back to article Third time unlucky? HPE in redundancy talks with UK services staff

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has told UK and Ireland Enterprise Services (ES) staff they face the axe once again – in a third round of redundancies in less than a year. The company, which is offloading the division to CSC in the next financial year, is asking for volunteers this time unlike the previous compulsory job cuts. In …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Funny how Maurice Mattholie has been sending out these emails for years, and is never the one to get his P45 eh?

    1. Chelios

      Well, someone's got to be left to switch the lights off at the end...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about a bit of Management Management

    If Workforce Management is a euphemism for redundancies in the Workforce then surely a bit of Management Management would be a good idea. To be trendy it could be shortened to M^2

    1. Preston Munchensonton

      Re: How about a bit of Management Management

      Based on what I hear across the pond, that's definitely involved. At least one VP and director being shown the door in US divisions of ITO.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How about a bit of Management Management

      Prior to using Workforce Management (WFM), HP used the term Workforce Reduction (WFR) for a number of years. I speculated that they changed because Workforce Management sounds so much more positive than Workforce Reduction, doesn't it?

      If it wasn't so serious this stuff would be quite amusing. Once again, feel for the people involved.

    3. buckets10

      Re: How about a bit of Management Management

      It is happening, although usually fairly quietly. Lots of "middle" managers have been leaving and then all the staff they had are left to report up to the next level. One manager I know of has almost 100 people reporting to him thanks to this! I hear he's been trying to delegate responsibilities out to technical team leaders but with no sign of a payrise for taking it on, no one wants to know.

      My last two managers were both made redundant over the last year or so and each time my team were just moved under another person alongside all their existing staff.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Erskine

    And yet they are actively recruiting in Erskine as of 2 days ago

    Anon

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Erskine

      Yep, and they will continue to do so, as Erskine is one of the Regional Delivery Centres from which services will be delivered.

      Many of these redundancies are not true redundancies but job relocations, and yes, you can be made redundant by reason of job relocation.

  4. Neil Alexander

    Lessons learned?

    They aren't. Ever.

  5. mr_souter_Working

    maybe i didn't make the right choice

    as I have just accepted a job in Erskine, and handed in my notice at my current job............................. :(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: maybe i didn't make the right choice

      You should be fine (at least till after the merger anyway!) from what I gather they are happy to recruit up in Erskine and Newcastle so long as it means they can get rid of staff elsewhere in the UK.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "It is not clear how many people HPE will chop in Q4 but the more people that volunteer to leave with a cheque the fewer compulsory redundancies will made. Obviously."

    No. They'll take the volunteers and then CR as many people as they originally intended. The VR applicants are just gravy.

    If they're offering halfway decent VR terms, get out now before they inevitably follow IBMs lead in offering statutory minimum payouts/'offering a market competitive package'.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well that is one of the reason why this surprise VR (they normally get announced 2nd or 3rd Friday of the quarter not 2 weeks to go of the previous quarter) has generated so much interest, it was the only topic of conversation for a day. Other reasons include

      1 - Who knows what redundancy package CSC will offer in April 17 when those $billion synergy savings kick in

      2 - Even managers have been repeating the rumour that HPE could change their VR terms in Q1 2017 (if pushed they will just say they don't know what the VR terms in Q1 will be or what they will be with CSC, in Q2 17, see 1, and that staff must have misunderstood them! Funny that was their explanation why the employee Voice of the Workforce questionnaire was so low, staff didn't understand the questions!!!)

      3 - The compulsory redundancy debacle in Q2 and Q3 has made even the most ostrich employee realise that HPE has no concern about them or their customers, cost is the only concern and the whole thing is just a spreadsheet in California.

      FYI The ES terms are more than halfway decent, not as decent as the real HPE terms but still quite nice.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Hmm, of course it is possible that HPE will do what IBM did and change redundancy terms to Statutory minimums.

        I think it's fair to say that in an asset-light organisation like ES, the word "synergies" is indeed code for "job cuts".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Assuming UK law still applies...

          "possible that HPE will do what IBM did and change redundancy terms to Statutory minimums."

          Not always legally permissible, e.g. afaik they can't change redundancy Ts+Cs in the middle of an ongoing redundancy programme.

          Consult union rep (internal or external) for further info.

          You do have a union rep?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm so glad...

    ... took voluntary redundancy from HP a while back. When I left morale was at an absolute rock-bottom. Good, honest, talented, skilled, hard-working people had just about given up and effectively switched off - it was a crying shame what HP had become. I cannot imagine what it must be like now. My advice is to grab voluntary redundancy if it is offered and run for the hills. Wherever you end up cannot be as bad as suffering the dead-hand of HPE.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm so glad...

      This. This, and THIS.

      I said my goodbyes to them towards the end of 2012 - and it's been the best move I made in my career. Ever.

      If you're still working for HPE, I have just one question. WHY?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm so glad...

      I finish tomorrow after 15 years at EDS/HPE and as I have taken VR will walk away with a smile on my face. I just feel sorry for those affected by the CR's and have mortgages and families to support. The thing that I find most insulting is the companies complete indifference to decades of experience and knowledge that individuals have built up and think that this can be assimilated into a Grad or new recruit with a couple of weeks Knowledge Transfer. I am glad I am out of it.

  8. x 7

    heard this story so many times I didn't realise anyone was left.......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Despite all the cuts, HPE and indeed ES, remain large organisations, with 100,000+ remaining in ES.

  9. Mark 85

    "more nimble"?

    Really? What this usually means is that "we're going to have fewer and fewer employees doing the same amount of work that many more used to do.". In other words... "row faster you scurvy dogs".

    When companies start spouting this and the ever popular "we're adjusting ourselves to industry standards" it's usually time to bail out and look for something else.

  10. CheesyTheClown

    What's left of HP?

    HP - Sells laptops that doesn't fill needs. Kind of a Packard Bell. Sells printers which don't really work. Their consumer line has endless problems burning ink. Their large format printers (until the Latex series) score amazingly low on cost and quality.

    HP (then Agilent, now something new) sells the stuff which made HP awesome to begin with.

    HPE sells class servers like Non-stop and HPUX, Superdomes, etc... They sell substandard blade servers which don't function for shit in the data center (Java 6 required to manage the blades). They sell two dozen different and most incompatible network equipment lines. They sell storage that is so hellbent on fiber channel that they perform at about 1/10th the speed of a similar NAS solution from respectable companies. They sell management software suites that universally increase CapEx and OpEx by so much that ROI is not achievable.

    CSC - Sells services that are provided by an organization that is so silo driven that the network guys can't even spell hard drive.

    Isn't it time HP dumps someone who has a nice wardrobe in favor of someone who has some actual knowledge?

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