Resignation, Layoffs, Culture: Storytime | And I resigned... finally!

I was working with a company for over 2.5 years now. I resigned just a few days back. And it laid off hundreds of folks right after I resigned. I like to believe that my resignation caused this, lol. Canon event, can’t help. Anyway, jokes aside - a couple of things I learned in this company, that I don’t think I could have learned anywhere else.

Before I list down all the things that I might have picked up, let me tell you a story about what went wrong here: The company is churning out revenue, just as much as it is building revenue every quarter (or more too. It made $2mn one quarter, and churned $2.3mn). The company has given the leadership reigns to people without spine, so much so that it now is spineless too. IT was such a good company even when Covid hit.

The company did not give any appraisal or hike for the most talented employees as well, citing the economy and was expecting them to work just as much! The attrition then mounted to 68%.

Now, let me list down my takeaways, as raw as possible:

• An insecure manager will ruin the culture of the company even before you realise it. But a strong manager with a spine of steel would never be enough to build the culture all by himself / herself. It’s easier to ruin things than to build them.

• Choose your mentor rather carefully. You might be choosing a mentor based on performance, but I’d rather suggest you choose a mentor based on how they do their stuff, how ethical they are and how did they get there: Is it by tricking customers and overselling, or by hard work and heart-work? The mentor you choose in any company, shapes how you look at work. SHAPES YOU!

• When the management cares less about employees, and claims to care about customers; it’s a white lie. They can’t care about customers while not caring about employees who have to cater to the customers.

• If you are not making incentives for over 2 quarters, you are in a bad place or you are a bad rep. Figure out the reason rather early on and act on it. Time wasted is equivalent to career wasted.

• If you are early on your career, and you are in a company that doesn't promote hard work - run. Company culture has the power to erode your skillset, your ambitions and just everything that you wanted from your workspace. Don't slack, not just yet.

Uff. I could be a "LiFE cOaCh".