Conference 7.286::digital

    Back in 1990 when we had 124,000 employees, we also had:
    
    37 Officers of which were -
    
      1 President and CEO
      2 Senior VPs
      1 VP and CEO-Europe
      33 VPs
    
    Perhaps there were other VPs who weren't also officers.
    So, how many VPs do we currently have?
    
    

    While I haven't kept official counts, it seems to be that I receive
    about two vice presidential announcements every week.  You know, the
    kind that begin, "It gives us great pleasure to announce that...."
    
    Every time I see one, I think, "Oh goodie, another vice president.  I
    knew we were one short.  I bet we'll make huge profits next quarter!"
    
    When will it ever end?  Every announcement of a new VP makes me wonder: 
    doesn't anything embarrass these guys?

    Come on,chaps!Who cares if we have a million VPs?Call yourself a VP if
    you need to.The issue isn't the title or the number.I suspect that what
    you are really complaining about is that no new VP SEEMS to make any
    difference.Some do and I'm sure some don't.The issue is that I think we
    all expect to see new,visionary,leaders that make an instant
    difference.Maybe it is this that is unrealistic in this large and
    amoeba-like company with its many layers of management.
    I AM surprised that some of the VPs seem to be the ones that have
    arguably presided over the decline of parts of our business but there
    again,I don't have the vantage point that the SLT have,so my judgement
    is very subjective instead of being collectively subjective.
    2c ;o}

    You are correct in that one of the issues is that no VP seems to make
    any difference.
    
    The second issue is that we keep adding these six figure salaries when
    we are drowning in a sea of red ink.  
    
    The third issue is that the SLT, by virture of their "It gives me great
    pleasure to announce"  messages, seems to think that it will give us
    great pleasure to hear of the appointment of yet another VP.  
    
    And, by the way, I could call myself a VP, but I can't compensate
    myself like a VP.

Palmer, in the recent DVN broadcast, said that there are many fewer VPs now
than there were (remember that quite a number have left), and that VPs have had
a higher percentage reduction than any other job category.

						Brian

    
    
    He did not say vp's, I believe it was officers of the company or some
    such.

    Gee I feel better now.

    I believe he was talking about VP's at the executive level and that the
    number he mentioned was 24. 24 is much lower than the number mentioned
    in .1 (I believe it was 35)so Bob can state that there's been a large
    reduction.
    
    What he didn't discuss is the expolosive growth in, for lack of a better
    term, positional vice presidents. They continue to crawl out of the
    woodwork!
    
    tim m.
    

    Maybe we should be known as the Digital First National Bank
    
     -- I think a person two levels above Janitor in a Bank is known as a VP.
    
    Noter 4 has the right spin.  I vote for him.
    
    My .02
    
    Dennis

    how long (on average) does it take a DECeee from the time they come
    a board untill they promoted to become a VP? has nay one done
    stats on this ascpect on it?
    
    \nasser

    well, all i can say is that if i were a VP too things will be much
    different than there are now.
    
    thats all i have to say on this for now.
    
    \bye
    \nasser

    re .13
    
    I don't think anyone would disagree with your observation.
    
    ;-)

    QUESTION:
    
    "I'm with the US Acquisition IM&T.  Over the past year or so we've seen
    quite a few people transitioned out of the company, and at the same time 
    a number of VPs have been hired. Do you see that streamlining upper-level 
    management would help not only to eliminate some overhead but also help 
    cut the bureaucracy in the company today?"
    
    Bob Palmer's ANSWER:
    
    "Actually, that may be a perception.  It's not an accurate perception.  
    The company had at one time since I've been in the company, some 45 
    officers.  Today we have less than 26.  Out of the 26 we have, more 
    than 50% are new people.  Either people promoted from within or hired 
    from the outside.  So the reason people might have that perception is 
    we have these announcements and they say, gee, they hired somebody, 
    they hired somebody, they hired somebody.  It looks like a lot of vice 
    presidents.  This is a huge company, today at about 93,000 people, and 
    you need some management structure.  But as I say, it's 25 or 26 as 
    opposed to 44.
    
    The other thing I look at, although you didn't ask it, is as we do the 
    downsizings, I asked Dick Farrahar, who's head of Personnel, to get the 
    data by job level. And I want to avoid this thing where what happens is 
    all of the workers in the field get laid off and all of the management 
    stays, you know, which is the traditional thing that happens in 
    downsizings.  And we have the data by job level, and Dick assures me 
    that it's relatively uniform.  The largest number in percentage terms
    are exactly the vice presidents.  It turns out that we have had a 
    departure from our company of more vice presidents on a percentage level 
    than any other category, and it was necessary in my view."

Word games:

>>    "Actually, that may be a perception.  It's not an accurate perception.  
>>    The company had at one time since I've been in the company, some 45 
>>    officers.  Today we have less than 26.  Out of the 26 we have, more 
>>    than 50% are new people. 

26 or so OFFICERS.  There are quite a few VP's who are not officers of the 
corporation.

>> It turns out that we have had a departure from our company of more vice 
>> presidents on a percentage level than any other category, and it was 
>> necessary in my view."

And how many NEW VP's were hired/promoted, as a percentage?

    I'm talking from the customer service side of the house...I just heard
    today that the future will show us having more "temps" than actually
    employees.  That includes engrs.  The example was given:  If a district
    has 400 headcount...300 of that number will be from temp agencies.  How
    much to you want to bet that the 100 real dec employees will be
    management!?  
    
    I sat through the last DVN...a comment made from the sales side was:
    We are going right back to where we were three years ago.  
    
    Scary -

a couple opinions for you...

1. I'm in FS and we have had several temps doing work for us. It seems sooooo
odd I can hardly believe it. The thing that we can usually sell service with
is the relationship of DEC, the fse and our support facilities. 

2. Interesting about the DVN... I remember us in like 1991 when we lost some
awful amount of money like $200 million and Zereski saying that we just
missed adding $250 million in a big contract that came in. Someone recently
said that we could have made a actual profit except for the $200 million
in unshipped products. 

Fred

    	An ex-colleague of mine went to interview for a contractors job in
    another DEC office. The interview was conducted by five other
    contractors - not a single permanent DEC employee.