DamianSaunders.net - Latest Comments in HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Damian Saunders — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:23:16 -0000

Ok everyone, with over 1300 comments on this post and almost a year since I wrote it I think it's time we moved the discussion to a more recent post, so I'm closing the comments on this one.
There are three other HP articles on this site, I suggest my most recent update HP’s economic opportunism and greed, one year on is the most appropriate continuation of this thread.
Thank You.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

UK Employee — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:52:48 -0000

Yep, seriously...however, you also get an email from Mark Hurd...

Can't wait to see what 'sincere and personal' means - I have my 10 Years of Service coming up in May.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Unhappy HP'r — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:13:02 -0000

Just when you think they can't sink any lower..... HP has changed the Years of Service Recognition program eff 1/1/10. No more eaward component. You just get a certificate that your manager has to create and they give your manager "ideas on how to commemorate the milestone in a sincere and personal way." Seriously????????

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Lyndon St Annes — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:56:34 -0000

The Account Director may well be out before the Summer anyway. EDS just lost Desktop and may fail to make the cut to keep the main Software devlopment and support contract that is now about to be reopened for tender. All he can look forward to is "taking up an outside opportunity" and a fat wedge in cash to keep his integrity intact.

The mail to the plebs has probably already been drafted and the inevitable HP pull through evangelist that will line up to replace him is doubtless being cloned in California as we whinge

Meanwhile more "good news" for Hurd.

Yesterday EDS lost a £200m compensation claim against Rupert Murdoch's UK BSkyB for a failed eCRM solution . Judge said "EDS lied and deceived" to win the work.

http://www.computerweekly.c...

http://www.computing.co.uk/...

OK not strictly an HP mess. But HP will have to pay the fine! Best of all Mark Hurd is himself a Director at Murdoch's News Corporation (well it's not as if being CEO, President and Chairman of HP is a full time job at a mere $30m p.a is it?). It would be worth the trip to see him tip up with a bag of 20,000,000,000 1p coins to pay it in as grudging a manner as possible :^)

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Metoo — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:50:21 -0000

In a way I feel sorry for him. All these mid-level execs have to do what Hurd says or their career is over....They are all terrified and will do anything just to get their next bonus payment. Contrast this new culture with the old EDS-way of doing what is best for your customer.

I wonder what they'll do with the VoW next year when the scores are even worse ????

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Haddy Nuff — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:34:21 -0000

Hi - do you know where I can see the 'unsanitised' VOW survey? I'd love to see what people really said before management glossed over it! Looks like Mark Manser is taking a leaf out of Hurds book when it comes to employees, his recent email about the union negotiations were actually quite insulting and just shows management couldn't care less about the 'small' people that actually do hard work and make money for HP.

Personally I couln't be more happy at HP losing the Desktop Contract, Hurd and his cronies aren't interested in providing a good service to the customer, it's all about the money to them, and it seems the contracts may be getting wise to this.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Sad Place to be — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:48:32 -0000

Coming up to 13 years at EDS/HP. Here are my observations:
* There's not that much difference between EDS since Dick Brown and HP, but Mark Hurd has raised it to an art form.
* EDS saved HP's butt last year with "our" results, yet we also took some major pain on salaries, WFR etc. - odd thing to do to the people making your profit for you.
* HP refuses to acknowledge any bad news. They trumpet any contract win, but NOTHING is ever heard about losing pieces of work. HP recently lost some Telstra work to IBM (according to y sister-in-law, who works at IBM, who was crowing about how IBM had to fix the HP mess). And they've also lost a sizeable piece of the GMAC desktop and hosting work to IBM. What they don't realise, is that there are customers out there who HATE HP, and when HP swallowed up EDS, they didn't like it one bit. So when time came for recompete, these customers couldn't get away fast enough. EDS won the hosting off IBM relatively recently, but now that "we're" HP, we're on the nose all of a sudden.
* My account is going to close down sometime this year (there are no details, not even for the poor sods working directly for the customer) but we know it's going to happen sometime. So we expect to be made redundant. My immediate manager keeps telling me that having come into HP will mean "all sorts of opportunities" and that my manager will "support me 100% in anything I want to do". However I suspect that when push comes to shove, it will be much easier to just put me on the "5 week plan" than do anything to try to get me another job within HP. I (and the other two people in my team, all of which have 13-25 years experience with this customer) are resigned to this. In fact, I think that despite the worry of not getting another job quickly, (others in our team, highly skilled as they were, took up to nine months to get employed after being dumped early last year), are so sick of the place that we almost welcome it.
* Morale is way worse than management will admit. All they have to do is look at blogs like this one, or read the "unsanitised" results of the VOW survey. There are to be presentations on this in coming weeks. that should be hilarious once the spin doctors have finished with it.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Damian Saunders — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:20:53 -0000

I agree and good on you for making the realisation. There sure is life outside HP, getting out of there made me realise what a soul sapping beast that place really is.
Buying anything HP is a career ending move in my business! At lest until they demonstrate congruency with their corporate values. Certainly not the case under Mark Hurd.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

WB — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:32:04 -0000

After a long career at HP, I was WFR'd. This turned out to be the best thing to happen to me. My God, there is life outside HP. In my new role, I champion to NOT buy any products with an HP badge made with slave labor. The absolute disregard King Hurd and his clansman have for the workers is disgusting. Keep your eyes open for opportunities outside HP. Yes there is a recession, but quality people can find a job quickly

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

tired — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:23:01 -0000

To translate I think this means there will be pay rises for executives this year.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

removethehurd — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:50:56 -0000

DWP staff are set to strike tomorrow :

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/ne...

Looks like the management offer to 'talk' was just a delaying tactic in order to win the Desktop contract (oh dear).

This company is going to burn this year.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

another guest — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:54:58 -0000

People are voting, as HP that used to be one of the top places to work, has fallen off this list as well. Such a shame to see a place I use to love to work at dwindle into mediocrity

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcomp...

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

formerhp — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:48:53 -0000

It looks like HP workers in the UK will go on strike on Friday, Jan 22:

http://www.theregister.co.u...

Hopefully this will inspire US and other workers to organize and protect
themselves from the overpaid corporate psychopaths at the top.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Guest — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:48:51 -0000

You got to take the time to watch the salary compensation dance... IT IS GREAT

http://money.cnn.com/video/...

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Al Quietontheprestonfront — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:35:16 -0000

Understand that the proposal was "beefed up" (ruined by adding unwanted "pull through" accelerating and generating items) during governance before it was sent off to DWP with more margin on it at the insistence of outside management (oink oink).

The problem is that they are like those people that doorstep you to sell you an orthopedic bed or vacumn cleaner you don't want. Oreck? You know overpriced machines with costly spares much like HP printers with their ridiculous ink refill prices.

They are so obsessed with being in your face and pushing what they want to sell that don't listen to what the DWP want to buy. Anyone that works on the account will tell you that it is EDS's traditional willingness to work with the most suitable hadware and software that got us the job. We were seen as independant of IBM, HP, Sun etc. Hurd doesn't get that they'd rather buy something they want than something that has an HP badge on it but needs a bespoke OS or OS wrapper to allow it to do the job.

Two of the three proposals involved HP kit. DWP chose the one that didn't. It wouldn't take a rocket scientest to work out what that tells us about DWP's feelings about HP and their pull-through plans.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Damian Saunders — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:06:22 -0000

If I was DWP i'd be telling those two to piss off. Love to hear how that pans out.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Albert — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:53:09 -0000

Rumour is that Hurd and Livermore are not happy with DWP and are going to England to meet themvery soon. Lots of other work coming up for renewal. HP are bound to lose some but will be desperate to hang on to the core pieces. They will fail badly if they play the big man with DWP. And EDS people won't be unhappy about that.

HP + EDS under Hurd = FAIL!

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Damian Saunders — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:02:48 -0000

They're not going to get it. In reality the higher up the management tree you go in HP the more being an ego driven wanker seems to be the primary qualification for the job. I think it's great that HP are beginning to lost contracts. No so much for the people on the ground but because the tipping point will come swiftly. The market will start demanding answers from Mark Hurd very soon, and he doesn't have the answer.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

LegacyEDS — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:41:02 -0000

Word is that the bid was going well until the 'senior HP' bid team was parachuted in. They then proceeded to take over the bid from those experienced with working with this customer. When are they going to get it? The services industry is fundamentally about trust. How could they lose this contract as it has performed so well ?

Don't believe the management spin, this is a catastrophe for HP. The DWP Desktop contract was the jewel in the crown and a lot of the resource moving to Fujitsu was also used for other DWP HP business.

The other DWPs contracts will now turn to crap.

Good work Mark Hurd.

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Guest — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:24:46 -0000

Another account ....

Hp lost Blue cross blue sheild of Mass to IBM,,,,

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

IT Guy — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:12:24 -0000

Maybe Mr. Hurd should read this:

http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-...

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Blueguy — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:58:59 -0000

$14.6M in cash - nice pocket change for Mark! Meanwhile, the pay cut stays in force, no raise, and no bonus for the rank and file...

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

Disgruntled — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:48:14 -0000

Here is the report on MH compensation for FY09.

http://www.mercurynews.com/...

Interesting to note that he has additional compensation (S475k) for home security (whatever that is for ... fort knox?) and the personal use of a HP private jet (holiday in Carribean Islands???).

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

FreeMarketsGuy — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:51:09 -0000

Recent SEC filing with 2009 compensation can be found at

http://www.sec.gov/Archives...

By the way Mark Hurd made less than 2008 but $5 Million more than 2007!

Re: HP Pay Cuts – an unfair act of economic opportunism and greed.

HP UK Employee — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:44:27 -0000

The SEC filing makes interesting reading...

1. Jobs for the boys:

Christopher Rittenmeyer, the son of Ronald Rittenmeyer, a former executive officer of HP, was employed by HP during a portion of fiscal 2009. He was paid a base salary of $233,100, participated in HP's equity award and benefit programs and received an award of 10,690 performance-based restricted units during that period. He also received cash payments totaling $859,787 in fiscal 2009 pursuant to an agreement with HP relating to the termination of his employment.

For lower levels it seems to be more like 50% of what comparable peers pay!:

the Committee generally targets the total compensation of HP's executive officers to be at or near the 75th percentile of pay for comparable positions at its peer group companies.

And finally, well done the board for doing so well in touch economic conditions, x million is not proper reward so have an extra bit!:

In addition to approving PfR Plan awards, the Committee approved discretionary cash awards to the NEOs (named executive officers) based on their achievement of solid financial performance in fiscal 2009 and their contributions to business results, which the Committee believed were not fully rewarded through the payouts under the PfR Plan, especially given that the performance and contributions were delivered in such a difficult economic environment.