Ooof. Sounds like they have it coming.
John Deere as corporate punching bag
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1 min 16 seconds is my fav part of dixie
A woman I've had a handful of dealings with, posted something on Facebook tonight that made me think something was coming. She works at the Ottumwa plant.
Have known that this was coming for a couple months now, but didn't realize how bad it was going to be until I saw how many people from my Deere management contact list went missing today.
Billions of dollars in profit and laying people off. #Merica
Yeah I have 3 close friends supposed to be finding out today. They're all 3 smart with good heads on their shoulders so I'm not too worried about them regardless of outcome, but still a ****** spot to be in.
If you're cut, you have the pleasure of going back on the job hunt which can be tricky and take time when you're mid to upper level. If you're not cut, you could be left doing the job of 2-3 people, always never quite sure if more cuts are coming.
All Deere salary staff are instructed to work from home today because they don't want to be escorting the laid off employees out the building in front of the survivers.
Deere will hold a company wide virtual meeting at 7:30am this morning to be followed by phone calls to each of the laid off employees, so everyone will be staring at their computer screens praying their phone does not ring before 5pm today. It's sounding like 35% of the staff will receive the dreaded phone call. Those who are lucky enough to survive will find out tomorrow how their jobs are going to change.
It's freaking inhumane for a company that's making $10 billion in profit to treat their staff this way.
Deere will hold a company wide virtual meeting at 7:30am this morning to be followed by phone calls to each of the laid off employees, so everyone will be staring at their computer screens praying their phone does not ring before 5pm today. It's sounding like 35% of the staff will receive the dreaded phone call. Those who are lucky enough to survive will find out tomorrow how their jobs are going to change.
It's freaking inhumane for a company that's making $10 billion in profit to treat their staff this way.
I’m sure they can save a bunch of money by hiring a new CEO in Mexico, too
This is nothing new for Deere same happen during farm crisis in the 80's, major head count reduction. Waterloo was impacted big time as it lost roughly 14% of it's population.
www.iowapbs.org
The Farm Crisis of the 1980s
The Farm Crisis of the 1980s completely altered the fabric of rural America. During the 1980s, American farmers confronted an economic crisis more severe than any since the Great Depression. Agricultural communities throughout the Midwest and across...
The company is shell of what it use to be. It use to get the best and brightest engineers out of ISU.
I almost took a job in 2023 at the U of Illinois innovation campus... working on self driving and self planting.....
The head of all that has lost his job now.... Glad I passed now.
The head of all that has lost his job now.... Glad I passed now.
What gets me is the loss of good people you should retain for the future.
If you do a RIF and basically use it to get rid of deadwood employees (and every company has them) - well thats fine and good.
If your business has changed and needs to just be rightsized, i.e. its just going to be smaller going forwards, well then thats fine- unfortunate but necessary.
But if you are doing this cycle of boom and bust, layoff and rehire, repeatedly... thats long term bad for your business. Best people wont work for you, knowing they are at high risk. Good people let go wont come back often because they found something else. Its shortsighted, too much short termism.
Maybe it works for factory employees, because they arent as mobile and dont have as many options. Maybe they have an expectation of on again off again.
But if youre laying off your knowledge ppl, they can go anywhere esp with wfh options. Why not just invest $500m like its r&d and keep a bunch of folks around?
This has been Deere’s approach for years. Demand drops, dump headcount. Demand recovers, massive “oh ****” levels of hiring and contracting.
And they probably look at it and say based on profitability that it is working, but they need to be honest with themselves. This turnover can’t be good. Given all that market share secured over decades they still have a fair amount of room for error.
I know someone in the same boat although they should be OK.
Only positive is I think they have a really good severance package.
JD has given out bonuses and raises since they went largely remote and somewhere in there things weren't managed very well.
