AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT SMITHFIELD FOODS (08/12/23)

AUGUST 12, 2023 — CLOSING 35 HIG FARMS WITH 94 LAYOFFS

Smithfield Foods will be closing 35 hog farms across Missouri, including 13 in Newtown, 12 in Lucerne, and 10 in Princeton, and laying off 92 employees, commencing on October 8, 2023.

According to a company statement, Murphy-Brown LLC, a division of Smithfield Foods, is ‘reducing its hog farming operations’ across the state and ‘must reduce its workforce accordingly,’ the company said in the notice, which affects salaried and hourly workers.

FEBRUARY 1, 2023 — FARMER JOHN CLOSING

The Farmer John slaughterhouse in Vernon, California is slated to close for good in a matter of days, leaving about 2,000 workers with uncertain futures.

JUNE 28, 2022 — Original post…

Smithfield, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, a wholly-owned subsidiary of WH Group of China and the largest integrated pork producer and food-processing company in the United States, has announced a restructuring that will see the closure of the company's Farmer John meatpacking plant in Vernon, California. The company is also considering “strategic options to exit its farms in Arizona and California.”

The closure, tentatively scheduled for early 2023 will impact approximately 1,500 employees. The decision appears driven by the elevated costs of doing business in California. Production will be shifted to the company's existing facilities in the Midwest.

According to Smithfield's Chief Operating Officer, Brady Stewart, “Smithfield harvests only company-owned hogs in Vernon. Smithfield will service customers in California with its Farmer John brand and other brands and products from existing facilities in the Midwest. Smithfield is taking these steps due to the escalating cost of doing business in California. We are grateful to our team members in the Western region for their dedication and invaluable contributions to our mission. We are committed to providing financial and other transition assistance to employees impacted by this difficult decision.

“Despite a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with Farmer John employees and their union, Smithfield has decided to exit operations in California,” Grant said in a statement. “A fair agreement that compensates their workers until next year has been reached, and we hope that another operator will take advantage of the highly trained and stable workforce that makes the Farmer John plant a productive and profitable part of Vernon’s packing infrastructure.”

Additionally, Smithfield Foods plans to downsize operations in Beaver, Utah which will impact an estimated 250+ employees.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? IS THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL AT YELP?

JUNE 25, 2022 — AS YELP TRANSITIONS TO A VIRTUAL OFFICE BUSINESS MODEL, THE FUTURE OF ITS EMPLOYEES BECOMES LESS CERTAIN

San Francisco, California-based Yelp Inc., a software platform that develops and publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses, has announced that it is adopting a "virtual office" business model that will result in the closure of offices in Chicago, Illinois, Washington, D.C., and New York, New York.

It is unknown how the transition to a virtual office will affect current employees, but traditionally some workers do not appreciate the benefits of working at home, especially if young children are present.

According to Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman...

"The pandemic has brought about unprecedented change over the past two plus years. While we expected some things would go back to the way they were before, early on it became abundantly clear to us that the way we work has gone through a major transformation. Over time we came to realize that the future of work at Yelp is remote. It’s best for our employees, and for our business. Today, I shared with our team why Yelp is leading the way in creating the workplace of the future.

We learned that we could not only effectively operate our business as a distributed remote workplace, but that our people could thrive and be just as, if not more, productive while remote. Employees are more satisfied working remotely as they can spend precious time they would have otherwise spent commuting doing the things they love with the people who mean the most to them. In surveying our own employees, 86% of respondents said they’d prefer to work remotely most or all of the time, 87% report that working remotely has made them more effective at work, and 93% of employees and their managers report they can meet their goals remotely. Our record revenue in 2021, which carried through to our first quarter results this year, demonstrate just how productive we are in a remote work environment.

The most telling signal for us that people strongly prefer remote work has been the under-utilization of our offices. When we started reopening offices over the past nine months we chose not to set a “return to work” date. Instead, we piloted a remote-first approach to give people an option to use an office if they wanted to do so. We’ve since learned that the vast majority didn’t need the space. Globally, about 1% of our workforce is choosing to come into the office every day. After observing how employees have been using our offices, we’ve decided to close our most consistently underutilized offices on July 29, in New York, Chicago and Washington D.C., as well as reduce our footprint in Phoenix. Combined, the three offices we’re closing saw a weekly average utilization of less than 2% of the available workspaces.

As we continue to embrace a fully remote workplace and design the future of remote work at Yelp, we plan to re-allocate resources towards our employee experience, new talent, and the growth of our business. Additionally, our in-person gatherings will continue to evolve as we reimagine the long-held paradigms around work.

I’ve shared my thoughts on why forcing people back to the office, even in a hybrid model, is the wrong approach. It requires employees to live near an office, potentially driving up their housing costs, and to endure unpaid time spent commuting. It also means hiring is artificially constrained by geography, translating to a smaller and less diverse pool of talent. Our workforce was previously concentrated in the areas where we have offices, and now we have employees spread across every state in the U.S. and four countries. We also hired two remote C-level executives in geographies with no Yelp offices, and have been seeing a strong surge in candidate applications, with many noting that remote work is part of the reason they’re drawn to the company and role.

When you’re a company founded on the idea of connecting people with great local businesses, having employees in communities all over the world ties directly to our mission. Yelp continues to experience the benefits of a remote workplace and it’s the clear path forward for us. We’re excited to continue to design the future of remote work at Yelp together with our employees."

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT ONETRUST

Atlanta, Georgia-based Onetrust, a digital privacy management company, has announced a reduction of force impacting 25% of its workforce. The reduction in force will impact 950 Onetrust employees companywide.

According to a statement from OneTrust Chief Executive Officer Kabir Barday...

Today is one of the most challenging days in our 6-year history as a company as we reduced our employee headcount by 950 employees, which is approximately 25% of our workforce – all talented team members who have helped us with our incredible growth and success. This decision was not easy, and it is with a heavy heart that I deliver this news.

I know this news is surprising, especially as you heard last month that the business is on track with record quarters and increasing customer demand. However, capital markets sentiment shifted to a more balanced approach between growth and profitability, and at this time, we have decided the best course of action is to reorganize to position OneTrust for continued long-term success.

It is my role as CEO to ensure that OneTrust continues to thrive. And while evaluating all potential scenarios created by these changes, it is critical to be proactive, and this reduction is the solution we chose to help us meet the new challenges ahead of us.

The decision to reduce our workforce is the result of an extensive evaluation process and is not a reflection of the performance of any one person or team. There is no sugar-coating it, this reorganization is painful for all of us – and this is a decision that I own as CEO, and the impact on our team members and their families is something I do not take lightly.

For our team members who are leaving us, we are providing resources and assistance via severance packages, equity, and extended medical coverage. We are also creating an opt-in network for our former team members which will provide them with ongoing access to training, as well as facilitate connections to companies looking for access to talent.

As with any change, the resilience we’ve built as a company will be tested. We’ve proven in the past that we can emerge stronger as a company by adapting quickly, and I’m confident that we have the strength to pull together through this challenging time. As we look ahead to our next chapter, we will find new opportunities and successes as we scale the business.

There are exciting days ahead for OneTrust as we transform into the Trust Intelligence Platform company. But today, I want to acknowledge and thank our team members who will be moving on. I also want you to know that I recognize this news is difficult, and you will need time to process. To support you, we encourage you to leverage our unlimited PTO policy to take well-being days over the next several weeks. In addition, the leadership team and I will make ourselves available to you as we speak with each of our international offices and teams over the coming weeks. You will see Town Hall structured meetings with me in addition to Ask Me Anything invitations dedicated to your team. You will also be receiving invitations to a virtual All Hands meeting with me being held tomorrow morning as well as a virtual meeting with your respective business unit leaders.

I want to reassure you that OneTrust is positioned for this next chapter as a company. Our vision for Trust Intelligence – bringing together privacy, ethics, ESG, GRC – has the potential to be one of the most impactful software categories of the next generation. Our rapidly growing customer base has crossed 12,000 organizations, and all of them are on the journey of trust transformation with us. I recognize today is a painful day for our company, but I am confident in the resilience of our teams as together, we look ahead to our next chapter.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?