How does Citrix leadership decide on who is going to be laid off? Is it based on work performance? Age? Pay?
My father has been really worried these past few weeks, and I can't understand why since his performance at the company has always been exemplary. I'd assume he'd be safe from any layoffs, unless work performance is not what they are using as determining factor.
Any info would be appreciated.
Last round was ‘eenie meenie’, this time they are utilizing ‘duck, duck, goose’.
The most current criteria is anybody that does not comply with the management or costs money to employ.
That means anybody is fair game to go on the hit list.
thoughtful wrap. thank you
The criteria vary. During the earlier waves of restructuring, middle management simply received instructions to reduce headcount by a certain number or payroll by a certain amount with little planning. Generally, the criteria seem to be salary and longevity. Those with more longevity tend to go last, as the severance packages would tend to be larger.
However, one also has the countervailing force that those with more longevity tend to be older and have higher salaries. From what I have seen, members of teams in higher cost locales or those on how higher salaries have tended to go first when the company is reducing the size of a team. Those who are from teams the company no longer needs simply disappear as a team.
More recently, I think the restructuring is premeditated and planned more methodically. A restructured colleague of mine noticed that his management reassigned some of his tasks a couple months before Citrix kicked him out. Similarly, another colleague belonged to a team where the “leadership” spent some time shifting resources to lower cost locations or to Fort Lauderdale. Both colleagues noticed in the weeks before that the layers of management one level or two above us reduced communications or cancelled meetings due to other commitments.
A good canary in the coal mine is to watch whether someone inexplicably disappears shortly before a restructure. Some teams incentivise managers to find pretexts to fire people a few weeks before the restructure. This avoids Citrix having to pay packages, but the manager can also claim afterwards that he would like to increase the headcount. One usually finds this behaviour in teams where the senior leadership is Machiavellian and knows how to manipulate the internal rules. One should also be worried if one is a part of a team that constantly grows its headcount without reason or where new colleagues have recently emerged in lower cost locales. These are typically replacement colleagues integrated into the teams before Citrix gets rid of those with higher salaries at expensive locations.
I know one person whom the company fired just before a restructure. The boss had spent a couple months before nit-picking miniscule things, fabricating mistakes, and disparaging this person to more senior leadership, probably to deflect attentions from the manager’s shortcomings. This person was a prodigious performer, who turned around and sued the company and manager. I think the company saw that they would lose and paid dearly to avoid losing in court.
I have also found that the more capable people often end up restructured. Similarly, people with experience on a high salary tend to disappear replaced by someone in Bangalore, China, or Eastern Europe. Much of the Fort Lauderdale management consists of useless insecure people. These people are more adept at playing politics than working and producing results. Working for these people is dangerous because they are adept at blaming others, including their direct reports.
I think those who survive restructures tend to end up being cosy with the management one or two levels above, which is the case with me. Management first tends to get rid of the people they dislike or perhaps like the least.
I am at the stage where I suspect the company will get rid of me in March or within the next year or so. Fortunately, I am older, have plenty of money saved up over the years, and have grown kids. I will probably just retire early. I have a good relationship with my manager and I add value, but I know that my location is one that will disappear sooner rather than later. I have already been involved in implementing “transitions” whereby we get rid of certain teams or relocate them elsewhere to produce “savings”. These savings seldom materialise because of indirect costs elsewhere. Usually, the one implementing much of this goes at the end. I don’t really need to work anymore and I can start spending time with my grandkids. I feel for those people my age who have not saved and invested only to find themselves without a good job and struggling to get anything because of ageism.
I would tell people to trust your gut instinct as well. If one sees a change in the relationship between you and your manager, it is indeed an ominous sign. I really dislike working here. It was a great place years ago, but now it is a sinking ship. I hope this helps everyone.
I wondered the same, and sat down with the org chart for my local team before and after the October event, with my own guesses for who were over and under 40. Overall, 24% were laid off.
Males overall, somewhat higher, at 30%
Over 40 next, at 43%
Males over 40 at 58%
Within ethnic groups, East Asians (excluding Chinese) came out pretty well at 16%
Chinese were hit at 29% (males were much worse off than females at 60% vs 11%)
Caucasians at 75%
It seems to be on age and mostly if you are over 50 years old. During the October layoff it seemed most of the layoff candidates in our VP organization were over 50.
If someone had any issues that reached HR or really low performance then those are usually first in the list. After that, its the wild west. I have seem amazing talented & high performance individuals get hit. IMO it depends on how much lower management gets to input. For upper management its about numbers and for the lower management could lean more in performance and/or favoritism.
If your father is a high performer the odds are in his favor, but there is always the chance he gets picked for a different reason like redundancy, pay, favoritism to another person, etc.
If he is truly concern, then tell him to use this time to update his resume, get certifications, do budget cuts, etc. Regardless of the outcome the above will help him either way.
"Criteria" or coincidence not sure, I can only speak for my area. In our affected area (during October layoff) all were over forty, most over fifty.
Its really tough to say. In october we had exemplary managers and individual contributors get laid off. The prevailing theory is that they were just getting paid too much in an area citrix didnt need, or they had a redundancy elsewhere in the company. Of course, there were also low performers laid off but thats a given.
Theres never a way to know for sure. In the modern business era, always have your resume up to date, always network, always keep your skills relevant, and always fight to be on what the company considers to be its cutting edge/flagship projects.
It is solely dependent on your equation with your manager. If your equation was/is good then definitely some one else is going to be laid off if need arise, unless the whole group is going downtown the drain.
Nobody outside of the director level is sure. But what I've seen is that unless you're in a position or location that they deem not in line with the future path of the company, then it's based on performance.
My experience at Citrix, if you are good and performing well, doing much more than whatever expected, putting all your efforts and delivering products much before deadlines, you will be laid off.