My Employer: Should I be worried?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The company I work for had been steadily growing for years now, as they are fond of repeatedly telling us every quarter. We’ve been breaking records for the past year or so on a regular basis. In fact, last quarter we completely shattered some records, and celebrated by…firing some people???

We were basically told we were doing awesome. Then about two weeks later we were told that some people were culled at the home office because we were something like two percent shy of our goals or something. Remember, the company is making more money than ever in it’s history, but it’s still not enough?

Since I started working there, I’ve seen my quarterly bonus shrink steadily before finally disappearing altogether. Again, this was while the company’s profitability grew year after year. I’ve also seen my meager quarter-a-year raise turn into a percentage. That became a two-tiered percentage, with the higher percentage never attainable because they always find something you need to work on in your annual review.

If that wasn’t bad enough, HR seems to be slowly shrinking away. First, our local HR person was terminated after shielding our immediate supervisor who was ultimately fired for sexual harassment (so it’s rumored.) She wasn’t missed, but was replaced by someone who was supposed to be a temporary fix. She became permanent and worked surprisingly well. But then she became a salesperson of all things!

They didn’t bother to replace her with a human being. They replaced her with a phone in an empty office. We now have to use that phone to call someone hundreds of miles away that covers like three different sites. We can talk to him in person if we want…every six to eight weeks. That’s the only way to deal with HR issues now.

The bottom line, a.k.a TL;DR… It seems the more records we break, the more money the company makes, the less we little people get. No more bonuses, subpar pay-rates, practically no HR, ever-increasing pressure to increase efficiency… Heck, I didn’t even get an anniversary gift this year like I usually do… We are constantly told how much money the company is making, but nothing changes (at least for the better) for my colleagues and I.

Should I be worried? If so, how worried? I’m a tiny cog in a big machine, but they’ve demonstrated they will chop whomever, wherever, for whatever reason they dream up.

Will it ever get better? :frowning:

2

Sign of the times mate, times are tough and margins are under pressure so cost cutting becomes a way of life. The only way these days to get decent bonuses is to be close to the money (ie sales)

3

The key points are that you should have savings, live frugally, minimize debt on one hand and keep yourself well trained and well networked on the other. There are always all kinds of thing which can come up which could cause either a voluntary or involuntary loss of your job.

4

Margins are under pressure, times are tough, and the company is making record profits. One of these things don’t go together.

5

Is your company public or private? If it is public, you can check the reports and filings to see if things are really as good as they claim. If it is private that might be a bit harder.

I can’t tell from your information if everyone is getting screwed at bonus time, or if it is just you. Do they have a formula for bonuses, and are they living up to it, or is it just what they feel like paying. Or it could be that someone has it in for you.

In either case, it might pay to start networking for a better job. These days especially it is much easier to find a job if you are employed than otherwise.
There is no such thing as loyalty any more, so don’t worry about them.

Now, if you want some advice, you can go into that HR room and say out loud “I’m going to look for another job. Any objections?” I guarantee they won’t have any.

6

Where did he say record profits? They are breaking records.

Sales = Vanity
Profit = Sanity
Cash = Staying in business

So they could have record turnover, record profit but not be collecting enough cash. Not an uncommon scenario in cash strapped economies.

Companies will chop wherever and whenever they need to, just a harsh reality of business. And this is speaking as someone who has survived 10 years of constant cuts!

Network, up-skill and keep showing how you add value. These are the tricks to escaping the majority of cuts. Never assume you will have a job tomorrow and have a contingency plan.

7

The best time to look for a job is while you have one.

Often companies will bump up profit figures before trying to get bought out. Things like reducing inventory, supplies, benefits, bonuses, and getting rid of a lot of people. I went through that situation with a privately held company before they had their IPO. It was ugly for about a year.

8

No, the company culture won’t change barring something dramatic. Either they are telling the truth, but don’t care about their employees, or they are lying, and don’t care about their employees. Keep your head down and your skills up, and be looking for a new job.

Sorry.

9

Used to be, companies gave bonuses and raises because they wanted happy employees, who wouldn’t leave for a competitor. (Some companies are still like this: my bonus is directly related to how much profit my company made because our CEO believes in sharing the wealth).

But, at some places, the C level execs realized “Hey, if I cut all the employee’s bonuses, I can redirect that bonus money to me instead! Sorry little people, daddy wants a yacht!”. So it sound like your executives are seeing the low-level employees as a replaceable cog. That happens more in down economies.

The other thing that could be happening, is that sales numbers are up because sales slashed prices or promised things they couldn’t deliver easily. So, before you may have sold 10 units at a profit of $10 a pop, but now you’re selling 20 units at $1 a pop. Way less profit, and sometimes cause for layoffs, but hey, you’re setting records. I’ve never been in a quarterly update at a large company that wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, whatever the real story was (small companies tend to be more honest). So I think the record breaking numbers is just the execs blowing smoke up your ass.

Either way, time to bail and find a better place to work.

10

I’ve noticed a trend in the past few years of larger companies making it standard practice to “thin the heard” on an annual basis wether the company is doing awesome or not. Any sort of loyalty, retaining talent, or focusing on low turnover seems to be gone.
They’ve exploited the unemployment rate to their advantage and decided head counts should ebb and flow based on quarterly needs and demands.
Perhaps someday it will come back to bite them when the work force decides company loyalty is b.s., doing more than the job requires is a waste of time, and things like two-week-notices can be ignored.

11

Well…growing companies generally don’t reduce their HR headcount.

Generally there are several signs that a company isn’t doing well:
-**Turnover. ** Mass layoffs are obvious. But a slow trickle of people leaving, voluntarily or not, is also an indication that the company is trying to cut costs by getting rid of misfits and deadweight or that people are finding better opportunities.

-**Reorgs. ** Constantly shuffling deck chairs is a sure sign that something isn’t working and leadership can’t figure out what it is.

-**Constant “town halls” and management meetings. ** Let’s face it. If management has so much time they can hold a bunch of “all-hands” meetings to try to convince you or scare you into not leaving, business probably isn’t going great.

-Lack of training or team building activities. Training events cost money. Boondoggle conferences cost money. Happy hours cost money. Even those crappy Flavia coffee pods cost money. If your company isn’t putting out money celebrating it’s “big wins” it probably doesn’t have any.

-Lack of raises, promotions, bonuses or new hiring. Even the stingiest companies recognize they need to pay money to keep good people. If your company treats it’s people like they have no choice but to work there, you should show them different.

The place looks like shit. - When I worked at a six year old “startup”, we still worked in a roach infested Tribeca walkup, off old IKEA tables and had crappy whiteboards from Staples that spent months not being attached to the walls. No matter how much we “grew”, the office always looked like a dump. Most good companies want to spend a bit extra to look successful.

Your coworkers suck. - If you work at a place where everyone “keeps their heads down” to avoid getting noticed instead of trying to get noticed so they can be rewarded, it’s probably time to move on. Some people like that sort of environment where they can float along in the same job for ten years. But they are often in for a rude awakening when they get laid off and find they have no skills.

Chances are, if your workplace “feels” shitty and unsuccessful, it probably is. Companies that are doing well have a very different vibe from ones that aren’t.

12

Disclaimer: This is all just talk going around the rumor mill at my work. I can not vouch for its veracity.

At my work, a few years ago, we got a new CEO. When he stepped in, we had gone a few years with out turning a profit. (Or least not a big enough one that translates to profit sharing for its employees.)

As soon as he stepped in ,he flat out told The Powers That Be, that no matter what happens, WE WILL make a profit. He went on to say he doesn’t care who has to be fired or how many people have to be fired, WE WILL make a profit.

I guess this is why I could never be a CEO as I just couldn’t bring my self to fire several thousands of people just for a bonus check. And to be so blase about it! Jeesh!

Gotta hand it to the guy though, I had a lot of my friends get fired that year, but I did receive a hefty profit sharing check. And this is during one of the lowest points of our recent recession. (2007 or '08 maybe?)

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is the Brass can get away with this shit when it’s an employers market. Which is exactly what kind of market we’re living in right now.

Humanity or compassion doesn’t even make a blip on these guys radar. It’s all about the cash.

13

Or, like my old employer, people at the top of the pay scale who are at low risk for suing (ask me how I know about that), or taking advantage of loopholes in the Family Leave Act to get rid of long-term employees to avoid paying benefits, or other morale-destroying tactics. And this is a HOSPITAL. Crappy morale leads to compromised patient care.

14

Right here:

It is certainly possible that they have a cash flow problem, but there isn’t any evidence of it.

15

I was working when bonuses for everyone (not just high level people and salespeople) began. They had nothing to do with motivation - they were a way of giving raises without giving raises, or raises that could be withdrawn next year without a run for the exits.

Like I said, the criteria for the bonus should be spelled out in advance. If they come out of thin air, they will be played just like you say.

16

However, this could be local. I worked at Intel at a time when AMD had totally screwed up and we were doing great. The stock price soared. But the turnover in my organization was very high because the project was a disaster, and people were quitting before their sabbaticals. (I joined them.) The major factor in people leaving is that their immediate managers suck. So one should look globally before using turnover as a metric.

17

Consider the redundancies a reminder that jobs for life just don’t exist these days, if they ever did.

Situations can change incredibly quickly and you should be prepared at any time to find another job (or have an idea what else you might do).

Companies that look successful can go belly-up, or a genuinely successful company can get bought out, with the buyers wanting their own staff and/or to cut some business areas.

Finally, successful companies often do waves of redundancies anyway, just to see how few people they can actually manage with, and so they can later have a wave of recruitment and get some younglings in. Not strictly legal (not in most of europe anyway), but common.

18

First, thank you for the thoughtful replies. They help put things in perspective a bit. :slight_smile:

To answer a couple questions: Everybody’s bonus shrank before eventually disappearing. Up to a couple of years before I was hired, the company gave out meaty profit-sharing bonuses. The company was bought by what is now our parent company and the bonuses were switched to some formula. Some time after I was hired, that switched to some indecipherable performance-based bonus system. The goals for getting the bonus became more grandiose and unreachable which was one major factor in shrinking our bonus. Finally, they just said they were discontinuing bonuses and gave us the equivalent of an extra annual raise. That amounted to less than half of what the bonus had shrunk to by then.

Someone asked if the company is public or private. It’s private, funded by investors, which reminded me of something. Our last big meeting, it was emphasized that we need to be profitable enough to keep our investors happy. This has never been stressed before. Perhaps these investors tasted blood on these big numbers and are becoming increasingly greedy? Kind of makes me wish we were publicly traded. :frowning:

19

Agreed. In all my years of work, mainly for taxpayer funded jobs, it was my experience that managers really don’t care about employees, beyond lip service. Seems to be human nature to grind down the little people to either make themselves seem more important, or to divert more money to themselves.

20

The reason I asked is that the level of profitability might be harder to determine in a private company. And a small number of investors are not going to care much about the long term.
Raises are better than bonuses - if they are going to cut the bonuses, you’ll catch up by getting your 1/2 raise in two years, and if they ever give you another raise it builds on the one you have already - unlike bonuses. Compound interest, in a way.