back to article The only thing worse than working at CSC? An Xmas redundo programme at CSC

Trigger-happy CSC is aiming the redundancy gun at another batch of hapless employees just in time for Chrimbo – a fate perhaps only slightly worse than actually working at the integrator over the festive season. Hard-pressed staff were this week made aware of a third round of job cuts for 2016 – earlier rounds came in May and …

  1. Roger Kynaston
    Mushroom

    Furkin euphemisms

    It is the realigning business objectives with the pipeline bullshit that will do for us. It makes me want to take to the barricades and I don't even work for them.

    1. Korev Silver badge

      Re: Furkin euphemisms

      That phrase pissed me off too.

      I have no idea what the down vote was for...

  2. m0rt

    "Reshaping our delivery structures in some areas to better align with business opportunities and areas of growth"

    Yep - Shareholders want their pound of flesh and we will hand it to them on a silver platter. Although I wonder about the use of the word Growth, here...ahh screw it. Sounds good.

    "Addressing overcapacity to better align our pipeline with demand"

    I mean, we did have some contracts end so those staff are expendible really.

    "Addressing areas where headcount can be reduced with little or no business impact"

    Yeah - get this. So obviously we can still retain the same 'level' of service with less staff. Who knew?

    "Ensuring our cost base is proportionate for the business it is supporting"

    So get this, we can state the same thing three different ways. Lucky for me I get paid by the word.

    "Continuing to make use of offshore capability to increase competitiveness where appropriate"

    Yeah. Because offshoring, which we now can prove doesn't work, is ace. It means that things go wrong, which means that our clients need our services to make it right! Bonus - then we can hire more guys so we can then do the whole thing again....

    ___

    I like to think of myself as a nice, tolerant guy.

    Those 5 points make me want to hunt down whoever wrote those and strap them to a chair, then force them to watch the British Bake Off final over and over and over and over and over and over whilst playing them 'I Will Always Love You' with a variying pitch control effect.

    Or make them work for Accenture HR. Can't decide which is worse.

    CSC

    Continously Screwing Clients.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or make them work for Accenture HR. Can't decide which is worse.

      Judging by the time I spent as an mental hospital outpatient, the Vampire Squid's HR dept is a pretty harrowing place although, being a private hospital, there was significant selection bias in the sample

    2. tfewster
      Facepalm

      "Addressing areas where headcount can be reduced with little or no business impact"

      Are they claiming they continued employing staff they didn't need even after the last two rounds of cutbacks*? Or admitting that they missed them, twice? Or just plain lying?

      * e.g. redundancy counsellors?

  3. Magani
    WTF?

    Their statement = 'BBB'

    Bullsh1t Buzzword Bingo.

    That is all.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Enhancement"

    The reward for jumping rather than waiting to be pushed is less than 3 grand.

    How can you have simultaneous overcapacity in both Sales and in Business Services? It seems to me that if one is over capacity, the other probably needs a boost.

    But despite all the words about transformation, this is just yet more harvesting of resources that have been built up over time to hand money back to the shareholders (which most certainly includes those who are making the decisions) in the short term.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cover picture

    Is that supposed to be Father Christmas, or Herod?

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: Cover picture

      They want to cut their staff in half, so I'm gonna go with Herod.

      1. BebopWeBop
        Trollface

        Re: Cover picture

        Well I think Solomon would be a better choice.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: Cover picture

          Fair point, I thought I was wrong when I posted it, but it still sounded good - who needs facts when you have a good sound-byte? Next stop...politics!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Worked there for 2 years, worst ever employer ever.

    Zero hours contracts.

    Searched by security in and out, had to wait in a queue not paid/compensated for

    No training or promotion prospects.

    No eye protection when using smart water or other substances.

    Had to provide own tools.

    Employees terrified to approach management or HR, speak and your fired attitude

    Amazingly they were winning government IT projects from BBC to NHS, wonder if they ever inspected the employment conditions.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Worked there for 2 years, worst ever employer ever.

      Eh? I know CSC sucks but that doesn't sound like CSC.

      Are you sure you weren't working at Amazon or Sports Direct?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A rough translation...

    ...we are cutting costs so that we can make our numbers (or at least pretend we did) and keep our shareholders happy.

    When will businesses learn that they cannot cut their way to prosperity?

    The euphemisms seem to be getting worse across the big corporates - I have received emails announcing redundancies (although not actually using the word) that do not contain a single negative wors.

  8. AMBxx Silver badge
    FAIL

    Continuing to make use of offshore capability to increase competitiveness where appropriate

    That pretty much sums it up. Why did they bother with the rest?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It would be worth noting here that CSC are not buying HPE ES, it is a spin merger and creation of a NewCo.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Joke

      Who would want to buy herpes?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They are paying HPE in excess of £2Bn and issuing HPE shareholders with 50% of the shares in a new company formed from the CSC and ES pieces.

      The operative word here is Spin. It is being spun as a merger to get around US tax rules the reality is that CSC just assimilated ES and took the chance to rebrand itself.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Agreed; technically it is a 'spin-merge' using a Reverse Morris Trust but the reality is as you describe.

        Not sure that the rebrand will actually occur - it would be much cheaper (and still within the rules) to simply name NewCo 'CSC' - the name, logo, brand and stock ticker already exist, why go to the expense of changing it?

        1. Miss Lincolnshire

          My money is on CSC being the name.

          EDS sounds good though......

        2. Psmo

          "...technically it is a 'spin-merge' using a Reverse Morris Trust..."

          I did one of those.

          Great fun, but it took weeks to get the stains out.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        All of HPE IT is being moved to ES (CSC) also. Announced to employees a couple hours ago.

    3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      does it matter

      It would be worth noting here that CSC are not buying HPE ES, it is a spin merger and creation of a NewCo.

      Does it really matter who is buying who? Whichever it is, they are doomed to rinse and repeat this every few months until their whole business here is just a holding company and every worker is in India.

      No UK/EU Employees equals lower costs and this more profit for those who remain.

      Will the last one out please disconnect the leccy. No screwdrivers provided.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    slack slack cutters

    If you cut the slack in May and you cut it again in September and you need to cut it again before the year is out, you have a problem: either the company is imploding and/or the people in charge of cutting slack are absolutely hopeless at it.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Joke

      Re: slack slack cutters

      If you cut some slack, and you end up with more slack, you cut the wrong rope in the first place and it's time to check your vector*.

      *Is wind-speed increasing? Check.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas, You're All Going to be Fired

    Worked at a firm back in the 90's that sold computers and provided services. (I am in the US but posting anonymously for obvious reasons.) The company was pretty big, it needed to be cut down a bit. So the new CFO sent out a memo less than a month before Christmas saying, basically, everyone's job was on the line and there were going to be staff reductions. What I call the "Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas, You're All Going to be Fired" memo. Nastiest thing I think I've ever seen. Funny thing, by February, so many staff had self-selected to find other work, the headcount had reduced to the point where nobody needed to let go. The obvious fly in the ointment: Only the best employees were able to find employment elsewhere, it was the deadwood and the thieves who stayed on.

  12. fishman

    Typical

    1). Get big contracts

    2). Fire the expensive skilled staff

    3). Replace with cheap less skilled people

    4). Profit - use Golden Parachute

    5). Projects fail.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All about bonuses

    CSC senior management would rather make everyone redundant than lose their bonuses based on profit / headcount ratio. The less staff the better the ratio even with falling profits, just get rid of staff faster than the profits are falling.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    HPE also broke it to their employees today that 95% of HPE's IT workers will be going to the new ES/CSC company and ES/CSC will have a contract to provide IT services to HPE.

  15. ThisPlaceInTime

    How odd. They neglected to mention all those bodies they'll be taking on from HPE ........

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was having a drink with a few HPE employees last night.

    There was general agreement that their expected employment term at CSC would be only about a year. They were debating if they find another job immediately, or wait a bit.

    No matter the reality, your company has a toxic reputation if that is the expectation. When you reinforce that reputation with layoffs and a press release like this, how can you expect the HPE deal to work out?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Work out?

      The deal will work out perfectly.

      The contracts acquired, the staff fed into a blender and replaced by offshore.

      CSC don't recognise the value of a person. You personally don't bring anything to the party, you are just a bum on a seat. A seat which can be placed anywhere in the world and a much cheaper bum stuck on it.

      All of this will be done because there is no growth in the business and the wolves of wall street are only appeased by growth. The only way to "grow" is to increase margin, ie cut costs.

      If you all thought Meg was bad, you aint seen NOTHING yet.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Work out?

        "CSC don't recognise the value of a person. You personally don't bring anything to the party, you are just a bum on a seat. A seat which can be placed anywhere in the world and a much cheaper bum stuck on it."

        Just replace "CSC" with "HPE" and you also have the current HPE position in a nutshell.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Wilson himself landed at CSC when it acquired K3. Prior to that he worked at HP in various senior roles including head of Enterprise Services, part of HPE which is being bought by his current employer."

    Clearly he took HPE's fondness for redundancy with him to CSC, then.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good old Craig Wilson

    Had the misfortune to work in HPE when Craig took over the UK&I team after the merger with EDS.

    All of the reason he states above are just a rerun of the garbish he used to spout at HPE. The man hasn't an original thought in his head and couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag. Headcount reduction was the only tool in his toolbox.

    I sincerely hope he isn't given a senior role in the new CSC/HPE company.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So another 499 of us out in this latest round by Xmas.... thats 10% of UK CSC employees. CSC not far of their dream of having nothing left in the UK!...

  20. HumansComeFirst
    Megaphone

    More Compulsory Redundancies

    Dozens of compulsory redundancies are now facing hard working workers via a process of 'selection pools'; this is despite many individuals offering to take voluntary redundancy. CSC is unashamedly deciding who goes and who stays based upon the cost to release an individual based upon their T&C's.

    If you are under 50, you can be gone in a week. However, for those individuals around 56 who might have generous T&C's, these are unlikely to be offered voluntary redundancy despite volunteering to help reduce the need for compulsory redundancy.

    What a miserable company, targeting honest, but easy to remove workers, leading to the fact that many people are about to commence their Christmas celebrations not knowing whether they have a job to return to in the New Year.

    What a shame CSC cannot live up to their 'promise' that they would mitigate against compulsory redundancies by looking for volunteers! An ethical company would exhaust their supply of volunteers before any mass firing!

    Also a further shame that even the almighty [cough] UNITE union is seemingly burying its head in the sand and pretend it is business as usual! Definitely time to leave UNITE - only after I have received my new diary of course!

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