It was so nice to see that AVP, Directors and Leadership all get Voluntary Severance offerings and even non voluntary... Now, we have 3,000 employees on the chopping block and we cannot say at this time if we will file a transition plan or not??? Some have to interview for their job, leadership just gets an offer... I guess its nice to be in charge, you get the beni's of kissing arse!! What a joke our 2 bobble heads are!!!
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They need to do a planning project for the planning project to kick off a project to determine if they will offer involuntary severance.
Only TX has no state income tax. For most, AZ and IL are about the same (4.24 vs 4.95), and GA is way higher at 6%.
Furthermore, there is more demand for IT workers in the hubs, meaning SF has to pay more to compete and will have more turnover (which adds to the cost of employment). I’ve seen small teams take forever to get staffed, I can’t imagine how long it’ll take them to staff for hundreds of positions.
The vivifiring going on is, in part, a backdoor way to increase employment in the hubs by seeding from corporate again. We’ve got shiny rental buildings to fill.
"Why are they forcing the disaster that is the hubs?"
Why? Because State Farm management has bought into the concept that Millennials are the entire future, especially in the "skill positions" (as a football analyst might put it), of IT jobs. And, they have determined, in all their demographic and sociological wisdom, that Millennials are drawn to urban areas like flies to sh*t - sorry, make that "bees to honey". The theory is, they might turn up their noses at semi-rural locales like Bloomington.
It also doesn't hurt that AZ, TX and GA have lower (or no) personal state income taxes, so SF could pay employees the same $ and have it go further. And, those states definitely have lower corporate taxes than IL. And, those states and cities are certainly providing some tax and other givebacks for the new SF hubs... Really, very little of this is hard to figure out.
Current SF management sees Bloomington, IT-wise, in terms of the past historical relics of COBOL and PL1. The future is Down South!
Why are they forcing the disaster that is the hubs? Keep IT in Bloomington and you eliminate problems such as high turnover and excessive salary. Starting salaries are rediculous now because of competition in the hubs. And then the good ones leave after getting some experience. Also, get rid of externals - one of the benefits of externalization was supposed to be increasing and decreasing capacity (cost) without impacting employees.
I'm a remote worker. We didn't get voluntary either. They just blew us all right out the door. That's okay -- I have a better job now.
This is related to the Enterprise Technology Department Prof/Tech... They will not state one way or another if there will be a Transition Plan for the 890 employees in IT that will not have a job past this summer. Their definition of transparency and the dictionary is a bit different. But in typical SF fashion they take what everyone else does, and knows and makes it the "State Farm Way".
I spoke with a Team Manager the other day who is managing (huh!) a Bodily Injury team. His comments ranged from "this job is a widow maker" to "I'm not managing people, I'm managing the number on this white board behind me."
My advice to anyone getting ready to go through the transition who doesn't have a cousin, nephew, uncle, niece, aunt, father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, godmother or godfather employed at the company; update your resume. I went through my transition in claims a couple of weeks ago and some of the shenanigans you are about to witness will blow your mind. State Farm is a company steeped in Nepotism. If you have a relative that is an operations manager or above, you can stop reading this post. You are pretty much guaranteed a job. Go buy a new car or plan your vacation to Mexico. As a matter of fact, you probably already have been told that you have nothing to worry about and that arrangements have been made that will even exempt you from going through the process. The rest of you poor slobs will need to start buying lottery tickets or collecting four leaf clovers, because nothing about the upcoming process will be fair or transparent. You will scratch your head numb as you witness the guy who shows up late everyday to work, reeking of booze,be one of the first to be notified that he's safe. You will be even more perplexed that folks who need the Waze app to find the bathroom will suddenly start getting promotions for jobs they didn't even apply for. Buckle up and enjoy the ride because it's about to get interesting.
Wait......OP are you saying that the Transition Plan for the 3000 affected Proximity employees may not be approved ? Can you clarify this post please ?
It's not just AVP, Directors and Leadership receiving Voluntary Severance...some BA's in Bloomington are also getting voluntary severance packages. The process should be fair and transparent to all professional/technical employees and not a select few. If you want to retain developers, pay them a competitive salary. Completely understand the need to make changes, but it needs to be done so that the employees who are let go, are taken care of like other departments are doing for their employees. It's unconscionable to not offer even an involuntary package to the hundreds employees that will be terminated. Why would I as an IT professional want to work for a company who treats tenured employees in such a despicable fashion. Once it gets out that State Farm is not an IT friendly shop, it will be difficult to attract the best and the brightest. You can already see that other departments are struggling to find qualified candidates.
I was thinking the other way around with many of the non tech overstaffed folks being female. Have a layoff which involves 60+ % women in an otherwise male majority maintain/understaffed IT department... probably does not look good on paper.
Any concerns about gender bias? Seems higher you go the larger percentage of men. Just saying.
It's brutal, but it makes sense. They can't have thousands of technical people quitting. It's already going to be rough with teams trying to support systems they don't have experience with. Management is more of a soft skill..they can work in about any area
IF they do any 'transition' plan, I could see it being only for 'overstaffed' positions or those not given an assignment or offer
I can also see an impact to anyone outside of Bloomington wanting one of the incoming claims positions. Overstaffed employees could be given offers for those jobs..and if they don't want it..no severance
No relo for Scrum Masters either..sounds like they have enough people to hire locally...I heard that managers that didn't get a position could be given those jobs