How’s it going? Summer’s really over ain’t it? Feels like we barely had any summer where I live. Anyway, back with a fictional incident post mortem, any similarities to real life are purely coincidental.

AI-free content, as usual.

What Happened

It was decided by upper management that a few members of your squad would be laid off, along with the director, their head of the department, and their vice president. Other people in your branch are also affected.

Team members who would have been let go managed to get a hold of the news before they could be officially notified. Morale is down hard.

Your manager’s been let go. You will not hear from him again.

Five Why’s

1) It was announced that this entity has been reporting a negative balance for a while. The deficit informally outlined is larger than this whole squad’s payroll combined (including the manager’s and the director’s). Corporate secured loans from a bank, so that operations won’t cease. Barely anyone had heard of the issue before. We’re all just now uncovering just how delicate the financial situation is.

2) Two quarters ago layoffs were reported in HQ, and many employees of that entity left in the aftermath. Since then every single member of senior leadership (everyone above you) either was dismissed or resigned. Your team has recently worked at 50% allocation.

1) HQ was, and continues to be, the main source of revenue-generating clients. For the past years it has been a source of predictable, long-term projects for clients whom our sales reps had long-lasting relationships with. They had very ambitious financial goals, which have now been nuked. Sales reports the market is not favorable. We are yet to see data on that.

1) Several sales, casting, delivery, and HR processes have been broken beyond repair since the acquisition. The new guys sell cheaper, shorter, and more ambitious work, as opposed to the long-term partnerships most of us were used to. Capacity reports on all teams has been broken at least since the merger. This branch was excluded from casting decisions, which did not happen via designated channels. Cheaper labour was cast elsewhere, where new data professionals are being hired. The rest was cast in the capital. This country was the last resort, when capacity was not available elsewhere.

5) The operating model of the previous business entity was significantly different than that of the current one. Specifically, in financial terms, the previous model didn’t rely on entities being individually profitable.

Now they got folks employed in other countries, and certain unusual agreements are being signed. This new model avoids unnecessary taxation at the expense of a more fragile business. It’s been hard to reconcile that for you.

There has been no transparency on this matter. The whole team would have jumped at the opportunity to do things better had they known.

Accountability

It would have been wise to have urged for share financial numbers earlier, even on a monthly basis.

Most of the line-management time was spent on far less critical activities. To name a few: time-sheet reporting issues, casting reporting issues, pre-sales activities with low conversion chance, internal projects, accelerators, internal educational programs, equality programs, mentoring, training.

It was said there would be no more layoffs, and no more questions were ever asked. This should have been a recurrent conversation. People were told not to worry, and push came to shove. For a manager to tell a team member they will not be let go and later proceed to fire them, is inexcusable.

What Now

Nobody was ever privy to the situation. Most details are being uncovered ex post facto.

It is unclear what will be decided at this point. Leadership has shown hope that the situation can be fixed, and those who remain are safe. One can only hope parties have acted in good faith.

It’s possible however that other people may need to be let go. It is improbable that the market will improve soon, and the business can recover, given the disparity between the laid off payroll and the debt. Not least the history of broken processes and shortsighted decisions. It would not be unwise to start looking elsewhere.