GSK tech is wasting money and necessitating layoffs elsewhere

At least we keep producing promotional videos for the slightest thing worth documenting. This might be the first place I've worked where minutes of video produced > lines of code written.

 

Everyone is just relieved that HP makes a monitor big enough to be worthy of his usage.

 

Wrong. The far bigger problem is who you would be reporting to, not who reports to you

 

For as little as the tech team produces, they sure have plenty of demo days requiring expensive travel back and forth across the pond. I hear the directors and above fly business class. These people have created zero value and get treated like rock stars.

 

Code Orange the band? A hazardous material spill? An air quality warning? 2/3 inappropriate things to be referencing given the context of GSK as a pharma. Dean paid a consulting company to name his platform that does nothing. Think about that. Someone was paid to come up with that terrible name.

 

What's the point of having these expensive teams that deliver nothing if they turn around and outsource everything anyway?

 

Can someone tell me what KAT's goals are? I don't see any tracking of anything, at least on the lower levels I occupy. I feel like her one goal is to use up her budget to justify the same or more money the next year. She can't hire and execute against a vision (that is undefined anyway), so what value for the £ is she delivering? It can't be, change the culture and adopt all the boorish behavior in startups to be more like a tech company.

 

Thick irony that KAT has created a culture of entitlement and privilege that reflects the bro culture of startups, and leaning on external advisers rather than long tenured and respected internal people, like the CEO in the show Silicon Valley

 

Anyone else tired hearing about Agile? Agile might as well be synonymous with tech, because neither are handled correctly. Think about how One Platform was released, a big splashy release on a specific date, instead of incremental delivery that would have given some transparency (core value) early on about how useless the whole thing would eventually be. Isn't jack and his team supposed to show how agile is done? Code Orange is the same, but different somehow, right? Until these supposedly marquee projects by the people that are supposed to lead transformation reflect anything meaningful, I say everyone should stop talking abiab it

 

And what is up with these Walmart clowns not posting new jobs internally? Seems they went out of their way to make sure no one internally applied for any new role.

 

How would they make sure they were able to hire their cronies at inflated titles and salaries if they opened the roles up to qualified legacy employees?!

 

Speaking of hiring, they are interviewing to replace J it seems. April fool's on whoever that candidate is!

 

Will be interesting to see if the replacement is part of KAT's circle from before, or external. If external, how will they respond being brought into a circus side show, if they are respectable in the slightest?

 

yep

 

I am so thankful I got canned from this mess last year.

 

me too

 

but why are you glad you got canned? You get to miss this Harvard Business Review case study live in action on how not to build a Digital organization, how not to staff the organization and how not to build goals/visions the way Kat and team has done. This is something that you can not get to see in real time very often, plus its on GSK dime. It is a shame on how the effects this has had on people and I truly mean this, but holy crap this is a complete disaster happening live.

 

Not just Walmart. In Jack K's part of the organisation, most of the leadership was hired from Capital One; so many Capital One staff were brought in, not just by Jack but all across what was J's organisation, the talk is GSK Legal had to get involved because of a complaint raised by their former employer. And not only were many brought in at high grade levels with scant professional experience, but some (including Jack) have already received promotions after being with GSK just a few months.

 

They’re too busy tooting their own horn about diversity and inclusion.

 

At the expense of productivity.