Contributed anonymously:
Does anyone know what percentage of managers (group leaders and up) are exempt from the layoffs? Because as things stand, it appears to me that we're cutting all worker bees and retaining exactly the same Super-Sized management. If the goal of these layoffs is to reduce our overhead expenses to become competitive, why aren't we scaling back the number of managers to match the new size of the workforce? And if many of these managers are being retained but will be pushed back down to technical work, yet their salaries do not go down, again I ask how will this lower our overhead expenses?
Are these observations just completely wrong? I confess that it isn't public who is exempt from the layoffs and who isn't, so maybe a lot of managers are at risk and I just don't know it. But if my observations are correct, the lab will still have the same problems with price-to-market as they already do, except they'll be in a worse position because they've lost a lot of less-expensive workers who could build that better future.
13 comments:
A lot of middle layer managers are at risk. Many have already been pushed down in the organization compared to their level of influence prior to Transition. There is now an extra layer of management near the top. I don't know any group leader who is not immersed in programmatic work. GL is a very part time job. GLs are more worker bee than management.
All I know is the number of employees per supervisor is supposed to increase to something 20 to 1. That would require a lot of supervisors being reclassified. I also hear that all of the superintendents are going to be dumped to help reduce overhead.
Yes I made this point also there are three chiefs to every Indian where I'm at which is not good for the Indian. They are the ones who do the hunting and make the fire without any Indians the chiefs would starve and freeze to death, oh yea I forgot that what bectell wants sorry my bad.
What lead to so many chiefs over time is
1) the practice of creating deputy-xxx and assistant-yyy positions because the division/dept managers wanted to offload the grunt work to someone else.
2) the common practice of making someone a team leader or a manager as a way to keep them. It was the only way to get a decent raise.
The problem is: many such team leads/managers have no management/leadership skills!
Shouldnt that be a requirement?
Becoming a group leader is part of the "fail upwards" mechanism at the lab. It just gets better from there on up!
too many chiefs? you bet this is what NNSA and Rechtel planed, drive the over head cost up then you can go before congress and tell them the employees are to exspensive and you must out source all labor excluding ulm. this plan creates a win win for NNSA you drive labor cost down and kick every one off the tcp 1 pension plan.
I'm not sure management can be pushed back down to technical work. If someone has been a manager for a few years, their technical skills are obsolete.
"GL is a very part time job. GLs are more worker bee than management." - May 8, 2008 7:23 AM
LLNL is still in the early stages of the LLC transition. At LANL, many GLs used to spend only part of their time at management tasks. Now, however, LANS has seen to it that being a GL means working full-time at being a manager. If you aren't doing this then they conclude you somehow aren't being an effective Group Leader.
Just wait, LLNL. You have much to learn about the new LLC way of doing business. And, yes, the LLC method with its many levels of new managers will result in huge levels of overhead to help drive your labor rates even higher. The result will be a need for even more layoffs at some future date.
Back in 2005 we had a layoff of contract and flex term workers. As I recall, these were all people that worked with the tools, admin. support people, etc. No Supervisors, Senior Supervisors, Superintendents, Managers, etc. were released.
We just recently ( January ) had another layoff of contract and flex term workers. From what I have heard, only one supervisor ( this employee was a flex term ) was released. I know of no managers that were released.
I am real curious if any supervision and / or management type will be targeted for layoff the week of May 19th.
My group leader hasn't done any science/real-work for about 5 years. He has only been a group leader for 1 year though! He only has a group of 8 people but really only actively "manages" 3 of them. All he does all day every day (for years) is talk to people. That's his job.
The published numbers suggest that proportionatley more personnel assigned DOE Work Code M000,Managers, Execs, Supervisors, Program/Project Managers may be laid off than any other work code category. After laborers, where 4% of those eligible may be laid off, the lowest percentage laid off will likely be scientists and engineers, 12% of those eligible. 29% of M000 personnel, managers etc. will be laid off, and of the professional personnel, they had the lowest percentage excluded. We should be able to check if the M000 category really is hit disproportionately when LLNS reports to DOE on how it implemented the 3161 plan. For more details on who is likely to have been selected for layoff, look for an SPSE-UPTE article next week (May 12th).
May 9, 2008 10:27 AM
What published numbers and where are they?
GL's should be a full time position. You can't be an effective manager on a part time basis. On the flip side though groups should probably be around fifteen people.
And what you may ask will these GL's be doing with all their time? Managing projects, personnel issues and coordination. To do that right takes time. not doing that right is one of the reason's we're so expensive.
And yes, managers currently spend a lot of time talking. The lab is all about building consensus. Nobody is willing to make a decision unless every single person agrees. This too will change. Discuss, make a decision, move on. We don't have the time or money to operate otherwise.
If you don't like what I've outlined above, maybe it's time to move on.
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