What happened to Nike's culture? How did we go from a place I was proud to say I work for to the toxic mess we have now?
7 replies (most recent on top)
Nike was always toxic. If you didn’t experience it, probably didn’t happen to you. Open old news stories, employee stories and learn. Nike is good hiding behind athletes and celebrities who don’t give a cr-p about employees or consumers as long as their coffers are filled with $.
All of us ignored it because stock was hot, benefits were great and we were not directly impacted.
Went woke then broke
@ 1thy - I can’t remember if the last match was 2019 or 2020 but basically if you got a $5k cash bonus, you got 5k put into your 401k account too. They only announced two years ago that is removed but zero communication when it happened. I guess they hoped no one would notice since there was a major turnover.
Someone posted here that back then, there was a 60% turnover on campus and I would imagine it’s much high now.
Either way, it was a major benefit that was taken away.
It would be deposited a few weeks before bonus and that’s how people would know their exact bonus payout since it was the same as the cash payout.
I don’t know if it was only certain levels affected since high levels get stock options but this was definitely for all employees at lower levels.
I would like to add that it was the same 12 months that that developmental raises were removed. In my area, many employees were able to get developmental raises as their skills grew. In my area, the multiple levels were removed entirely. Now, a position has to be posted and you apply and as you know, getting a position posted is impossible almost the past few years.
"Most people don’t even know they took matching profit sharing away at bonus time"
First I'm hearing about this. Where can I read more?
Our leaders are all terrible now. Just look out and protect themselves, searching for quickest short cut to that next promotion. Nothing compared to what the average Nike leader looked like 15+ years ago.
As a long term employee, the culture change started before JD.
Whether people want to hear it or not, separation of people into networks was the beginning. As a minority myself, I witnessed it first hand. Before, we were all one team and now every group lifts their group members up and that includes favors in every aspect.
Some was natural slow generational change that was quickly amplified by Covid, coinciding with a new CEO.
I want to be perfectly clear though that JD still led the rush of the change that made it happen too fast! Laying off key leaders and continuing chaos hasn’t done us any favors. In my area, many Sr. Leaders were moved around. Whether they’re Sr. or not, they’re still human trying to navigate the same chaos.
The biggest complaint I still hear still though is RTO and people are just miserable balancing life again and the added costs it’s brought in an already tough inflation crisis. Our raises didn’t even cover it and barely made a dent. People were counting on bonuses to get them out of holes.
Environmental factors are weighing many people down as there’s negativity everywhere and it takes effort to avoid it!
I still believe they’ve been slowly reducing headcount purposely and strategically for 4 years. We’re THOUSANDS less than what we were and because everyone is “new”, they don’t even know! Most people don’t even know they took matching profit sharing away at bonus time that will cost new younger people a considerable amount of retirement growth in their 401k.
Many of our issues are happening at many major Corporations and we’re not alone.
Will a new CEO really help? I’m not sure as it will just bring in more change and chaos. I think it would bring a short lived relief in hopes for positive change. In reality, it will still be another millionaire coming in that doesn’t understand reality or the heart of Nike culture.
JD