HP Employee Disgruntlement Runs Deep 24 comments
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My post a few weeks ago on Mark Hurd's perks at HP (HPQ) has generated a lot of traffic and email comments -- especially from current or former HP/EDS employees.
Here is a link from one ex-EDS'er in Germany upset at the way things have played out.
Of course, every business needs to find a way to cut costs and save -- especially in the current environment -- but there's clearly a large portion of HP employees who feel very upset at the way Hurd and HP management have gone about their cost-savings drive, preaching cost cuts to the troops, and then turning around and living high off the hog themselves at the expense of shareholders.
I remember one time going to an HP meeting when I worked for a software company while Carly was still CEO. The meeting was at an old DEC facility in Nashua, NH. I remember it took about 10 minutes to walk from the guest entrance desk to the meeting room. Along the way, I passed dozens and dozens of empty cubicles, as jobs had been "rationalized" away elsewhere. When I finally got to the meeting room, the HP folks were all very smart and friendly, but I remember being amazed that we spent a good 15 minutes or so of small talk time discussing what an embarrassment Carly was as a CEO. I remember leaving the meeting thinking: "great people but that company is in trouble if that's how all the employees feel about their boss."
These recent comments I've received back from employees about Hurd remind me of that meeting again.
I'm sure Hurd would say these are disgruntled employees who don't get the need for "cost cutting." They don't understand the new competitive global environment we operate in, etc. etc. He probably would also say all this employee grousing will go away when the stock starts going back up again. In fact, at a recent analysts' day, he touted that HP was going to grow "faster than the market" in 2010.
Maybe. But I don't buy it. I sense deep anger and lack of trust among the rank and file with Hurd and his team. I get a sense of Hurd being the jockey on a horse that's decided it doesn't want to run any more for this jockey. He can whip it all he wants, but that horse is not going to run.
Let's see how HP's stock does next year and if it does grow faster than the market.
Disclosure: none.
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This article has 24 comments:
Even with so many scams exposed, like the emperor's new clothes, they are trying to restart the failed, collapsed economic model. I shudder to think what they have in store for us if they don't succeed. I shudder to think what they have in store for us if they succeed. But, Hurd is one of all-too-many many of his ilk who I believe are talented, trained, focused sociopaths, and I hope enough Americans can wake up to the lies in time to take back the country and their lives.
On Oct 09 08:38 AM Hurdhurts wrote:
> You have no idea! I would have never believed that the contempt HP
> employees had for Carly could get worse. she was clueless about how
> to run a business, but Hurd is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes, he
> is a great cost cutter and an operational genius, but HP has no path
> to organic growth. We no longer make or innovate anything special.
> the bureaucracy at HP is no so huge, you can't get anything done!
> In an incredible irony, the procurement group is so huge it takes
> 5 people to get an agreement signed with a vendor! Everyday, you
> sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see if you are the next to
> be laid off. Our benefits are have been and are still being cut
> and we will have even less health care choice than ever before! Anything
> that was progressive about HP as an employer has given way to the
> most evil tactics of any employer in the world. Again, another irony
> since Bill and Dave invented some of the most employee-friendly policies
> known to modern business. Because they thought employees were important
> to the success of the business. Hurd does not. We are just a commodity
> to be managed. All the while the company gets top heavy with executives
> brought in from various places with their high salaries and massive
> bonuses. The top 6 executives last year pulled down over $200 Million
> in pay and bonuses. While the real workers got a pittance, some none
> at all.
Everything is pretty much them, we are just better at putting a pleasant public face on it. All nuances intended.
Regarding the theory that when the stock goes up we'll all be happy and praise Hurd's wisdom, think again. The stock purchase plan has changed and every employee I know has opted out of the program and dumped their shares. That goes the same for any options they have received, even though most people haven't seen an option in over 5 years. The stock price is a complete distraction as it hasn't moved anywhere but sideways and the dividend hasn't gone up despite record profits. If the stock goes up the only people in the company to make money is upper management.
User 498237 said:
Regarding the theory that when the stock goes up we'll all be happy and praise Hurd's wisdom, think again. The stock purchase plan has changed and every employee I know has opted out of the program and dumped their shares. That goes the same for any options they have received, even though most people haven't seen an option in over 5 years. The stock price is a complete distraction as it hasn't moved anywhere but sideways and the dividend hasn't gone up despite record profits. If the stock goes up the only people in the company to make money is upper management.
My senior director told me that as long as I do exactly as I'm told (I used to have 40+ people, lost them 2 years ago in one of the endless layoffs) and don't deviate from a written annual plan, that was the best path to getting good notice and staying out of the site of layoffs.
On Oct 09 06:30 AM MrLucky wrote:
> Morale is low, fear is high, initiative almost non-existent since
> there are no rewards except at the top. To quote Oscar Wilde, Hurd
> "knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing."
We have leaders who have drained so much from the economy that normal middle class Americans have virtually no freedom of choice anymore. What kind of leadership is it whose main idea for them is, this sucks, but it sucks everywhere, what are you going to do about it?
I missed an Eisenhower, this last election, who could speak truth to power and stare down powerful people, like on Wall St., rather than hand them a blank check. We have such awful, mediocre leadership wall-to-wall that right now we goose-step behind them whatever the appalling, stupid agenda that feeds their infinite greed.
Americans used to have it better.
I was tired of not being able to give any of my employees annual salary increases or nothing more than a 1% increase while top management was raking in millions in salary, stock and options. I had also had it with the WFR process. The last few years I was forced to lay off many of my employees that were doing excellent work while we "transitioned" our business to India and Costa Rica.
Speaking of that...what HP did to their customers as we outsourced our work to foreign countries was criminal! No company should abuse their customers that way. We took our customers from receiving the care and treatment of highly qualified and dedicated people and putthem in the hands of people that were not the least bit ready to support our customers in any way shape or form.
Eventually, I believe HP's gross lack of focus on it's employees and customer's will come back to bite it in the butt. I remember the first 16 years at HP very fondly...the last 10 were somewhat bitter.
One more comment on something a previous poster said in regards to working 8:30 - 5:00. When HP still had Bill & Dave active in the company or when John Young or Lew Platt were CEO, the atmosphere was such that employees gladly stayed after 5:00 to finish work they were doing on projects or to pull together to get things done and accomplish goals. That feeling started to die when Carly arrived and Hurd killed it for good when he arrived. Now the parking lots empty quickly at 5:00.
Long live the "Old HP Way" even if only in our memories.
Every day that the current BoD is left in place is another day that Hurd is left in place, is another day that we're all working on taking HP down. Get rid of the current BoD and Hurd, and those of us who haven't left will begin working FOR HP.
Many of us are leaving, moving to into roles where we will have the ability to decide thumbs up or down on whether to purchase HP products and services. I am >thisclose< to accepting a VP role in a very large healthcare company where I will have the ability to crush HP. If I take it, HP will lose well over $1B in revenue every three years.
I think in reality you are not an HP employee but rather a penny ante stock owner who is worried that you might lose your entire $1 invested in the Horse Pecker.
On Oct 09 12:18 PM sickofthewhining wrote:
> Quit whining. I work at HP. It is a good company to work for.
> No one is talking about the fact that the only reason Hurd's total
> compensation has gone up Y/Y is because of options that vest over
> years that he received when he came in at a stock price of ~ $21
> while it is now at > $45. Those are contractual - he is being rewarded
> last year and this year for work done over the past 3. It isn't
> like he is increasing his salary. None of you would forfeit that
> - NONE of you whiners. "Its all about me". That is all you can
> think of. Well quit your job and go live a in a village in Africa
> where there isn't even clean drinking water and then let me here
> how bad your life is and how unfair the world is.
HP recently transitioned EDS employees into the HP HR system, including job codes and pay levels. I was a far exceeds and exceeds EDS employee for over 10 years, so my pay reflected that. When HP moved us over, we all became "average" HP employees with pay stuck at the mid-point, resulting in a 31% pay cut for me. The highest potential bonus I could receive (snigger snigger, the dirty secret is HP rarely pays out any of these above $10,000) would still place me at a 22% pay cut.
Now the health benefit plan includes a marriage penalty in the USA; if your spouse is eligible for any health benefits, you get socked with a $720 penalty. My wife works in a sales role where the company just began offering health care but at extremely low levels and high cost, basically as a way to offer ***something***. So now HP is saying that because I am married and not living in sin with a bunch of Mark Hurds, er bastard children, I should pay a penalty.
All of the above is personal and could be taken as whining. However, take that and compare it with all of the perquisites that Hurd is abusing per this article and The Street's on the same subject and you have a huge face slap against employees by Hurd and the BoD.
It's time to boot the BoD out and bring in one that can understand that the previous BoD's and Hurd's hubris are detrimental to HP share value.
www.unionsocialmedia.o... (Operational plan for kicking Mark Hurd out of Hewlett Packard)
www.unionsocialmedia.o... (History of EDS and how Mark Hurd wrecked the company)
I am >thisclose< to accepting a VP role in a very large healthcare company
---------------------
Please take it. For everyone of you who are upset - take control of your lives and go find something you are happy doing instead of complaining on blogs about the company you work for. That would be a much more productive use of your energy. I hear all the misery and whining and moaning - if you are going to be happy somewhere else, please go. Personally, I'd be willing to bet the more likely scenario is that the people making these comments are people who thrive on being unhappy and complaining.
I am >thisclose< to accepting a VP role in a very large healthcare company
----------------------...
Please take it. Seriously. All of you who are so unhappy - your time would be spent much more productively putting your energy into going somewhere that makes you happy rather than writing nasty words about your current employer. Are you not in control of your own destiny? Are you helpless and trapped?
My guess its more likely you are individuals who thrive on drama and being overly critical about something always to avoid looking at why you really aren't happy with yourself.
It is interesting that you note that you are an EDS employee. So in 2006/2007 you were hovering at > $27 a share. Then you fell to < $18 a share until rumors started that you might be acquired. Then HP bought you and you jumped back up to ~ $25. So, until HP bought you, you destroyed shareholder value by ~ 30%. Technically, what you saying is the employees of EDS - including you, were happy to be getting fat pay and bonuses while you destroyed shareholder value. That doesn't make you the most credible commentator on Hurd's performance (whose job first and foremost is to create shareholder value).
Facts on Hurd:
- Started at HP at ~ $20 a share
- Current stock price in the midst of one of the one recessions in my lifetime at ~ $47 a share.
The facts speak for themselves.
The products that Hurd is using to make money today were ALL invented way before his time.
Eventually you need something new, and when that happens, people like Hurd and the the company which innovation he has destroyed, are in trouble, unless you just become a wholesaler and resell somebody else products. But then you need Walmart scale to make money.
Once a company has lost its soul, and it is only about money, it is just a matter of time.
On Oct 09 06:30 AM MrLucky wrote:
> Morale is low, fear is high, initiative almost non-existent since
> there are no rewards except at the top. To quote Oscar Wilde, Hurd
> "knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing."
I grew up in a society where loyalty, dignity, ethics and common caring for people was a priority. And guess what??? It worked for everyone....the workers were happy and knowledgeable and the companies prospered and everyone was fairly happy. At least able to survie and live in lieu of trying to just exist.
Employess are dropping like flies at HP and they are leaving with more knowledge than Hurd can imagine...and, believe it or not, loyalty to the very end. Now they have lost their jobs, their bonuses, their insurance, their savings and they are stressed and scrambling and nobody, NOBODY MR HURD cares. This is corporate America and there is no more middle class, just the just the higher echelon and the poor, PERIOD.
There is more to life than working for a compay with a high stock price ... you must be taking all of the penis enlarging pills too. All your concerned with are numbers.
Numbers are a good indicator but eventually they are just that, indicators. Just because a company has high stock price, doesn't mean it is a good or great company.
Many of us here, have worked for HP (and its aquisitions) for many years. We know what these companies were and what they can be again. But we are being told we are just a commoditiy now. Horse Puckey - we have leaders who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag. There are plenty of opportunities out there to make money. I see it with my clients every day. The problem is this over-sized company they have created can't get anything done quickly and eventually leads to us worker bees seeing missed opportunity aafter missed opportunity. Bigger is not always better.
On Oct 12 12:22 PM sickofthewhining wrote:
> Feelin Groovy said:
>
> I am >thisclose< to accepting a VP role in a very large healthcare
> company
>
> ----------------------...
> Please take it. Seriously. All of you who are so unhappy - your time
> would be spent much more productively putting your energy into going
> somewhere that makes you happy rather than writing nasty words about
> your current employer. Are you not in control of your own destiny?
> Are you helpless and trapped?
>
> My guess its more likely you are individuals who thrive on drama
> and being overly critical about something always to avoid looking
> at why you really aren't happy with yourself.
>
> It is interesting that you note that you are an EDS employee. So
> in 2006/2007 you were hovering at > $27 a share. Then you fell to
> < $18 a share until rumors started that you might be acquired. Then
> HP bought you and you jumped back up to ~ $25. So, until HP bought
> you, you destroyed shareholder value by ~ 30%. Technically, what
> you saying is the employees of EDS - including you, were happy to
> be getting fat pay and bonuses while you destroyed shareholder value.
> That doesn't make you the most credible commentator on Hurd's performance
> (whose job first and foremost is to create shareholder value).<br/>
>
> Facts on Hurd:
> - Started at HP at ~ $20 a share
> - Current stock price in the midst of one of the one recessions in
> my lifetime at ~ $47 a share.
>
> The facts speak for themselves.
He doesn't have a real life so he spends time here and on the Yahoo HPQ board sounding tough. If he lived in the Bay Area he would at least get out to pick up paper that Mark Hurd drops in trash containers so he could fawn over it and ask Hurd for an autograph.
But that isn't possible given that he lives in Cowpie, Nebraska.