WDW IT Layoffs 1/30/2015

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
My company has had rounds of layoffs for three years straight.. while still reporting strong numbers. Job security is 'bad' out there..
And this is done under the protections of "at will" employment law. So if at will allows the employer to end the employment relationship at any time for any or no reason and the employee can end the relationship at any time for any or no reason.

Why do employers have any expectation of loyalty from the employee when the employee has no expectation of loyalty from the employer?
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
And this is done under the protections of "at will" employment law. So if at will allows the employer to end the employment relationship at any time for any or no reason and the employee can end the relationship at any time for any or no reason.

Why do employers have any expectation of loyalty from the employee when the employee has no expectation of loyalty from the employer?

Well, the country practically allowed it to happen with its Anti-Collective bargaining stance.
 

NelsonRD

Well-Known Member
While layoffs are always on everybody's mind, most IT contractors I know are not too concerned because they have established a resume and reputation of being valuable. I know many people who worked for big companies, and when they lost their job - whether due to contracts ending, restructure, or new management, were always able to find work again fairly quickly.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Or if a company is denied an H1B visa based on the fact there is domestic talent. So the company hires domestic, let's go at 89th day because of lack of fit, claims domestic talent, gets 2 H1B visas each at 1/2 of the wage the single dometic.

It happens

But again, H1B's are supposed to earn prevailing wage. Sure this is all gamed to some degree... but the system has limits, lots of oversight, and unlike a hire, always hangs over your head. My company outsources a TON of work to contractors.. most of which are indian as well.. and their company does have sites in bangalore that are even co-resident with our regular employees. But when they have people on contract here, they aren't Visa'd employees.. and certainly not by my company. Some contracts call for permanent workers here, some call for the workers to be trained here for a period of time, and then go home and work from there.

I'm sure to the casual it might appear as if the company is bringing in all these imported workers.. when in actuality they are not. The fundamental point of interest there is the work was outsourced to start with. My company likes it because it changes the color of the money, and avoids benefits, and because they can turn it on and off like a faucet once it's established.

I don't really agree with any of it.. I would prefer 'contract to hire...' - but it makes sense for the financial guys up the latter somewhere :/
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
But that doesn't mean it's a "bad" thing. Yes, it's bad for the guy who loses his job, but that's a reality in any economy. The classic example is the buggy whip manufacturer. When the automobile rose to prominence and replaced the horse and carriage, the buggy whip manufacturer had to either adapt to the new economy or be replaced.

No, that analogy is awful. These people have not be antiquated, and these people are not in a need to adapt to be useful.

They are laid off because the company would rather change how they pay for the work, or like in some of the examples I gave, they find it easier to just get rid of people and hire in fresh blood rather than retain experienced people and repurpose them. My CEO boasted that while we cut 6,000 people, in the following months we hired over 6,600. So we could 're-invest in the areas needed'. Basically the company thought it better to just turn the lights out on segments, or cut their capacity, and get rid of the people... than change what people were doing.

Business line managers do it all the time. They seek out college grads because they are cheaper... and hide it in the guise of 'these guys know the new technology we want' - when they are college grads with nothing more than a senior project's worth of experience. The thing about good computer scientists, is they know the concept.. the tools come and go.. and they can relearn new languages or technologies at a whim. In fact, 'new stuff' gets them going more than anything.

In the case of Disney.. it appears to be a restructuring in how they want to fund different operations.

The only 'evolution' happening here is that businesses can source raw labor is lots of new ways these days.. and the money trail is too enticing to ignore.. especially when they don't value the operation being handled.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
While layoffs are always on everybody's mind, most IT contractors I know are not too concerned because they have established a resume and reputation of being valuable. I know many people who worked for big companies, and when they lost their job - whether due to contracts ending, restructure, or new management, were always able to find work again fairly quickly.

Such is the life of a contractor... but that ignores that contractors know they aren't getting the same benefits and perks of full timers.. and have made those decisions on which is better for themselves.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Everyone wants content/quality yet they dont want to pay for it.

Nah, in these situations its more like "we need this service..." "these guys over there say they can provide what we need" -- quality is typically ignored because they think it's a binary thing.. 'oh we have it right? checkbox'. Meanwhile.. these are the organizations that people loath having to call their own HR or helpdesks because they are either so painful to deal with, or so silo'd, or simply incapable of solving your issue.

A difference in mentality...

Company A says "IT is here to accelerate the business... technology hurdles hurt the business, so we must ensure technology only helps, not hinders anyone. When a barrier appears, we want it solved as fast as possible so the business continues to move foward"

Company B says "We have to have a helpdesk to handle these calls. We want call times as short as possible because staffing helpdesk is expensive. We want to close tickets to ensure our metrics show we are effective"

Company B only cares about keeping helpdesk costs down.. and is the kind that would likely outsource it. Company A realizes the job of a helpdesk is to remove barriers and the success is not measured by how cheaply IT is done, but by how much IT has moved the business forward.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
A simple example of how thinking differs...

Years ago at the Google campus they basically had the equivalent of a 7-11 for IT needs. You need a keyboard? You walk in, find one on the shelf, and take it. need something you don't know what, ask the guy at the counter, and they make it appear. The point is make IT easy and adhoc... have a need, fix it quickly and get people back to what they were supposed to be doing.

The alternative is what you see at most other orgs that don't understand this.. you call IT, you open a ticket saying you need something, then you go and get a PO or order something from some archaic inventory system at non-competitive prices... and then wait while the machine spits out approvals someone must approve, then they ship it from some central site, and eventually if everything goes right.. you get your item. Meanwhile it probably went through 5-6 different people, took many hours of handling, and probably took a week to complete. Maybe for something as simple as a keyboard or monitor. How much did the company drag their employee through to get it, and how much did they spend to make it happen, and they still didn't do it in a timely fashion.

But the machine is happy to report we kept people from buying from unauthorized vendors and that only approved purchases were made... BRILLIANT! Meanwhile.. the company lags behind their competition because people can't get basic work done effectively.

It's all about what you value.. how you trust people or not.. and what money you try to micromanage.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
And this is done under the protections of "at will" employment law. So if at will allows the employer to end the employment relationship at any time for any or no reason and the employee can end the relationship at any time for any or no reason.

Why do employers have any expectation of loyalty from the employee when the employee has no expectation of loyalty from the employer?

I'm not against 'at will' employment... but if a company wants people to be vested and overdeliver.. they need to feel that love. I'd rather companies sink or rise based on their actions.. rather than regulation.
 

Todd H

Well-Known Member
Nah, in these situations its more like "we need this service..." "these guys over there say they can provide what we need" -- quality is typically ignored because they think it's a binary thing.. 'oh we have it right? checkbox'. Meanwhile.. these are the organizations that people loath having to call their own HR or helpdesks because they are either so painful to deal with, or so silo'd, or simply incapable of solving your issue.

A difference in mentality...

Company A says "IT is here to accelerate the business... technology hurdles hurt the business, so we must ensure technology only helps, not hinders anyone. When a barrier appears, we want it solved as fast as possible so the business continues to move foward"

Company B says "We have to have a helpdesk to handle these calls. We want call times as short as possible because staffing helpdesk is expensive. We want to close tickets to ensure our metrics show we are effective"

Company B only cares about keeping helpdesk costs down.. and is the kind that would likely outsource it. Company A realizes the job of a helpdesk is to remove barriers and the success is not measured by how cheaply IT is done, but by how much IT has moved the business forward.

cal_noughton_display_image.jpg

Bingo!
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
And you'd be amazed at how many 'technology' companies are of type B!

It all comes down to leadership and how you steer the company and culture. It normally starts to go off the rails as you expand and have to hire like crazy. If you hire bad people.. they do stupid things.. and the knee jerk reaction is 'we need more rules and policies to keep this from happening' instead of 'kick the bozo in the nuts and fire him'.

Ultimately you end up in a scenario where you treat all your employees like criminals.. punish the 99% so you can keep the 1% from doing something bad. Nevermind all the penalties the 99% incurred under this model.. instead of just dealing with the 1% when it happens.

When people go 'wow, why are these companies doing so much more than we can?' - its things kind of stuff and leadership. Not about micromanaging the sales forecast and building empires of cross-charge hell.
 

Jimdalva

Active Member
Disney's AVENGERS movie just past ONE BILLION DOLLARS. The parks are very busy, raking in the money. Star wars will make another Billion. Yet, they send American jobs overseas. That's GREED!
 

CaptainAmerica

Well-Known Member
Disney's AVENGERS movie just past ONE BILLION DOLLARS. The parks are very busy, raking in the money. Star wars will make another Billion. Yet, they send American jobs overseas. That's GREED!
This notion of "American jobs" is cute but it has nothing to do with how the global economy functions in 2015. And make no mistake, TWDC is a GLOBAL company. You want to talk about the Age of Ultron box office like it has anything to do with Parks and Resorts? Less than half of that money is domestic. So, using your logic, Disney should really be sending even MORE American jobs overseas.
 

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