right now.

Let’s just start sending these threads to tech writers to try to get some public backlash at the company. Let’s get some Karen’s to post them on Facebook sense older people are the only normal people that know what Nielsen is. Let’s do something instead of ragging on each other in threads like teenagers.

If you don’t need this job just take the voluntary layoff and free up some team size for those of us that are stuck.

Field reps should get out now if you can though. Things are in process to automate a lot of the process even outside of offshoring. Everyone in the data science department knows it.

Try Best Buy, they always need home installers and actually hire. I know hospitals have been hiring a lot of blue collar tech workers as well.

Best of luck to everyone in this hunger games h311 hole.

I feel the same as you. I hate working with my coworkers who are lazy, inefficient, and complain 24/7. I don’t know how my skills will translate to another job but I am going to do my best to move on from this place as soon as possible. That’s all we can do. I wish you luck on your journey to better employment.

For what it's worth, as a FR myself, I've decided to take courses that the company pays for so that I can take off on my time, not when they want to get rid of me. It adds extra hours to the day, but I also don't want to rely on an unreliable company to keep me employed. I completely agree with you on the terrible roadshow.... more worried about people unionizing than the actual issues that need to be fixed.

… or start a lawn business like everyone with no career options, a truck and trailer, and $100 in the bank account usually does.

Better yet is to get the necessary skills to get out of a field position with any company.

Field roles like service techs are usually reserved for those with 10th grade educations and no other options for more professional work — of which many FR’s at Nielsen are quickly finding out, and why they’re are so easily abused and replaced.

If there ARE unicorn positions out there in the field for secure, high paying jobs there will be you and 150,000 of your closest low skill and uneducated field people all vying for it.

Wouldn’t waste my time on anything other than getting away from the field …

Guys.

Look at Ecosure/Ecolab. They have “field representatives/technicians” that I’m pretty sure have a company car, their own schedule, etc but they go in and audit restaurants to make sure they are doing what they need to do with food safety. Leverage your skills working with auditors - “helped assist with audits” whatever you need to do to boost your skills. Make sure to include that you went into businesses (yes, nursing homes? Retirement centers? I know there are “homes” in those “businesses”.

Another one to look into is Pest Control. Either starting your own pest control company or working for pest control companies. The real money is termite control - if you can get certified in treating termites (not that hard not and not that expensive) and offer those services or leverage yourself as someone with that field experience.

You all DO have the right experience for the right companies - being a FR is not easy and there would be plenty of companies happy to have you!

time to move on . wish you the best.

“ Yes we have become obsolete and are being put out to pasture during a time of rising inflation and cost of living …”

You’re obsolete due to not investing in yourself along the way to acquire REAL transferable skills (not the BS role of being an FR) that are desirable to another company, while putting all of your eggs in the Nielsen basket.

Not that I support what Nielsen is doing, but there are a lot of people right now pointing fingers at the company without any pointed at themselves.

If you remained ignorant to what was happening all these years, then you’re as much to blame for your outcome as the company is for their wrongdoings right now.

Layoffs never happen in ideal times, so take that off the plate right away.

Time to get moving then and put the pity party aside.

You’re now realizing that being a FR meant REALLY having zero options outside of Nielsen, so time to get to work in changing that.

You can forget companies like AT&T, Oracle or Spectrum as they’re also doing away with field staff, so no avenues there. Time to come up with a plan that best aligns with whatever skillsets you have (giving out gift cards and remote controls are not skillsets BTW) and remember that no-one cares about someone being a FR at Nielsen. It’s not anything desirable to another company.

You’ll have to most likely swallow some pride and start over again, and play off your strengths towards a new path. Won’t happen over night in the cr*p world we’re in right now, so be prepared for the long haul.

Sorry for being so blunt but it’s the truth, and accepting the truth is your first step towards another path. Good luck.

It is very sad what this company has become!

Over the last few years I have seen my manager (which resides in another country) trying to push all the important work to "his guys" (as he himself calls the team that works for him on that country). We on the US are relegated to the most boring work with ZERO room for grow. I can't imagine what he will do now that he has company support...

You need to get a new job, even if that means less money or benefits, your future self will thank you for it. I know it is hard out there right now but the economy will eventually recover and good jobs will be back. Get something and expend some time learning new things that would make you more interesting for future employers.

Good luck!

Yes we have become obsolete and are being put out to pasture during a time of rising inflation and cost of living. Perfectly understand that Nielsen is not responsible beyond the bare minimum but there have been other companies that have laid off their employees due to automation or change in process and they have taken the responsibility to train those people to make them more marketable or at the least understood that long term employees will not recover from this layoffs and that the thanks they get for decades of dedication to the company is 1 week of severance per year. And remaining leaders, you don’t know how that feels until you are in that position.