HP Ireland asks staff to vote for pay cut HP has begun asking EDS staff to take a pay cut as part of its wide-ranging cost cutting strategy. In a bizarre email, seen by the Reg, titled HP Salary Reduction Programme, staff from the Electronic Data Systems are asked to agree a five per cent pay cut, and related cuts in benefits, by clicking on the "I Agree" button. The …
... will they be asked to vote themselves a pay rise?
Of is this "lets be inclusive and involve our staff (who we value - reeeeely) in the decision making process" only a strategy that works when times are bad. I can't help thinking this is a cynical way of avoiding making unpopular decisions: by having the victi^H^H^H^H^Hstaff make it themselves.
Maybe they should also be permitted to vote on which board members get axed?. I'd guess the HR ones would be at the top of the list.
I am assuming the other button is marked :
"Fuck right off"
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| | I Agree | | Fuck Right Off- | |
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At least you guys at HP will still have a reasonably paid job.
I've been forced to take a 40% pay cut or be made redundant. The only plus side of this is that it starts September 1st and not when I was told in April. Needless to say I've accepted the cut but am desperately looking for a new job.
Only an idiot would refuse a 5% pay cut in the current economic climate...
are the top execs doing the same, pro rata? 5% for someone on 20-25K a year is quite a bit, could mean the difference between paying your mortgage or not, 5% for some fat greedy c*nt on 150-200K and the rest isn't that bad, little Jocasta will still get her pony rides.
pay goes up, not down; if you are expected to work the same or harder for less money, there's one word for that - mug. why not put some shackles on, pin some long ears and a tail and go and work on Blackpool beach?
yes I will be pressing the button marked ">>>F*CK RIGHT OFF<<<"
The salary cuts started in the US, where it was offered as an alternative to mass redundancies. Since then, in the UK, we've had the mass redundancies in Erskine and Bristol, so its not clear that argument holds.
What is interesting as well as being the first ever vote-by-email email ever seen (obviously they wanted every vote, so having another IE-only web site was out the question), is that this is not a temporary pay cut. its forever, and it will hit your pension and redundancy pay too. If it were temp, I'd consider it, but otherwise, I'm not sure.
Status car::= company car for people who don't have a job involving travel. Above a certain level you get them or a cash alternative, now that perk is going away.
About company car policy:
As you can read on almost any official hp website, it is the most green company on earth.
And by this, the lucky guy getting the right to drive a company car has to make sure, that this car doesn't pollute the environment with more than 190 g CO2 per km.
As long as you're not on director level or above.
Then you can go BMW 7, Hummer, if you wish, or Chieftain or Abrams or whatever.
Exec's rights, you know?
(Just like the PCs. Everybody within hp gets the same model. Except the execs.
They get the "Executive Level PC" along with "Executice Level Support. But that's a different story then.)
>Only an idiot would refuse a 5% pay cut in the current economic climate...
EDS pulled a profit last quarter, so why are they asking us to take a pay cut?
There has been no reassurance that jobs will be secured by accepting the request.
Its so that Mark Hurd can still get his $40 million in bonuses.
Only an idiot would accept a 5% pay cut...
"Only an idiot would refuse a 5% pay cut in the current economic climate..."
What ? Everyone ? Do explain further. Are you the CEO's mini-me because you make almost as good a case for the pay cut as he does.
My account is profitable and HP make a nice margin on me considering what they charge the client for my time. I don't see why I should take the cut - my work has not dropped 5% in value in the last year. HP also do very nicely out of all the unpaid overtime and missed lunches that they get out of me. But then I am an idiot so what do I know.
That anonymous coward bloke sure is posting lots of messages on this thread. But in response to the "What happens if you refuse?" reply, I say this.
In times of war it's probably best to keep your head below the parapet, otherwise you can guess what happens next. And with respect to taking a 5% hit my attitude would be that I would rather be earning 95% of something reasonable than 100% of nothing.
Drift. Get. Paris. My. Bargepole.
Hurd and his friends took 142MILLION USD in BONUS payments last year, not salary.
The last two (I think) quarters EDS put the black ink on the HP ledger. EDS is the only reason HP as a whole made money.
We were told ~ 4000 redundancies (in EMEA) over 2 years. Now it's ~ 4000 in one year and another 6700 next year.
If this was a temporary thing, lots more people would take it. Many of the pay reductions that other UK companies have offered their staff have been off-set against redundancies, we've not been offered anything like that. Most of us see it as an attempt to reduce the redundancy payouts that they'll have to make when they kick out the other 6700 and increase the profit linked bonus payments that Hurd and his buddies will get.
Teams that actually delivery to the customers are being cut through the bone and down into the marrow, yet the management layers are still there and the people that "design" (hahahahaha) the systems are still hindering the work.
There's a massive push to Best Shore, but the latest attempt had 100% of the work fail, not just the first time but 3 or 4 times for some of the work !
I'm f*cked if I'll take a pay cut to allow Hurd and his mob get a bigger bonus
I suppose a general pay cut could be OK, if it involved everybody and there was some compensation for the cut. Like shares in the company for the lost money each month.
Or a counter that would pay you what you (with your great admiration and low for the company) lost at the time, later when times are brighter.
In reality I believe this will cost any company much more than they might save as the signal is clear, those who can, will jump ship, and thos who cannot, will loose their concentration and ability to perform.
Perhaps " Always look at the bright side" is that rotten companies always die in the end.
Indeed - If you take the cut, it doesn't stop them getting rid of you in six months time...
And of course your redundancy payoff is less , by the % drop you took.
Now if they took a move like British Airways, where they say staff with have to take a pay freeze for two years.
Then be told they get a specific increase after this time.
Then I think more staff would show willing.
But plenty of staff have already gone 2, 3, 4, ... years without pay rises already.
Remember the company still makes billion $$ profit each year....
Beer because its the only thing to look forward to..
he said "I've been forced to take a 40% pay cut or be made redundant."
Well, if you worked for EDS UK, then you'd be offered the marvellous choice of (a) don't take a paycut and be made redundant or (b) take the paycut _and_ be made redundant. That's what they did to me (in reverse) - pink slipped and then asked "will you take a 5% cut for the good of the team". Being a good sort, even though it didn't effect me because I'll be outtahere before the cut takes effect, I told them to f off. Folks who get pink slipped in the next round (and you can guarantee that there'll be at least one more this year, if not two) will obviously be getting their redundy pay at the new MarkTurd-friendly rate (i.e. less!).
Interestingly enough, I got my cards and then found out that they were _recruiting_ my specialism in eastern europe - and training those monkeys to boot. So all HP have done is lost my many, many years of experience in return for saving a little bit of money - shortsighted or what? It's the same elsewhere in the company - UK-based folks being slashed in favour of either eastern europe or more usually india. It's nothing but blatant instituional racism (anti-British).
It's about time HP remembered that the first law of giving good customer service is to treat your staff as customers. If the unethical way they treat UK-based staff is a guideline, then HP's customer service would embarrass the most slovenly cowboy builder.
You know EDS-UK is doomed when you hear folks getting nostalgic for Dick Brown ... and meaning it! Seriously I think HP's latest attempt at 'services' is going to fail like all their previous ones - just a shame that IBM Global Services etc aren't recruiting at the moment, because it'd be nice to get revenge. Cue evil laugh.
On the upside - at least I don't have to deal with (a) HP marketing droids, or (b) that abortion of a Solaris competitor (HP/sUX) that they push.
1) Guarantee of it being a temporary reduction, not a permanent.
2) Guarantee of no affect on redundancies/pensions.
3) Guarantee that a reduction in pay now will be balanced with an increase in better times.
There's got to be a reciprocal benefit to the staff. Other than that, a company that makes a profit can go swing if they think I'd take a pay cut simply to support board level bonuses.
The best part is that if you take the paycut and then get made redundant, the redundancy is based on your new lower rate of pay!
There was another article (I think on el reg but could have been in the general news) the other day/week that suggested that they have only made 60% of their target lay-offs.
Maybe their management do know what they're doing after all?!
Then take redundancy at the right price, and walk right into a new job with whoever gets the work that EDS/HorsePoo are not going to get because all the staff who knew how to win bids have gone... HP loses money. It's doomed, and Hurd is just asset stripping it.
Beer because it's a nice warm afternoon.
Can somebody please tell this idiot that keeping a $43M bonus for 1 year of service and then permanently TAKING 5% off all USA staff and (luckily for us) only ASKING European staff to take a permanent 5% cut is not leading by example. He is now a universally hated and despised figurehead - rightly so too, the man is obviously a buffoon of the highest order. I also beleive that this strongly calls into question not only his leadership abilities but also his business acumen.
All this action will do is damage the companies image, brand & reputation - something that HPsupposedly cares deeply about. When stories like this become 'famous' all it does is turn people off and away from that brand. This so called leader is both shooting himself in the foot and scoring an own goal at the same time.
For minion staff to even consider this..... A) The board should give back all their bonus' for thelast year - at a guess around £250M (YES a quarter of a BILLION!!!!!), and B) then take at least a 15% paycut themselves. That is leading by example...........
As for me, I have worked genuinely hard for EDS for five years. In all that time I have had 1 pay increase of 1.5%, so my salary has not even kept up with inflation. Now they are asking me to actually earn less than when I first started at EDS...... erm..... let me think about that one...
Perhaps the UK gov't should also be looking closely at it's IT spend and how much of it is going into HP coffers whilst HP is A) getting rid of UK staff hand over fist and B) trying to reduce salaries so that there is even less disposable income to aid any sort of economic recovery.
Then there are the many managers at EDS that more than likely have low IQ and have problems stringing sentences together. Typically empire builders or minions of empire builders, these people are deadwood and should be got rid of. Unfortuantely that requires some effort sorting the wheat from the chaff, so naturally HP/EDS would find that almost impossible to do (as all the chaff is in management already).
Then there are improvements to be made in most internal processes and taking advantage of the accumulated knowledge of your staff - Again HP/EDS has no clue how to do this. The problem almost universally being very poor middle & senior management ability because you are only promoted if you "know" somebody or are a good fit for the mediocrity already in place (mediocrity begats mediocrity). Ability, talent, dedication or even plain old hard work has nothing to do with advancement at EDS, career or salary wise.
In all honesty I sincerely wish I had never joined them - my skill set has gone down as they do not invest in their people. My sense of confidence and self worth has been undermined by extremely bad management. EDS (now HP/EDS) is the worst company I have ever worked for.
If there is any justice out there, they will reap what they have sown......................
Since HP took over EDS;
- All training is banned
- Travel is severely restricted
- All pay rises due in October 2008 frozen & never likely to happen
- Announcement that 26,000 jobs will be cut
- EDS CEO Ron Rittenmeyer gets $90m pay out to leave
- Other senior EDS'ers get $50m to leave
- December 2008 Mark Hurd & his 3 buddies take $150m in bonuses unaware of the impending quarters results or the current economic climate
- January 2009 - Mark Hurd sudenly becomes aware of the current climate asking for 5 & 10% pay cuts from staff as revenue of $28bn for the quarter isn't enough!
"Revenue for the first quarter increased 1% to $28.80 billion from $28.47 billion in the same quarter last year"
- Announcement of mandatory closure over christmas for 8 days to be taken from our own leave (hang on guys we support amongst other things all UK Govts Infrastructure & Apps!)
- Q2 HP results revenue was $27.4 billion - TSG provides 47% of HP’s revenue and more than half of HP’s profit, $8.5B in revenue. Technology Services delivered $2.4B in revenue, and the businesses within EDS delivered $6.1B in revenue.
- So obviously another 6000 people need to sacked (on top of the thousands already gone)
- Further tavel and overtime restrictions for massively depleted EDS staff
Bottom line is that HP over speculates on its expected profits given the current climate, gets a shortfall based on unrealistic expectations & uses it as an exscuse to cut costs.
Questions to Mr Hurd
1) How about being realistic to shareholders or giving back some of the $43m?
2) Is it reasonable (Or Morally acceptable) to take that amount of money & expect people on less than 1/1000th of that amount of money to take pay cuts or get sacked?
3) Do you understand how EDS as a services company works?
(i.e. can't shut up shop over christmas. EDS providing a service to clients is all about the people
Cutting numbers & hammering the rest means bye bye to current contracts. No chance of renewals or new ones)
4) Do you actually give a damn, I suspect not. Hammer costs for a few more $50m bonuses then onto the next company as HP crumbles.
This, and all the other recent swathe of benefit and cost cuts, are nothing to do with the current challenging economic environment. There is no secret that Hurd wants HP to get to the lowest possible cost structure and have far more of the renumeration as a variable bonus than fixed base pay.
It is not going to stop. Bet your bonus that he is being measured on earnings per share. He will continue to screw down on everything until the happy day he buggers off to do the same to the next company. I can only hope that it is one that already has less of a shining soul than HP had because the change to the situation now has been so painful.
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