This usually doesn't happen in employee owned companies where they lay off the younger guys first because the older guys have tons of shares of the company and laying them off would cost the money tons of cash. So they focus on the younger guy with low buy in.
Bet those companies won't be around for long with no experienced people and the ones they have getting older will jump way before they are pushed - once they have that reputation, apart from a recession they will die.
This. As a former Manager and Director, this is exactly correct. Fundamentally, a good person wins out every time. You cannot discount the benefit of a personable and nice worker. I will take one over a highly productive drama queen every time.
@@tanalson - In the Air Force, my office got us a brand new Second Lieutenant. The four of us in the office were all Master Sergeants. I was a Senior Master Sergeant. After about a week, our Lieutenant looked at my co-worker, and asked him politely to "please keep your nose out of my ass." The rest of us scattered to tell the rest of the unit just how cool our new Lieutenant was. This was in 1988, and he retired as a full Colonel about ten years ago. Bosses are well aware of who the bootlickers are.
Agreed, only problem is if they lay off based on seniority (last in first out). So if you find a new job, make sure you go to one that does not layoffs based heavily on seniority.
And age discrimination is so rampant ,it's pathetic, when young people say good riddance to these old farts, what goes around comes around, sad but true, at 30 in China you have already peaked and then drummed out!😮
@tonggao-q7v it's always been like that, the only person that is loyal to you is your dawg, he doesn't care if you have 3 eyes, and he or she will be by yourself and doesn't chest on you like a wandering spouse period!
I've never seen a low performer get laid off in my life. It's always whoever won't bend the knee to the manager/lead, which is never the bottom-sucking low performer.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to be disliked or even outright hated in the workplace. I have had a target on my back at literally every job I have had, unprovoked. At three of those jobs, I was protected by seniority and/or a desperate need for my services. But that didn't stop coworkers from being nasty, or even accosting or stalking me. And I got blamed by my supervisors for it all.
@@jenniferburchill3658 Working in corporate America I learned that managers and HR tend to take sides in disputes between employees rather than remain neutral and gather all facts as they are supposed to.
True. I've seen high performers getting let go because they were a threat to average contributors. Those that play the long game are the ones that tend to survive
I use to work with an incredible engineer who was a top performer. He told me that anybody can get laid off. He said that he had already been laid off from two jobs. He thought that he would work for Texas Instruments forever but the economy went downhill. Ten years after that conversation, he was laid off again because he was making too much money and he was too old.
Dang I was thinking of applying to TI but seems like hardware engineering culture is the same. AMD laid off 1000 people even though they beat Intel and made historically high profit but Lisa su said she wants to put that money into more AI so there goes the livelihood of 1000 people
I was laid off from one company the day after I qualified for health care benefits. A different company laid me off one week after giving me a nice raise. I am loyal to no one but myself.
All the companies I've ever worked for never laid people off. They would just fire you, and the employees who have been there the longest and made the most money were always the first on the chopping block. The longer you work for an employer and the more money you are making, the bigger the target becomes on your back. There is no such thing as long-term careers anymore. All jobs are temporary. My advice is to learn as many specialized skills, trades, and professions as you can and start legitimate businesses. Work for yourself.
@dknowles60 it's not just trade work ya NEET. Consulting, recruiting, information skills. Those soloprenuerships are the future. Trades are stupid unless it's really niched with solid margins
As a recently retired aerospace worker, who's been laid off several times in 45 years. You can't be a one trick pony, take advantage of any additional training a employer offers. Trust me, it will help immensely help after a lay off.
I agree with you . His content (to me) often comes off as if he’s actually these corporations that we are trying to avoid. He’s only helpful to understand the “corporate” mindset as he just seems to regurgitate the employees experience but... I keep awaiting something groundbreaking from him and it’s just more of the same toxic work culture speak vs truly how to beat them at their own game using the recruiters secrets . But I guess if you know NOTHING he’s helpful 🤷🏾♀️ ….however, for me, his stance isn’t clear enough to truly call him an employee advocate! He’s talks in circles a little too much for me and I never walk away feeling better, I always feel worse and walk away feeling like , “it’s just the way it is”. Much success to you all and it will get better for your situation whomever reads this💕💯
When I was laid off once I noticed that my 2 part-time colleagues could stay, I had to go. My boss, a doctor in physics, had to go. Sales engineers with good qualifications had to go as well....I guess they really chose for salaries...the most expensive people were removed.
@@cpK054L Agreed. I've always suspected it has more to do with the reporting of those costs than the actual costs. Big companies waste money like crazy, but it gets glossed over simply because of the "buckets" that have been created for those costs. Some buckets become more justified than others, even if they cost more for the same return.
@Lessenjr I'm guessing they expense contractors instead of pay rolling. So they save on quarterly taxes and it's easier to just let them go compared to employees.
When my last company had a redundancy exercise, over 100 workers had to complete about 10 sides of paper on their skills, qualifications and any other supporting information that they wanted to include. About 20 managers attended a 'wash up' review meeting where they selected who was going to be made redundant, which lasted all of 30 minutes. There was no way they could have reviewed all of the information, it was just an exercise to give the 'impression' they were following a process. The decisions were already made before the meeting.
Three biggest mistakes. 1. I cannot be replaced. Yes you can. Make yourself as valuable as possible but if you die tomorrow your company will still survive and go on. 2. Stay current. Technology and skills change. If you don't you become obsolete. 3. Keep any eye on the job market and network. It sucks to get laid off but if you known what is going on and have contacts you just move on to the next phase of your life. So glad I saved for retirement and will soon leave all of this bull shit behind soon.
I would add a fourth one - Get your money up. Live within your means, and save money. Also, find other streams of income like investments or even side hustles to build up your income, so if you get laid off, you have a nice cushion to hold you over just in case. In this economy, it’s taking people twice as long to find a comparable job, and if you’re an older worker, it’s taking 3-4 times as long, or worse, you’ll never find a comparable job.
Multiple streams of income is so true. I'm in my 50's and things started to go south at work. I got excited about it and retired. I thanked my boss for showing me the light.
lay offs are part of normal work life now. You can't stop it from happening. SO the best strategy is to face it and deal with it instead of avoid it. Keep yourself that emergency fund, and keep your marketable skills growing so you can bounce back from a layoff. If you are in a role that would struggle if you had to go back into the open market, consider your own strategy to leave that role on your own terms instead of waiting to get laid off and take the initiative to develop new skills.
Leave on your own terms? I don't want to insult you, but the only instance when you leave on your own terms is when the environment you in is so toxic, you can't exist in there any more. Don't even leave for more money. in fact, that's the last reason you should jump jobs. Again unless my previous point. Because that's exactly what they want you to do. If leave, they won't have to buy you out.
Absolutely. Loyalty is a two way street . Corporations rarely if ever show any loyalty to employees, so why should employees show any loyalty to the company
I remember Phillips (Dutch company) was huge in electronics and components and the new CEO decided everyone over 50 was to be made redundant, a few years later Phillips collapsed, and no longer exists. Experience, even old experience always wins because the mistakes have already been made - work smarter not harder - do it now - never respect your colleagues unless they deserve it - don't fratenise after work you will regret it and most youngsters are not worth their pay check.......Discuss.
That sounds like what happened to Daimler-Benz in the 1990s. Their cars were once considered a great value even though they are higher priced than the competition, but that all changed when they got rid of the old and experienced engineering/design staff for newer, younger, less-costly "talent".
My brother and every coworker in his department over 60 years old was laid off in 2020 due to Covid. They were replaced with much younger people on H-1 visas who apparently are not affected by Covid.
I was once told that I suck as a developer and should be also wearing a Project Manager's and a Business Analyst's hat. Most of the time at work, I was fixing somebody else's code, sometimes, adding completely missing functionality to the existing product that somehow made it to production. They put me on PIP, I lasted for 8 months after that and found a new job that doubled my salary at the end.
I was told, as a software tester, that I am in the bottom half of the company. I already had 233% the workload of the testers in the other team. Then they said I would work partial days on this work, and pickup work for an off-shore team. The mgr of the other team said "I don't know how you are getting all this work done." Then she added 300% more work. Proof that they were trying to bury me so they could say "She's not keeping up". The twist is, the off-shore people are so unproductive, that I "can" 'keep up'. But yeah, when I saw that all the QA jobs (for the Big Brother company that bought our little US company) are in India, I knew the plan. I give it till the end of year.
@@deanowexford7021 Yeah I went through the same BS when my company announced that they were off-shoring some of our team function to Bangalore in India. I asked, "So our team is being off-shored to India?" Answer: "No, only the basic functions". A year later our entire team was off-shored to India and we all got laid off.
I had cancer last year, and my performance isn't as good as it was before treatment due to chemo brain. My productivity is slower and I have memory issues. I thought I could just take really good notes and record meetings, but that doesn't work when you are called on to answer a question in the middle of a meeting and they ask you which team members from the finance department you had in a meeting with you in August and you can't recall their names off the top of your head. Got laid off due to "budget issues".
Same thing happened to my husband. No chemo, but the hormone therapy for prostate cancer didn’t help performance. A few months after his radiation treatments he got his notice….
My company is offshoring and turning to AI and it’s been a nightmare transition. I’m already getting ready because I know it’s a matter of time before they come for my department.
@@raybod1775 But on the flip side, it's harder to find the time to job search and schedule interviews. And there's the need to cover your tracks with your current boss if a potential new employer interviews you.
If you are in sales or have any form of budget, a warning sign is when your key accounts are suddenly shifted to someone else or your budgets are revised to set you up for failure.
@@amastr-fc5kw - Dell is one of the worst employers. If you’re looking for a job in a toxic environment with backstabbing coworkers and stuffed-shirt micromanagers, then Dell is the company for you.
That’s happening the last two years at my company. Unfortunately we are now struggling with execution because it takes ten of the new people to do the work of one senior person. On some cases they can never get the work done. I can seriously hand a task to one if our college new hires and it will take them 60 hours and I have to help them. I can get it done in four hours. It’s awful. Lots of burden on the few senior folks left. In our case they just encouraged the senior people to retire by stopping pension accruals and offering a buy out. They left in droves. Way more than they expected.
Yep, hire cheap inexperienced grads and burden the senior staff with mentoring them. Funny how you never get a cheap executive needing constant mentoring from the CEO.
This can eventually backfire because you're creating a pattern. You can be seen as acquiring new knowledge or seen as escaping tougher duties. As you get older people won't let you get by on charm.
@@annoyedok321 I disagree. What’s the point of staying in a company if you are not acquiring any new knowledge because it’s going to backfire on you as well because it will be seen that you are stagnating in your role. Also, normally when you are acquiring new knowledge, it’s because you want more of a challenge and tougher duties. Your comment does not make sense at all.
@@DiamondFlame45 Maybe you're the exception where you "acquired all the knowledge you could" but you're going to bundled in with the dozen bullshiters before you who really left because they couldn't hack taking on more challenging tasks. While at face value it is a good rule to follow, the but here is you have to be careful about creating a pattern and having your cynicism be self-sabotaging in the long run.
@@annoyedok321 I disagree. The climate has completely changed. Who even retires with a company? I have friends who got laid off before they completed their 1st year at no fault of their own. Most companies don’t even offer pensions to incentivize tenure. At the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for your career and know the pros and cons of each move.
Re voluntary redundancy- As a general rule, if you are offered it, take it. The very fact you are being offered it means the company views your role as 'at risk'. If you don't take, you are likely to end up being laid off further down the line on a compulsory basis, often with a worse package than the voluntary round. It's also a sure sign that your career is over at the company and you won't be progressing. Take the voluntary every time.
I was offered a massive severance to retire. My salary was double that of our most recent hires. All good, I was happy that the young uns kept their job. A year later, the company went under, and NOBODY got severance. Oops. If you're with a struggling company, get out when you can.
Conform, take credit for what others do, be a "minority" and make friends in management and be visible, this is what allows you to stay employed and gets you promoted.
Yeah, when I was laid off it was because our entire department had been outsourced to India. If you weren’t on any sort of corrective action, you could post for jobs in other departments, but I just took the severance package and left.
0:00 - 1:02 This entire section 100% describes my most recent layoff that happened to me at my last company 2 months ago. We really are in some dark times with the job market and I seriously hope that it improves regarding hiring and employee retention 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
I just survived a second round of layoffs where I work and the decisions were made based on teams. Budgets were cut for certain teams, so people were eliminated from those teams. I’ve noticed the people with the most absences were the first cut. Two people I know with extended health issues were both cut, and several people who regularly use all the PTO they can were cut.
I work inside the management circle. It has nothing to do with your evaluations. E-vals can be manipulated. It's all about the work place dynamic, if people like you, if you are a "good fit", it's not about your on-the-job performance, it's about the after work stuff in terms of being in the "popular circle", going to football games with the crew, being in the big Church with the higher ups, even having intercourse with the more powerful people.
I've been through multiple layoffs and the only factors I've ever seen used are management perception, project assignment and cost. Of course, if you survive a layoff, you should be looking so you have something before layoff round 2. The people making the layoff decisions rarely know who is actually a good performer with critical skills. In my experience the criteria was generally 1. Are there people that management wants to get rid of (not generally a performance based decision) If so, a layoff is a great time to clean house. 2. Are there projects that are underperforming If so, get rid of most/all of the people on the team if it would take any effort to move them to another project. 3. Are there roles that go across multiple projects that we can downsize (this can mean skillset) If so, get rid of folks with the least management visibility (not the same as a poor performer) 4. Are there expensive people whose work we can just assign to a junior employee (all resources are interchangeable) If so, get rid of the expensive folks This can be fine if the experienced employee was being used for tasks appropriate for a junior employee, but that is rarely the case.
Six months ago, I was laid off, and I couldn't help but notice that everyone else who was let go, including myself, were all, let's say, 'non-native'. Quite the coincidence, especially considering that all the leadership team were born in the country. Later, all those positions were re-filled by people from the Philippines, costing the company a third of what it would in Europe. People are just discarded like trash these days.
ended up in this situation. I'll have my call tomorrow and will have 60 days to secure a new job. This is my first-ever layoff from the first company I've worked at since graduation. I'm feeling numb.
I always assumed I would get the push and was ready for it and usually laughed when they told me, funny thing was they never knew how much they missed me until I had gone and replaced me with 2 or 3 people. I made and still make the job I do look easy - it's not, but experience is everything, having done the college and Uni courses, listened to older experienced workers when I started and always knew that if you did nothing, the company didn't get paid, and one day you wouldn't get paid - lost on a lot of people who are stunned when they lose their job........
Not if you’re prepared. Never be comfortable at work. Always have one foot out the door (emergency fund always getting topped off, resume updated, references ready)
Affects your mental health when you don't have a safety net ,no one to help out ,no roomatescin apartment to split rent etc ,nothing lined up you are cooked , new home is the streets, or car, rather depressing!😮
Corporations are a scam and I am doing everything I can do to get out of that trap. I'm sick of my ability to feed my family tied to soulless HR automatons determinating my future.
I got laid of as a counter balance against an ageism lawsuit. A young guy to balance out the old guys. I know this because in our severance paperwork was a printed spreadsheet of every person that got laid off, divided by department, with each employees age and the department average laid off age. Basically daring us to sue for ageism.
Networks suck... nobody is there to help you... you are really on your own, deep down nobody cares ... they are just happy you are in that situation and not them.
It's not that I don't believe you that companies use performance metrics to choose who to layoff, it's that companies have terrible metrics about the kind of performance that really matters, and they tend to value all the wrong things in the metrics they do have, so they make terrible choices. Here's a concept: Grow employees rather than plucking them and replacing them all the time like interchangeable chess pieces. That is sending loyalty down the organization and it will bounce back at you.
Absolutely! I was on a team of 12 and 2 years later there are 4 left. They didn't rehire any of the roles. I was also let go. But the people who stayed spent so much flipping time making PPTs on what they were working on and the status of their work. Rather than just getting the work done. They are all still there. I recently watched a video explaining this phenomenon. Those who constantly do these fancy updates and status presentations are actually less likely to be let go. That's because your boss typically doesn't know everything you have on your plate. So when your working hard (for me working until 3 am sometimes) but do not spend time on sending fancy PPTs listing everything I am doing and it's status... I was laid off. Do the fancy PPT! Report the status of everything you're doing! Even if it means you're doing less actual work. I learned this the hard way! 😊
My last job I was in a meeting where they talked about laying off a woman who’s medical cost was getting to high. They were self insured. I couldn’t believe they straight up said that
Companies first cut costs instead of developing their organization and products. I have a feeling many current companies will go the way of GE, McDonnell Douglas, Sears,...
In Australia, we have unfair dismissal laws, which means after a short probationary period, you cannot sack a worker unless they commit a crime or are dangerous. So if you are on your probation to get to that permancy, you are on that list. I was at a company where they wanted to bring in a new person. Someone had to leave to fit them in. As the only non-permanent worker at the time, I got squeezed out because then it is quick and clean, rather than the legalities of getting rid of a permanent worker.
Not performance based. I was the highest performing employee with a previous previous job. The chart all shows it every two weeks. I was axed, and my co-workers had a breath of relief, that stops them from looking incompetent.
I can tell you a few ways to be first in line to get laid off. 1. Be the new guy. Last hired, first fired. 2. Be a contractor, not an employee. One of the reasons employers love to hire contractors is that they can be easily terminated at a moment’s notice. Need to cut costs? Dump all the contractors! 3. Be a technical writer. They are always seen as expendable. Products don’t really need documentation, do they? If they do, we’ll just have the engineers write it. 4. Be experienced. If you have decades of experience in your profession, that means you’re expensive. The company can’t afford you. So you’re terminated, and your job will be given to an inexperienced new hire - or even better, a random person in India who can be paid a quarter of what you were. So what if he’s not a native speaker of the language he’ll be writing manuals in? He’s cheaper, and that’s all that matters.
Two guys at my company just got laid off yesterday. They both were great workers, but they just had one of the hardest jobs in the company to both find and quantify success. I feel kind of shitty, though, because one of my projects this past year was to attempt to better measure the secondary impacts of their work. This was not easy and there were only a few things I could confidently measure and give them to show to the bosses, but there were also a lot of maybes/probablies that add up but I couldn't confidently verify any of them with the limited data. I'm not to blame and there were other factors involved, but I still feel like if I got them a few more results to show their impact, they'd still be here.
the problem with KPIs, for some teams, they aren't actually quantifyable, and become subjective, and when that happens, you see people laid off, who were key members and later brought back.
When a Big Brother company bought our little American company, and I saw that all their QA jobs are in India, I knew it was a matter of time. I expect to get it in the neck before year end (after I finish uploading the test cases into the new system). I'm coming your way, Bryan, so save me a space...
Thankfully in Ireland, we have better employment laws than in the US. I was made redundant a year ago. The selection criteria was Last in First Out. It definitely wasn't performance related. Sometimes, it's where billability is the most important metric. We had several months on redeployment while we elected representatives who were on the list for collective consultation to negotiate the terms of redundancy. We then had individual consultation where we were presented with severance packages. This lasted 5 months, when we still got paid our normal salaries. In Ireland, if you try and let someone go for "performance" reasons, it's messy because we have slightly more power here and can take you to court. Most jobs have 6 months probationary periods here. Sadly, while on probation, you have flip all rights. It's once you're made permanent that you're hard to get rid of. Failure to pass probation can be completely arbitrary.
I had to fill in something similar as a manager once fairly out the blue, didn't think anything of it.... 6 months later I knew redundancies were coming. Showed me how far in advance these things can be planned (it was a company owned by Blackstone, so they meticulously plan this shit)
It is based on your pay grade scale When you are on the top end of the pay range for your position and there is no promotion you get cut. 1st to get cut will be sales, marketing, HR, accounting, overlapping roles, politics
My employer's process is to eliminate positions that began with the title "senior." And highly paid employees over 60 years old. To prevent age discrimination lawsuits, they also eliminate an equal number of people in their 20s.
I've been working for the same company for 45 years and in that time there have been at least 4-5 major layoffs and I got through all of them. The way I made it through all those was I always was learning and collecting more information about our products and becoming the go to person for answers and design improvements (I'm an engineer), plus I was always a friend of the boss, which made me a valuable person to keep around. I was never a corp climber kind of person, liked what I did and didn't need those problems anyway. I'll be retiring in 18 months or sooner if I want.
@@Joepacker the go-to person thing is doable, but friend of the boss really depends on (1) whether boss wants to be your friend - sometimes bosses have their own biases or have certain preferences which are beyond most people's control, and (2) whether your boss is someone whose values and conduct you can stomach enough as well??? If bosses are *extremely* unethical, would you still be their friend though?
My last layoff in 2023 was by salary, the top three highest paid people in every department were fired. The people who were not affected were also all under 35 years old. I was the highest performer in my IT department, it did not matter. I got an award from the CEO a few months before the layoff lol. It's all about cost, my department went to shit after the layoff , lol things that took hours to get done now take weeks.
@@thebtron - I won a quality award for solving critical customer quality issues. I was going to travel to world headquarters to attend an awards banquet and meet the CEO. The awards ceremony was canceled due to Covid and I was shuffled into a different group with a new manager who didn’t like me. I was taken into a small meeting room and strongly encouraged to take an early retirement package. The message was clear. Take the package or you will be laid off. Ironically, the person who threatened me with layoff, was older than me and looked like the crypt keeper.
No job is safe. I worked at a company that was on a hiring spree, especially during covid. They kept going and going. I thought to myself "one day, this will end in layoffs." Eventually, it did. Companies need you until they don't.
The performance appraisal I received before being laid off was hand scribbled on the back of a length of paper from the dispenser in the bathroom to dry your hands. True story. One manager I worked with went to the company golf tournament and was paired with several people he didn't know and didn't work with (different departments). One of those people brought a non-employee friend who made a poor choice, causing some damage to a green on the 17th hole. Not the manager, not the employee that invited the person, but the non-employee. This situation was stated as a behind the scenes reason for said manager being on the layoff list (company had to pay for the repair to the tune of $3k. This was the last company function I attended, let alone future golf tournaments.
I know that the main focus of your video was concerning permanent employees, and it's a given that contractors/external consultants are the first out the door, but it's paramount for people to keep in mind. If you're a contractor and you think times are going to get tough (i.e. economic uncertainty), it behooves you to seek a permanent position, whether at the same company or a new one. This, of course, jives directly with cost (cutting). You're never safe, but being a perm is usually safER.
As someone who was chosen to stay, it sucks the same work, but now you have to do three times the workload even if less unit quantity is expected. And when or ever they bring the full workforce back, guess what you're rewarded PIZZIA PARTY!!!!!
After many years in the workforce, I’ve seen one other type of person that is targeted for the first round of layoffs. That is the employee who is the office complainer and gossip. The one who seems to always be right in the middle of any office drama and confusion. All the “pain in the neck” employees will be at the top of the “to go” list. Lesson there is, don’t be “that” person. If you see yourself becoming that person, it’s time to move on.
That’s a lesson a lot of people never learn. Someone else wrote the response “They lay off people they don’t like.” That’s not arbitrary - how often are people complaining about you, how much “coaching” do you need, how often are you the one complaining. I’ve had a lot of people that “ride the line” managing their performance so they just barely avoid disciplinary action. Those people were shortlisted if we ever had to cut people.
I've seen both a last in first out and a closest to retirement layoff happen at the same time. I've also seen layoffs done by project and job title - if your project can be put off it and you get cut and then for jobs need to be done but less people generally the middle management gets cut.
I've only seen top performers that made the most money get laid off, people that were at the company way too long and the newer employees that had no clout, influence and power!
When you start seeing the consulting companies come in, then know a bunch of layoffs are coming in 3-4 months. A lot of times the signs are there, but people choose to ignore. Keep your resume updated and keep your network active.
I am SO glad that I'm now retired. Here in the northeastern part of the country, and looking at some snow storms coming in the day after Thanksgiving and knowing I don't have to even budge from the house, but MOST of all not having to deal with THIS crap anymore ..... is priceless. I feel for anyone affected by layoffs because I've been there.
I recently went through a scenario where I was getting great reviews and then the new manager that I moved under gave me inconsistent reviews, my guess is that my work ethic made home look bad. It got to a point where I did not care and ended up getting demoted by someone way more incompetent then him. I just kept chugging along until I had a big fight with one of his minions. I had decided to leave and that same day I got picked up by another Manager who knew my worth in another dept. within the organization. Now I have the keys... funny how things turn around.
One huge tech company in Bay Area announced that they decided no move a huge department from one location to a much cheaper location. And gave 2 months to move or leave.
My Dad worked in upper management in the aerospace and defense industry. He told his managers and supervisors to keep and maintain these lists, to decide who to let go in any layoff. Based on performance -- Bottom 5% -- Bottom 10% -- Bottom 20%
The voluntary severance issue. That occurred in my last job, companywide offer to all at the start of the pandemic. I was planning to retire in four years, we had a pension plan, and the loss of future pension income ('future returns') would not be made up by taking the payout offered even if invested at 5% to 6%. An even easier decider was buying an independent medical insurance plan while waiting to get on Medicare at 65 would have gobbled up that payout pretty quickly and the company did not offer any help with that aspect.
In my company, 90% of the engineering department (about 93 people) was laid off... I am still here, not sure for how long, I feel a lot of guilt, since I considered my coworkers better performant than me... I am already looking for another job.
interesting. The large company I work for seems to target the employees with the most tenure.... It seems having tenure and not getting promoted quickly makes you a target for getting put on a plan and getting disappeared. People with experience and tenure want to get paid more, much cheaper to hire new grads who are just trying to do a good job and not question things.
Modern day corporations are like adult day cares. Physical labor jobs they undermine you if you work hard then relax despite meeting goals. Office jobs they lay off, if you don’t make enough sales or have returning customers. Basically, do bare minimum cause corporations companies they don’t care about you or your future. They will not invest in you, like for example not laying off immediately after a disability leave employee return. You will see that with paternity leave as well when women are pregnant. After they return to work giving birth, they get laid off. Especially when the economy worsens, items to sell cost more to make or ship to sell. First and foremost take care of yourself. Your manager will not know the limitations of yourself or job workload. Unless they do the work themselves. Other than cheap pizza parties or restaurants or social get together, why don’t they maximize revenue then increase the bonuses and holiday celebrations as result? They rather focus on cheap thrills and corporate DEI drama monthly. Then complain in performance meetings while products are not being built or sold.
never go above and beyond your job description.....all that does is lead to more work for no extra compensation...you busting your ass extra for them will be be seen as " normal"
At a corporation where my husband worked, a utility in a very major city, the corporation gave EVERYBODY, every employee, a Myers-Briggs test. It seems anybody who got a ENTJ and INTJ got laid off. However, everybody with 10 years or better, and everybody who was in a certain age group, got the services of the equivalent of resume and interview writers/ coaches, and a paycheck for every year of service, plus health insurance. As it turned out, hubz was hired as a contractor doing the same thing for twice the money per hour, still had health insurance, and had money in the bank.
@@loriloristuff that is shocking. I've known a couple people who test as an NTJ temperament and they're intelligent, independent, down to earth, accurate, and honest. They aren't easily intimated, offended, or easily emotionally hurt. I get along tremendously well with them. I can't help but wonder if those with an NTJ temperament were rooted out due to their "problematic" independence, autonomy, and no nonsense.
It was sort of easy for me to figure that out in my job. Laid off 4 months ago. I do know one factor for sure.. I was one to be picked out based on how expensive it is to keep me. It was NOT an issue with my pay. Or performance. I did have health insurance through the company for me and my wife. I'm 54.
I worked for a company that did quarterly RIF’s and a person I knew on the HR board said people ended up on their list was those they remembered their name. high performers or low. didn’t matter
A few years ago I was laid off and the company did something very interesting. They laid off no one under 45 years old and for every birth year from 45 years old and on they made sure to lay off at least one person born in that year. Unfortunately I was the only layoff with my birth year and as I was over 60 there may not have been many other options for them if they were to stick to the pattern. Thankfully I was brought back 6 months later when the company finally realized that none of the things I used to do were getting done (or even capable of being done by) others. Hoping to hang on for another 4 years or so before retiring (or at least retiring from this job) but we are looking at layoffs again so who knows what could happen this time?
Comes down to: - Do you bring them money, value, or modern skills? - Is your role aligned with long term company goals or where management wants to go? - If not, are you actively working to help shift towards their goals in an obvious way? - Are you a good long-term investment at the company? Ageism sucks, but it also is about how much return you will bring in 5, 10 years from now vs a new, ambitious hire. - How much growth will you have compared to a new hire, and is the cost difference worth it or is a clean slate possibility better? - Are you proactive towards company goals or reactive. Reactive is fine if you are effective. Proactive is potentially better. - Are you a flight risk? If you get a promotion, will you leave shortly after? - Is it possible an incompetent higher-up can't/won't take responsibility and let the lower people take the fall? Maybe the company will eventually fold anyway, but that's life.
Never took part in team building events. I don't feel like hanging out with coworkers after work is my thing. Plus working on the side projects. I think they really want workers to hang around after work. Opposite is being on the list
Could be having a performance issue that becomes noticeable when they are about to do layoffs. That's what I feel happened to me, where it was partially my fault, but I felt early on the manager decided he didn't want me around regardless. At least I got some extra salary and knew I would be fired weeks before it happened. Needed some extra cash to recover from the burnout from that massive amount of stress for months.
I ended up getting laid off with an exemplary rating a few months back during my vacation. Hang in there to my fellow unemployed and you will find something better!!
Hi Matt. I've been watching your videos for a while and I'm intrigued on what it's like in the auto trade. I like how you show things from a dealers perspective, that it's not always plain sailing and massive profits but taking a gamble with some cars and not always winning. Definitely being in the motor trade is not for the faint hearted
Having a 3-6 month emergency fund in a high-yield savings account (not a brokerage account or your roth ira) is what most financial advisors recommend for protecting yourself from things like layoffs.
IBM Cloud laid me off on 17 September 2024. My manager said unlike past layoffs, he had zero say who to layoff. The list came from "high up" and he had to sign an NDA not to talk about it. He tried really hard to fight for me. He wanted to layoff 2-3 other people before me. Now two projects are in major jeopardy.
If you work in tech the USA, you could very well be on the layoff list because all the domestic positions are being offshored to cheaper locales. In other words, you make over $20/hr in tech and your foreign counterpart is willing to work for that pay scale. Has nothing to do with anything else, just your geography and your company gambling they can get the same production for less elsewhere.
I manage construction sites and layoffs have always been a fact of life for us. Often time I am asked to give reviews or choose people for layoffs. The highly productive people who are willing to work overtime, and have been with the company for an extended period never get laid off. If you’re doing the bare minimum, and have zero loyalty to the company you’re the first to go. It really is that simple. It’s not personal, I have a job to run and I’m going to keep the people who make me look good.
After 21 years at the company, they laid me off, and I was told that in the new organization, I did not fix it, the funny things. A year later, I learned that they were looking for someone who could do the same things I did.
In the past laid off twice. Each time was head count issue and I was newest hire. Both after company sale/divestiture. Didn't matter I did critical Finance functions. I thought I was safe with that, NOPE!!! It sucks. So always keep resume fresh and work your network and keep connections to folks. For me, it helped me move onto better situations and save for emergency fund.
I’ve been down this road twice with Fortune 500 companies. This is the big one in my experience: You are management or management support with no direct reports, you supervise no one but make good money. I was warned about this by senior coworkers before taking a position. They were correct. I was RIFd 2 years later.
If you need help getting back on your feet after a layoff, here's how I can help: www.alifeafterlayoff.com/career-resume-training-courses/
Crazy timing.Just got laidoff from my dreamjob today, but thank you for this video, I needed it. Will def check out your program to get back on feet.
@@ALifeAfterLayoff I don't ever think about my old job no no
The past two companies I worked at laid off their senior employees first, simply because they've had higher salaries than the new ones
That's been my experience as well.
This usually doesn't happen in employee owned companies where they lay off the younger guys first because the older guys have tons of shares of the company and laying them off would cost the money tons of cash. So they focus on the younger guy with low buy in.
YEA also add how well they kiss the boses Foot
Bet those companies won't be around for long with no experienced people and the ones they have getting older will jump way before they are pushed - once they have that reputation, apart from a recession they will die.
New employees go first because they're new and senior employees go first because they make too much. I'm confused. Don't be new and don't be senior?
1. You're not good enough
2. You're too good
3. Because they don't like you enough.
4. We pay you too much
5. You hurt management's feelings.
@@cbushin That is his point number 3.
You don't kiss enough ass.
@@cbushin Feelings? More like egos. Management has no feelings. Managers are managers because they lust authority and power. Vanity!!!
If the boss likes you, you stay. If they don’t, you go.
@josephj6521 it's who you blow and who you know, on your knees seen it with kisser assers!
Something even the boss with the whole department gets laid off
This. As a former Manager and Director, this is exactly correct. Fundamentally, a good person wins out every time. You cannot discount the benefit of a personable and nice worker. I will take one over a highly productive drama queen every time.
That's why some employees go out of their way to bootlick their managers and directors.
@@tanalson - In the Air Force, my office got us a brand new Second Lieutenant. The four of us in the office were all Master Sergeants. I was a Senior Master Sergeant. After about a week, our Lieutenant looked at my co-worker, and asked him politely to "please keep your nose out of my ass." The rest of us scattered to tell the rest of the unit just how cool our new Lieutenant was. This was in 1988, and he retired as a full Colonel about ten years ago. Bosses are well aware of who the bootlickers are.
Listen when you get to a certain point or age these layoffs gets old, I say never stay loyal to these companies and market yourself.
Agreed, only problem is if they lay off based on seniority (last in first out). So if you find a new job, make sure you go to one that does not layoffs based heavily on seniority.
And age discrimination is so rampant ,it's pathetic, when young people say good riddance to these old farts, what goes around comes around, sad but true, at 30 in China you have already peaked and then drummed out!😮
There is no loyalty. None is given and none should be expected. It's just business.
Zero loyalty.
@tonggao-q7v it's always been like that, the only person that is loyal to you is your dawg, he doesn't care if you have 3 eyes, and he or she will be by yourself and doesn't chest on you like a wandering spouse period!
I've never seen a low performer get laid off in my life. It's always whoever won't bend the knee to the manager/lead, which is never the bottom-sucking low performer.
gold!!
Me too
You need to work for a better company. That’s never been my experience and I’ve worked for many Fortune 500 companies
Seconded
@donh1572 The last thing a fortune 500 corporation wants is an employee with a backbone😂
It's definitely not performance related. It's who they like, the end.
You mean it's who they don't like who gets laid off? Yep, I've seen it.
Performance is only a very small part. It's who they like. A buddy buddy ranking system.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to be disliked or even outright hated in the workplace. I have had a target on my back at literally every job I have had, unprovoked. At three of those jobs, I was protected by seniority and/or a desperate need for my services. But that didn't stop coworkers from being nasty, or even accosting or stalking me. And I got blamed by my supervisors for it all.
@@jenniferburchill3658 Working in corporate America I learned that managers and HR tend to take sides in disputes between employees rather than remain neutral and gather all facts as they are supposed to.
True. I've seen high performers getting let go because they were a threat to average contributors. Those that play the long game are the ones that tend to survive
I use to work with an incredible engineer who was a top performer. He told me that anybody can get laid off. He said that he had already been laid off from two jobs. He thought that he would work for Texas Instruments forever but the economy went downhill. Ten years after that conversation, he was laid off again because he was making too much money and he was too old.
Old story. You get your dream job and think you will stay with them until you retire and get your gold watch. I did it twice and it never worked out.
Dang I was thinking of applying to TI but seems like hardware engineering culture is the same. AMD laid off 1000 people even though they beat Intel and made historically high profit but Lisa su said she wants to put that money into more AI so there goes the livelihood of 1000 people
I was laid off from one company the day after I qualified for health care benefits. A different company laid me off one week after giving me a nice raise. I am loyal to no one but myself.
This happened to me two weeks ago. I was devastated. I was the top performer to and just won an award from it two months ago.
Let it be a lesson to you. Never work hard.
OR stop figuring out the reason and focus on what’s next.
Exact same happened to me. Lesson learned - invest your time in office politics rather than in doing the actual work .. and you'll be safe ..
Awards are useless. Just show me the money.
@@ecchioni - God help you if you ever worked for someone like me. I would make your life hell.
All the companies I've ever worked for never laid people off. They would just fire you, and the employees who have been there the longest and made the most money were always the first on the chopping block. The longer you work for an employer and the more money you are making, the bigger the target becomes on your back. There is no such thing as long-term careers anymore. All jobs are temporary. My advice is to learn as many specialized skills, trades, and professions as you can and start legitimate businesses. Work for yourself.
trades dont help they want you gone by apx age 55
@dknowles60 it's not just trade work ya NEET. Consulting, recruiting, information skills. Those soloprenuerships are the future. Trades are stupid unless it's really niched with solid margins
Now I get why the old kicked tbe bucket after retiring.
The idea of becoming my own boss gives me nausea.
As a recently retired aerospace worker, who's been laid off several times in 45 years. You can't be a one trick pony, take advantage of any additional training a employer offers. Trust me, it will help immensely help after a lay off.
One of my layoffs was the best thing to happen to me I did not realize until years later
Your videos make me depressed 😢 but honestly i hate this job market.
You and me both!
I agree with you . His content (to me) often comes off as if he’s actually these corporations that we are trying to avoid. He’s only helpful to understand the “corporate” mindset as he just seems to regurgitate the employees experience but... I keep awaiting something groundbreaking from him and it’s just more of the same toxic work culture speak vs truly how to beat them at their own game using the recruiters secrets . But I guess if you know NOTHING he’s helpful 🤷🏾♀️ ….however, for me, his stance isn’t clear enough to truly call him an employee advocate! He’s talks in circles a little too much for me and I never walk away feeling better, I always feel worse and walk away feeling like , “it’s just the way it is”. Much success to you all and it will get better for your situation whomever reads this💕💯
@@hopeinajar77 exactly!
@@icequeen7025 His videos, from my perspective at least, seem to blame the victim.
When I was laid off once I noticed that my 2 part-time colleagues could stay, I had to go. My boss, a doctor in physics, had to go. Sales engineers with good qualifications had to go as well....I guess they really chose for salaries...the most expensive people were removed.
@@Tahitianpearl75 yes many companies realized damn why pay full time with benefits when they can break up the work into multiple contractors 💀
@@chozart88that actually costs more in most cases
@@cpK054L Agreed. I've always suspected it has more to do with the reporting of those costs than the actual costs. Big companies waste money like crazy, but it gets glossed over simply because of the "buckets" that have been created for those costs. Some buckets become more justified than others, even if they cost more for the same return.
@Lessenjr I'm guessing they expense contractors instead of pay rolling. So they save on quarterly taxes and it's easier to just let them go compared to employees.
There's a lot of reasons cost, needs, personal bias, jealousy and countless other reasons.
When my last company had a redundancy exercise, over 100 workers had to complete about 10 sides of paper on their skills, qualifications and any other supporting information that they wanted to include. About 20 managers attended a 'wash up' review meeting where they selected who was going to be made redundant, which lasted all of 30 minutes.
There was no way they could have reviewed all of the information, it was just an exercise to give the 'impression' they were following a process.
The decisions were already made before the meeting.
never be comfortable at any company. Always expect the worst. you can be replaced.
Three biggest mistakes.
1. I cannot be replaced. Yes you can. Make yourself as valuable as possible but if you die tomorrow your company will still survive and go on.
2. Stay current. Technology and skills change. If you don't you become obsolete.
3. Keep any eye on the job market and network. It sucks to get laid off but if you known what is going on and have contacts you just move on to the next phase of your life.
So glad I saved for retirement and will soon leave all of this bull shit behind soon.
I would add a fourth one - Get your money up. Live within your means, and save money. Also, find other streams of income like investments or even side hustles to build up your income, so if you get laid off, you have a nice cushion to hold you over just in case. In this economy, it’s taking people twice as long to find a comparable job, and if you’re an older worker, it’s taking 3-4 times as long, or worse, you’ll never find a comparable job.
My company learned that #1 can sometimes be true if you are the guru on some old system that no younger person would have had any experience with.
Multiple streams of income is so true. I'm in my 50's and things started to go south at work. I got excited about it and retired. I thanked my boss for showing me the light.
lay offs are part of normal work life now. You can't stop it from happening. SO the best strategy is to face it and deal with it instead of avoid it. Keep yourself that emergency fund, and keep your marketable skills growing so you can bounce back from a layoff. If you are in a role that would struggle if you had to go back into the open market, consider your own strategy to leave that role on your own terms instead of waiting to get laid off and take the initiative to develop new skills.
Also keep your ear to the ground for rumblings of layoffs so you can make an exit on your own terms/timeframe.
Uhhh no, you're wrong. The best thing to do now is start a soloprenuership. Or enjoy being a cubicle farm slave.
Wise words indeed.
I’m old enough to remember when announcing layoffs meant the company was not doing well. Now, layoffs mean increasing profits!
Leave on your own terms? I don't want to insult you, but the only instance when you leave on your own terms is when the environment you in is so toxic, you can't exist in there any more. Don't even leave for more money. in fact, that's the last reason you should jump jobs. Again unless my previous point. Because that's exactly what they want you to do. If leave, they won't have to buy you out.
No, they don't. That's just the reason they document for you. Really it's whoever the upper manager likes the least.
True, but sometimes these managers lose their jobs and their favorites also go.
@@raybod1775 When is the last time anyone has seen a manager laid off? I've never once seen a manager laid off.
Agreed. A lot of people dont think this, but its so true.
Exactly
Never be loyal to an employer. NEVER.
@@parler8698 Very good advice! Never thought this way until I was unceremoniously laid off after devoting 14 yrs to my organization.
Absolutely. Loyalty is a two way street . Corporations rarely if ever show any loyalty to employees, so why should employees show any loyalty to the company
I learned that lesson too.
Don't be a serf basically
I remember Phillips (Dutch company) was huge in electronics and components and the new CEO decided everyone over 50 was to be made redundant, a few years later Phillips collapsed, and no longer exists. Experience, even old experience always wins because the mistakes have already been made - work smarter not harder - do it now - never respect your colleagues unless they deserve it - don't fratenise after work you will regret it and most youngsters are not worth their pay check.......Discuss.
I wondered what happened to Phillips.
That sounds like what happened to Daimler-Benz in the 1990s. Their cars were once considered a great value even though they are higher priced than the competition, but that all changed when they got rid of the old and experienced engineering/design staff for newer, younger, less-costly "talent".
My brother and every coworker in his department over 60 years old was laid off in 2020 due to Covid. They were replaced with much younger people on H-1 visas who apparently are not affected by Covid.
H1B visa = Cheap Labor, Chinese & Indian H1B Visa = Cheap Labor & Slave
Which company? Name them
That's age discrimination and nothing more.
My date was July 31, 2020.
The H1V visa is the biggest scam ever played on American workers .
Strange that no political party wants to end this system
I was once told that I suck as a developer and should be also wearing a Project Manager's and a Business Analyst's hat. Most of the time at work, I was fixing somebody else's code, sometimes, adding completely missing functionality to the existing product that somehow made it to production. They put me on PIP, I lasted for 8 months after that and found a new job that doubled my salary at the end.
I was told, as a software tester, that I am in the bottom half of the company. I already had 233% the workload of the testers in the other team. Then they said I would work partial days on this work, and pickup work for an off-shore team. The mgr of the other team said "I don't know how you are getting all this work done." Then she added 300% more work.
Proof that they were trying to bury me so they could say "She's not keeping up".
The twist is, the off-shore people are so unproductive, that I "can" 'keep up'.
But yeah, when I saw that all the QA jobs (for the Big Brother company that bought our little US company) are in India, I knew the plan. I give it till the end of year.
@@deanowexford7021 That is called 'constructive dismissal'.
If true, you need to look for another job because it’s easier to get hired when you’re already employed.
@@raybod1775that’s no longer true anymore 😑
@@deanowexford7021 Yeah I went through the same BS when my company announced that they were off-shoring some of our team function to Bangalore in India. I asked, "So our team is being off-shored to India?" Answer: "No, only the basic functions". A year later our entire team was off-shored to India and we all got laid off.
I had cancer last year, and my performance isn't as good as it was before treatment due to chemo brain. My productivity is slower and I have memory issues. I thought I could just take really good notes and record meetings, but that doesn't work when you are called on to answer a question in the middle of a meeting and they ask you which team members from the finance department you had in a meeting with you in August and you can't recall their names off the top of your head. Got laid off due to "budget issues".
There are laws protecting cancer patients. Please look for them. ❤
Same thing happened to my husband. No chemo, but the hormone therapy for prostate cancer didn’t help performance. A few months after his radiation treatments he got his notice….
I'm glad you were able to read between the lines. They aren't always straight with you....
My company is offshoring and turning to AI and it’s been a nightmare transition. I’m already getting ready because I know it’s a matter of time before they come for my department.
Don’t wait to look for another job, it’s always easier to get a new job when you’re employed.
@@raybod1775 But on the flip side, it's harder to find the time to job search and schedule interviews. And there's the need to cover your tracks with your current boss if a potential new employer interviews you.
If you are in sales or have any form of budget, a warning sign is when your key accounts are suddenly shifted to someone else or your budgets are revised to set you up for failure.
At Dell, they are laying off the more senior employees because they are more expensive. They are being replaced with cheaper entry level new grads
@@amastr-fc5kw - Dell is one of the worst employers. If you’re looking for a job in a toxic environment with backstabbing coworkers and stuffed-shirt micromanagers, then Dell is the company for you.
That’s happening the last two years at my company. Unfortunately we are now struggling with execution because it takes ten of the new people to do the work of one senior person. On some cases they can never get the work done. I can seriously hand a task to one if our college new hires and it will take them 60 hours and I have to help them. I can get it done in four hours. It’s awful. Lots of burden on the few senior folks left. In our case they just encouraged the senior people to retire by stopping pension accruals and offering a buy out. They left in droves. Way more than they expected.
Yep, hire cheap inexperienced grads and burden the senior staff with mentoring them. Funny how you never get a cheap executive needing constant mentoring from the CEO.
This is why it’s important to not stay loyal with companies and jump to the next opportunity when it presents itself.
This can eventually backfire because you're creating a pattern. You can be seen as acquiring new knowledge or seen as escaping tougher duties. As you get older people won't let you get by on charm.
@@annoyedok321 I disagree. What’s the point of staying in a company if you are not acquiring any new knowledge because it’s going to backfire on you as well because it will be seen that you are stagnating in your role. Also, normally when you are acquiring new knowledge, it’s because you want more of a challenge and tougher duties. Your comment does not make sense at all.
@@DiamondFlame45 Maybe you're the exception where you "acquired all the knowledge you could" but you're going to bundled in with the dozen bullshiters before you who really left because they couldn't hack taking on more challenging tasks. While at face value it is a good rule to follow, the but here is you have to be careful about creating a pattern and having your cynicism be self-sabotaging in the long run.
@@annoyedok321 I disagree. The climate has completely changed. Who even retires with a company? I have friends who got laid off before they completed their 1st year at no fault of their own. Most companies don’t even offer pensions to incentivize tenure. At the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for your career and know the pros and cons of each move.
Re voluntary redundancy- As a general rule, if you are offered it, take it. The very fact you are being offered it means the company views your role as 'at risk'. If you don't take, you are likely to end up being laid off further down the line on a compulsory basis, often with a worse package than the voluntary round. It's also a sure sign that your career is over at the company and you won't be progressing. Take the voluntary every time.
I was offered a massive severance to retire. My salary was double that of our most recent hires. All good, I was happy that the young uns kept their job. A year later, the company went under, and NOBODY got severance. Oops. If you're with a struggling company, get out when you can.
Conform, take credit for what others do, be a "minority" and make friends in management and be visible, this is what allows you to stay employed and gets you promoted.
I’m having the opposite problem. My boss is worthless and he won’t let me go to another department because I’m doing both our jobs.
Sometimes it's a mass layoff, so really you have no control over that, especially if it's the whole department.
And sometimes it is just one person affected. That's bad, at least if it is you.
Yeah, when I was laid off it was because our entire department had been outsourced to India. If you weren’t on any sort of corrective action, you could post for jobs in other departments, but I just took the severance package and left.
0:00 - 1:02 This entire section 100% describes my most recent layoff that happened to me at my last company 2 months ago. We really are in some dark times with the job market and I seriously hope that it improves regarding hiring and employee retention 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
I just survived a second round of layoffs where I work and the decisions were made based on teams. Budgets were cut for certain teams, so people were eliminated from those teams. I’ve noticed the people with the most absences were the first cut. Two people I know with extended health issues were both cut, and several people who regularly use all the PTO they can were cut.
I had a coworker see me as a good performer and then start sabotaging my work. He put up signs to call people to start harassing me.
I work inside the management circle. It has nothing to do with your evaluations. E-vals can be manipulated. It's all about the work place dynamic, if people like you, if you are a "good fit", it's not about your on-the-job performance, it's about the after work stuff in terms of being in the "popular circle", going to football games with the crew, being in the big Church with the higher ups, even having intercourse with the more powerful people.
I've been through multiple layoffs and the only factors I've ever seen used are management perception, project assignment and cost.
Of course, if you survive a layoff, you should be looking so you have something before layoff round 2.
The people making the layoff decisions rarely know who is actually a good performer with critical skills.
In my experience the criteria was generally
1. Are there people that management wants to get rid of (not generally a performance based decision)
If so, a layoff is a great time to clean house.
2. Are there projects that are underperforming
If so, get rid of most/all of the people on the team if it would take any effort to move them to another project.
3. Are there roles that go across multiple projects that we can downsize (this can mean skillset)
If so, get rid of folks with the least management visibility (not the same as a poor performer)
4. Are there expensive people whose work we can just assign to a junior employee (all resources are interchangeable)
If so, get rid of the expensive folks
This can be fine if the experienced employee was being used for tasks appropriate for a junior employee, but that is rarely the case.
Six months ago, I was laid off, and I couldn't help but notice that everyone else who was let go, including myself, were all, let's say, 'non-native'. Quite the coincidence, especially considering that all the leadership team were born in the country. Later, all those positions were re-filled by people from the Philippines, costing the company a third of what it would in Europe. People are just discarded like trash these days.
ended up in this situation. I'll have my call tomorrow and will have 60 days to secure a new job. This is my first-ever layoff from the first company I've worked at since graduation. I'm feeling numb.
Losing you job is like getting stabbed in the chest. It is a horrible feeling
@@Thiccolo At first,then you make saving and stay up to date with your resume and the market
I always assumed I would get the push and was ready for it and usually laughed when they told me, funny thing was they never knew how much they missed me until I had gone and replaced me with 2 or 3 people. I made and still make the job I do look easy - it's not, but experience is everything, having done the college and Uni courses, listened to older experienced workers when I started and always knew that if you did nothing, the company didn't get paid, and one day you wouldn't get paid - lost on a lot of people who are stunned when they lose their job........
Not if you’re prepared. Never be comfortable at work. Always have one foot out the door (emergency fund always getting topped off, resume updated, references ready)
That's because you know homelessness is knocking
Affects your mental health when you don't have a safety net ,no one to help out ,no roomatescin apartment to split rent etc ,nothing lined up you are cooked , new home is the streets, or car, rather depressing!😮
I'm 64 , live in a state with excellent unemployment, and hate my job. This is good info.
Corporations are a scam and I am doing everything I can do to get out of that trap. I'm sick of my ability to feed my family tied to soulless HR automatons determinating my future.
Exactly. I'm with you here. I'm so sick of being a tool. Not a person. If I hear another "our employees are our greatest asset" I'm going to throw up.
I got laid of as a counter balance against an ageism lawsuit. A young guy to balance out the old guys. I know this because in our severance paperwork was a printed spreadsheet of every person that got laid off, divided by department, with each employees age and the department average laid off age. Basically daring us to sue for ageism.
Networks suck... nobody is there to help you... you are really on your own, deep down nobody cares ... they are just happy you are in that situation and not them.
So very true
It's not that I don't believe you that companies use performance metrics to choose who to layoff, it's that companies have terrible metrics about the kind of performance that really matters, and they tend to value all the wrong things in the metrics they do have, so they make terrible choices. Here's a concept: Grow employees rather than plucking them and replacing them all the time like interchangeable chess pieces. That is sending loyalty down the organization and it will bounce back at you.
Absolutely! I was on a team of 12 and 2 years later there are 4 left. They didn't rehire any of the roles. I was also let go.
But the people who stayed spent so much flipping time making PPTs on what they were working on and the status of their work. Rather than just getting the work done. They are all still there. I recently watched a video explaining this phenomenon.
Those who constantly do these fancy updates and status presentations are actually less likely to be let go. That's because your boss typically doesn't know everything you have on your plate. So when your working hard (for me working until 3 am sometimes) but do not spend time on sending fancy PPTs listing everything I am doing and it's status... I was laid off.
Do the fancy PPT! Report the status of everything you're doing! Even if it means you're doing less actual work. I learned this the hard way! 😊
My last job I was in a meeting where they talked about laying off a woman who’s medical cost was getting to high. They were self insured. I couldn’t believe they straight up said that
Please, people! Stop ✋🏻 overly worrying about things outside your control or someone's perception of you. 😶
Will do, Montgomery Burns!
When you have a family to feed and no job, you'll worry just fine
Companies first cut costs instead of developing their organization and products. I have a feeling many current companies will go the way of GE, McDonnell Douglas, Sears,...
Might as well throw Boeing onto that list at the rate they're going...
In Australia, we have unfair dismissal laws, which means after a short probationary period, you cannot sack a worker unless they commit a crime or are dangerous.
So if you are on your probation to get to that permancy, you are on that list.
I was at a company where they wanted to bring in a new person.
Someone had to leave to fit them in. As the only non-permanent worker at the time, I got squeezed out because then it is quick and clean, rather than the legalities of getting rid of a permanent worker.
Not performance based.
I was the highest performing employee with a previous previous job. The chart all shows it every two weeks.
I was axed, and my co-workers had a breath of relief, that stops them from looking incompetent.
I can tell you a few ways to be first in line to get laid off.
1. Be the new guy. Last hired, first fired.
2. Be a contractor, not an employee. One of the reasons employers love to hire contractors is that they can be easily terminated at a moment’s notice. Need to cut costs? Dump all the contractors!
3. Be a technical writer. They are always seen as expendable. Products don’t really need documentation, do they? If they do, we’ll just have the engineers write it.
4. Be experienced. If you have decades of experience in your profession, that means you’re expensive. The company can’t afford you. So you’re terminated, and your job will be given to an inexperienced new hire - or even better, a random person in India who can be paid a quarter of what you were. So what if he’s not a native speaker of the language he’ll be writing manuals in? He’s cheaper, and that’s all that matters.
Two guys at my company just got laid off yesterday. They both were great workers, but they just had one of the hardest jobs in the company to both find and quantify success. I feel kind of shitty, though, because one of my projects this past year was to attempt to better measure the secondary impacts of their work. This was not easy and there were only a few things I could confidently measure and give them to show to the bosses, but there were also a lot of maybes/probablies that add up but I couldn't confidently verify any of them with the limited data. I'm not to blame and there were other factors involved, but I still feel like if I got them a few more results to show their impact, they'd still be here.
the problem with KPIs, for some teams, they aren't actually quantifyable, and become subjective, and when that happens, you see people laid off, who were key members and later brought back.
When a Big Brother company bought our little American company, and I saw that all their QA jobs are in India, I knew it was a matter of time. I expect to get it in the neck before year end (after I finish uploading the test cases into the new system).
I'm coming your way, Bryan, so save me a space...
The US needs to come out with a way to tax job outsourcing...
Thankfully in Ireland, we have better employment laws than in the US.
I was made redundant a year ago. The selection criteria was Last in First Out. It definitely wasn't performance related.
Sometimes, it's where billability is the most important metric.
We had several months on redeployment while we elected representatives who were on the list for collective consultation to negotiate the terms of redundancy.
We then had individual consultation where we were presented with severance packages.
This lasted 5 months, when we still got paid our normal salaries.
In Ireland, if you try and let someone go for "performance" reasons, it's messy because we have slightly more power here and can take you to court.
Most jobs have 6 months probationary periods here. Sadly, while on probation, you have flip all rights. It's once you're made permanent that you're hard to get rid of. Failure to pass probation can be completely arbitrary.
2:07 wow that 9 box was helpful. Thanks for sharing this.
I had to fill in something similar as a manager once fairly out the blue, didn't think anything of it.... 6 months later I knew redundancies were coming. Showed me how far in advance these things can be planned (it was a company owned by Blackstone, so they meticulously plan this shit)
It is based on your pay grade scale
When you are on the top end of the pay range for your position and there is no promotion you get cut.
1st to get cut will be sales, marketing, HR, accounting, overlapping roles, politics
politics, the yes men get to stay. They are the bag lappers.
I agree and also lack of confidence of your manager.
Brown nosers
That's why it is toxic.
The magic apron cult flunkies stay others are free to work elsewhere
Except in the few well run companies
My employer's process is to eliminate positions that began with the title "senior." And highly paid employees over 60 years old. To prevent age discrimination lawsuits, they also eliminate an equal number of people in their 20s.
Most bosses think loyalty is the most important thing. Layoffs are a great time to settle old grudges.
I've been working for the same company for 45 years and in that time there have been at least 4-5 major layoffs and I got through all of them. The way I made it through all those was I always was learning and collecting more information about our products and becoming the go to person for answers and design improvements (I'm an engineer), plus I was always a friend of the boss, which made me a valuable person to keep around. I was never a corp climber kind of person, liked what I did and didn't need those problems anyway. I'll be retiring in 18 months or sooner if I want.
@@Joepacker the go-to person thing is doable, but friend of the boss really depends on (1) whether boss wants to be your friend - sometimes bosses have their own biases or have certain preferences which are beyond most people's control, and (2) whether your boss is someone whose values and conduct you can stomach enough as well??? If bosses are *extremely* unethical, would you still be their friend though?
My last layoff in 2023 was by salary, the top three highest paid people in every department were fired. The people who were not affected were also all under 35 years old. I was the highest performer in my IT department, it did not matter. I got an award from the CEO a few months before the layoff lol. It's all about cost, my department went to shit after the layoff , lol things that took hours to get done now take weeks.
@@thebtron - I won a quality award for solving critical customer quality issues. I was going to travel to world headquarters to attend an awards banquet and meet the CEO.
The awards ceremony was canceled due to Covid and I was shuffled into a different group with a new manager who didn’t like me. I was taken into a small meeting room and strongly encouraged to take an early retirement package. The message was clear. Take the package or you will be laid off. Ironically, the person who threatened me with layoff, was older than me and looked like the crypt keeper.
All awards are useless tacky swag/trinkets that don't pay your bills. Show me the $$
@@picklerix6162 I'm envisioning Emperor Palpatine in my head...
No job is safe.
I worked at a company that was on a hiring spree, especially during covid. They kept going and going. I thought to myself "one day, this will end in layoffs." Eventually, it did.
Companies need you until they don't.
The performance appraisal I received before being laid off was hand scribbled on the back of a length of paper from the dispenser in the bathroom to dry your hands. True story.
One manager I worked with went to the company golf tournament and was paired with several people he didn't know and didn't work with (different departments). One of those people brought a non-employee friend who made a poor choice, causing some damage to a green on the 17th hole. Not the manager, not the employee that invited the person, but the non-employee. This situation was stated as a behind the scenes reason for said manager being on the layoff list (company had to pay for the repair to the tune of $3k. This was the last company function I attended, let alone future golf tournaments.
In my case 5 yrs ago my whole team was laid off and our jobs were outsourced.
I know that the main focus of your video was concerning permanent employees, and it's a given that contractors/external consultants are the first out the door, but it's paramount for people to keep in mind. If you're a contractor and you think times are going to get tough (i.e. economic uncertainty), it behooves you to seek a permanent position, whether at the same company or a new one. This, of course, jives directly with cost (cutting). You're never safe, but being a perm is usually safER.
As someone who was chosen to stay, it sucks the same work, but now you have to do three times the workload even if less unit quantity is expected. And when or ever they bring the full workforce back, guess what you're rewarded PIZZIA PARTY!!!!!
After many years in the workforce, I’ve seen one other type of person that is targeted for the first round of layoffs.
That is the employee who is the office complainer and gossip. The one who seems to always be right in the middle of any office drama and confusion.
All the “pain in the neck” employees will be at the top of the “to go” list.
Lesson there is, don’t be “that” person. If you see yourself becoming that person, it’s time to move on.
That’s a lesson a lot of people never learn. Someone else wrote the response “They lay off people they don’t like.” That’s not arbitrary - how often are people complaining about you, how much “coaching” do you need, how often are you the one complaining. I’ve had a lot of people that “ride the line” managing their performance so they just barely avoid disciplinary action. Those people were shortlisted if we ever had to cut people.
The complainer worker doesn’t even think he is a complainer. Yes for sure he is one of the first to let go.
Not if they are friends with the bosses/management.
I've seen both a last in first out and a closest to retirement layoff happen at the same time. I've also seen layoffs done by project and job title - if your project can be put off it and you get cut and then for jobs need to be done but less people generally the middle management gets cut.
I've only seen top performers that made the most money get laid off, people that were at the company way too long and the newer employees that had no clout, influence and power!
The shitty company i left wanted to cut people but instead of laying them off, made it so toxic and horrible that people wanted to quit
That sht is evil
When you start seeing the consulting companies come in, then know a bunch of layoffs are coming in 3-4 months. A lot of times the signs are there, but people choose to ignore. Keep your resume updated and keep your network active.
I am SO glad that I'm now retired. Here in the northeastern part of the country, and looking at some snow storms coming in the day after Thanksgiving and knowing I don't have to even budge from the house, but MOST of all not having to deal with THIS crap anymore ..... is priceless. I feel for anyone affected by layoffs because I've been there.
I recently went through a scenario where I was getting great reviews and then the new manager that I moved under gave me inconsistent reviews, my guess is that my work ethic made home look bad. It got to a point where I did not care and ended up getting demoted by someone way more incompetent then him. I just kept chugging along until I had a big fight with one of his minions. I had decided to leave and that same day I got picked up by another Manager who knew my worth in another dept. within the organization. Now I have the keys... funny how things turn around.
Employees should not be too hard on themselves. It often has nothing to do with you although if you are older it might be but you can't control that.
One huge tech company in Bay Area announced that they decided no move a huge department from one location to a much cheaper location. And gave 2 months to move or leave.
My Dad worked in upper management in the aerospace and defense industry.
He told his managers and supervisors to keep and maintain these lists, to decide who to let go in any layoff.
Based on performance
-- Bottom 5%
-- Bottom 10%
-- Bottom 20%
The voluntary severance issue. That occurred in my last job, companywide offer to all at the start of the pandemic. I was planning to retire in four years, we had a pension plan, and the loss of future pension income ('future returns') would not be made up by taking the payout offered even if invested at 5% to 6%. An even easier decider was buying an independent medical insurance plan while waiting to get on Medicare at 65 would have gobbled up that payout pretty quickly and the company did not offer any help with that aspect.
In my company, 90% of the engineering department (about 93 people) was laid off... I am still here, not sure for how long, I feel a lot of guilt, since I considered my coworkers better performant than me... I am already looking for another job.
interesting. The large company I work for seems to target the employees with the most tenure.... It seems having tenure and not getting promoted quickly makes you a target for getting put on a plan and getting disappeared. People with experience and tenure want to get paid more, much cheaper to hire new grads who are just trying to do a good job and not question things.
That is the entire world of consulting and investment banking
Modern day corporations are like adult day cares. Physical labor jobs they undermine you if you work hard then relax despite meeting goals. Office jobs they lay off, if you don’t make enough sales or have returning customers.
Basically, do bare minimum cause corporations companies they don’t care about you or your future. They will not invest in you, like for example not laying off immediately after a disability leave employee return. You will see that with paternity leave as well when women are pregnant. After they return to work giving birth, they get laid off. Especially when the economy worsens, items to sell cost more to make or ship to sell.
First and foremost take care of yourself. Your manager will not know the limitations of yourself or job workload. Unless they do the work themselves.
Other than cheap pizza parties or restaurants or social get together, why don’t they maximize revenue then increase the bonuses and holiday celebrations as result?
They rather focus on cheap thrills and corporate DEI drama monthly. Then complain in performance meetings while products are not being built or sold.
never go above and beyond your job description.....all that does is lead to more work for no extra compensation...you busting your ass extra for them will be be seen as " normal"
At a corporation where my husband worked, a utility in a very major city, the corporation gave EVERYBODY, every employee, a Myers-Briggs test. It seems anybody who got a ENTJ and INTJ got laid off.
However, everybody with 10 years or better, and everybody who was in a certain age group, got the services of the equivalent of resume and interview writers/ coaches, and a paycheck for every year of service, plus health insurance.
As it turned out, hubz was hired as a contractor doing the same thing for twice the money per hour, still had health insurance, and had money in the bank.
@@loriloristuff that is shocking. I've known a couple people who test as an NTJ temperament and they're intelligent, independent, down to earth, accurate, and honest. They aren't easily intimated, offended, or easily emotionally hurt. I get along tremendously well with them.
I can't help but wonder if those with an NTJ temperament were rooted out due to their "problematic" independence, autonomy, and no nonsense.
Watching these videos makes me pretty happy to work for state government. I worry about my sibling who works in HR for the private sector.
It was sort of easy for me to figure that out in my job. Laid off 4 months ago. I do know one factor for sure.. I was one to be picked out based on how expensive it is to keep me. It was NOT an issue with my pay. Or performance. I did have health insurance through the company for me and my wife. I'm 54.
I worked for a company that did quarterly RIF’s and a person I knew on the HR board said people ended up on their list was those they remembered their name. high performers or low. didn’t matter
A few years ago I was laid off and the company did something very interesting. They laid off no one under 45 years old and for every birth year from 45 years old and on they made sure to lay off at least one person born in that year. Unfortunately I was the only layoff with my birth year and as I was over 60 there may not have been many other options for them if they were to stick to the pattern. Thankfully I was brought back 6 months later when the company finally realized that none of the things I used to do were getting done (or even capable of being done by) others. Hoping to hang on for another 4 years or so before retiring (or at least retiring from this job) but we are looking at layoffs again so who knows what could happen this time?
This is highly accurate based on what I've seen and experienced in almost 40 years of IT.
Comes down to:
- Do you bring them money, value, or modern skills?
- Is your role aligned with long term company goals or where management wants to go?
- If not, are you actively working to help shift towards their goals in an obvious way?
- Are you a good long-term investment at the company? Ageism sucks, but it also is about how much return you will bring in 5, 10 years from now vs a new, ambitious hire.
- How much growth will you have compared to a new hire, and is the cost difference worth it or is a clean slate possibility better?
- Are you proactive towards company goals or reactive. Reactive is fine if you are effective. Proactive is potentially better.
- Are you a flight risk? If you get a promotion, will you leave shortly after?
- Is it possible an incompetent higher-up can't/won't take responsibility and let the lower people take the fall? Maybe the company will eventually fold anyway, but that's life.
I just noticed the Men at Work album in the background. Nice touch!
Never took part in team building events. I don't feel like hanging out with coworkers after work is my thing. Plus working on the side projects. I think they really want workers to hang around after work. Opposite is being on the list
Could be having a performance issue that becomes noticeable when they are about to do layoffs. That's what I feel happened to me, where it was partially my fault, but I felt early on the manager decided he didn't want me around regardless. At least I got some extra salary and knew I would be fired weeks before it happened. Needed some extra cash to recover from the burnout from that massive amount of stress for months.
I ended up getting laid off with an exemplary rating a few months back during my vacation. Hang in there to my fellow unemployed and you will find something better!!
Hi Matt. I've been watching your videos for a while and I'm intrigued on what it's like in the auto trade. I like how you show things from a dealers perspective, that it's not always plain sailing and massive profits but taking a gamble with some cars and not always winning. Definitely being in the motor trade is not for the faint hearted
I was laid off in March 2020 but was retiring in June anyway and they knew it. Got 10 years severance plus 60 days. For me the layoff was a bonus
10 years of severance? Were you there 40 years?
@@karagraham9764 uh, no, I was there ten years. Got 1 week pay for each year. Sorry for the confusion.
Having a 3-6 month emergency fund in a high-yield savings account (not a brokerage account or your roth ira) is what most financial advisors recommend for protecting yourself from things like layoffs.
IBM Cloud laid me off on 17 September 2024. My manager said unlike past layoffs, he had zero say who to layoff. The list came from "high up" and he had to sign an NDA not to talk about it. He tried really hard to fight for me. He wanted to layoff 2-3 other people before me. Now two projects are in major jeopardy.
If you work in tech the USA, you could very well be on the layoff list because all the domestic positions are being offshored to cheaper locales. In other words, you make over $20/hr in tech and your foreign counterpart is willing to work for that pay scale. Has nothing to do with anything else, just your geography and your company gambling they can get the same production for less elsewhere.
I manage construction sites and layoffs have always been a fact of life for us. Often time I am asked to give reviews or choose people for layoffs. The highly productive people who are willing to work overtime, and have been with the company for an extended period never get laid off. If you’re doing the bare minimum, and have zero loyalty to the company you’re the first to go. It really is that simple. It’s not personal, I have a job to run and I’m going to keep the people who make me look good.
After 21 years at the company, they laid me off, and I was told that in the new organization, I did not fix it, the funny things. A year later, I learned that they were looking for someone who could do the same things I did.
In the past laid off twice. Each time was head count issue and I was newest hire. Both after company sale/divestiture. Didn't matter I did critical Finance functions. I thought I was safe with that, NOPE!!! It sucks. So always keep resume fresh and work your network and keep connections to folks. For me, it helped me move onto better situations and save for emergency fund.
I’ve been down this road twice with Fortune 500 companies. This is the big one in my experience: You are management or management support with no direct reports, you supervise no one but make good money. I was warned about this by senior coworkers before taking a position. They were correct. I was RIFd 2 years later.