NetApp shrinks headcount yet again NetApp has made another round of layoffs in the USA and elsewhere. In a statement the company said: Over the past year, our CEO George Kurian has shared how NetApp has been transforming our business to improve productivity and lower our cost structure to align with our revenue expectations and fund investment in growth areas …
Interestingly enough, taht used to be Motorola's reputation as well. There was a time - now seemingly in distant history - where if someone found out you worked for Motorola, the first words out of their mouths were 'great company - incredible R&D investment, and takes care of its people'.
Eventually, the pressure for ever more unrealistic 'shareholder value' will cause things like R&D to be viewed as frivolous, and employees to be nothing but assets to be depreciated and discarded. Like Motorola, the latter appears to be already underway, but the reputation built up lingers for a time with the workers and the public.
Motorola was actually an early customer to NetApp - I still remember how much more pleasant it was working with their NAS filers than the later EMC ones pressed on us because our purchasing manager had a thing for fluttering eyelashes, free dinners with drinks, and a nice set of legs.
I am an ex NetApp employee and I concur that NetApp has been a great place to work at least for a while. The problem with the GPRW rating and the so called "culture" is that it has made NetApp management complacent. NetApp does not have an aptitude test for managers, nor do most managers know how to manage employees. In addition the flawed employee rating system (stack ranking) further undermines any need for management to manage employees. That is the reason NetApp has sp many self proclaimed "leaders" and so few good managers.
With so much focus on maintaing a happy culture, managers hire friends and personality rather than skill.
The assumption that "everybody just wants to work for NetApp" has become the main recruitment tool while HR has little to no say in recruitment. The sole purpose of NetApp HR is the create the illusion that the Recruitment process appears fair to outsiders, while so called managers perform all sorts of stunts to manage people out and friends in. HR are an accomplice to this practice. Most NetApp employee's simply do not have access to HR until the their time for "exit". NetApp HR spend more time "exiting" employees than onboarding -or whatever else HR is meant to do.
Now the best part - NetApp HR have no say over who gets hired, nor do they have any influence on the "culture". As a toothless tiger NetApp HR gets 90 minutes of fame a year, when the GPTW results are being announced via teleconference. For some reason HR saw it appropriate for them to claim responsibilty, completely disregarding that the "culture" is a dynamic completely out of their control, with the biggest influence being rhe amount of booze being consumed.
On the flipside - when NetApp dropped in the GPTW ranking you could hear HR on the phone justfying and appolpgising for 90 minutes for something they have no control over.
So during the next round of annual layoffs the individuals that voted negatively (3 and below )on the "anonymous" GPTW survey would be gone and replaced by somebody that oozes "NetApp culture".
Nortel was the same way... Sadly, I too was caught up in the latest round. I truly enjoyed my time at NTAP, and wish them well, but it seems clear changes in technology, storage densities, and how people use storage are going to upset the apple cart there unless they make some drastic changes. One can only hope they haven't left it for too late.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
