When I made it to the level (large Pharma in Basel) to attend these calibration meetings, I found it to be a profoundly depressing experience, as one realised that all your efforts at the lower levels were meaningless in the face of this discussion. If someone wouldn’t fight for you (and they really do fight), or someone would push back hard, that’s you done, and not just for a year, people remember.
It became a popularity contest, interspersed with b*llshit HR phrases in an act to justify an opinion, also along nationality lines and personal friendships.
Just my own view on that experience. As Castro said, a lot of it is the luck of the draw in terms of the manager type you get.
Yup, you are wholly dependent on your manager advocating for you at these calibration meetings otherwise you are screwed.
And there’s a lot of politics involved. I remember being naive in my first meeting and poured cold water on a rising star who was very good technically but left a lot of bodies in his wake. And immediately was ‘invited’ by his manager for a meeting to sort this out (basically to shut me up at the next meeting).
I even saw managers secretly advocate against their own direct reports who were good, but maybe threatening to the manager…
All I can say is if you don’t have a manager who regularly, vigorously and publicly advocates for you, then you should try to find new manager.
Somewhat it made me sad, but not about the point of the “fat trimming”. It made me sad that people here just want waste their life in jobs. It’s Switzerland, supposed to be the heaven where’s everybody rich, so the only jobs performed here should be supervising a few hours a month your well prospering business, supervising how all the EU offshore employees meet the preference target. OK, back to bed, deraming
Unfortunately, because of the uber-complicated company structures – i’m talking pharma here- in the form of matrix (or ultra-matrix), where people have no real final say, and responsibilities are shared among god knows how many others for any project, the KPIs are designed to be sure that you stay on the average, and they are nowadays what they call ’ soft ’ - i.e., not quantifiable, that, as you mention, it is just a game of thrones, nothing to do with real performance. And they include a lot of ‘culture’ and ’ team spirit’ factors. HR has destroyed so much promising talent, who are interested in seeing results, and not in playing the game, that is actually painful to see.
@komsomolez Last week, one of my mentees (in a large company) called me – his manager had told him that, despite his overperformance, he would not be receiving a “1” (out of 5), and hence the full bonus, because ‘that would set the barrier too high for the whole team next year’, so “he should think about them, and not just about himself”. Tragic.
I cant tell about the things that go on here but lets just say my job is all the above mentioned cooperate with Germany bureaucracy.
We call ourselves the champions, kept in the dark, fed shit and as soon as you have a thought your head gets chopped off.
This post is a bit negative, but this is what I observe in the Swiss job market:
I work(ed) for a large multinational, they decided to cut 10K jobs (globally) and relocate a massive and unknown number of jobs from high pay locations (such as CH) to the global south.
Many of our suppliers with Swiss HQ are also restructuring and cutting jobs. Some do this more quietly than others (e.g. hiring freeze combined with high attrition).
RAV told me the job market is tough (banks, pharma, consumer goods, etc) and they see highly qualified people struggling to find a new job. I was told not to expect my same level of salary (though I guess it´s their attempt to people out of RAV support quickly).
Regarding salary (@komsomolez asked), I got something like 2.5-3% increase this year. They called it merit increase but I don´t think this was performance based.
I have not seen the shots coming close, but I have heard similar things. I also keep half an eye on the market for the greener grass, but opportunities are rare. At least on my salary level.
That said, I have always felt that it is the big cuts that make the news and create the impression that sooner or later there will be no jobs left. Yet unemployment is at 3% or something. What of course never gets reported in the news is how in between the firing rounds most companies “add fat” again.
But yes, getting older does not feel great either in that respect.
Yes, that’s the official rate. But they don’t count those no longer on RAV that are still looking for a job. Like those over 50. International estimates like the ILO model place Switzerland’s unemployment rate closer to 4 - 5%.
