After a recent merger the company has clearly become too big to care. In just the last year they have changed everything such as health insurance, 401K, internal tools for just about everything, and more. It would be a shorter list to name the things that haven't changed and I can't think of any off the top of my head because it is that extensive. Every change has been a downgrade and provides less benefit to the employees but I assume it somehow benefits the company by lowering costs on their end.
Despite adding several layers of middle management (more bureaucratic overhead in an already management bloated company) they collapsed two levels for workers essentially demoting thousands of employees. Rather than boost raises due to record inflation the company decided to not give out any promotions this year and significantly reduced raises while also capping raises at what was considered an average raise percentage from previous years.
The company has also gone full woke. Going back 10 years or more the company never had a diversity or related problem and more than half of my managers and leads have been women and/or non-white and nobody felt discriminated against or treated unfairly. Fast forward to today. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) has been touted as their top priority, they created a new department specifically for that purpose, and the head of the DE&I department is among the leaders during town hall type meetings. They recently announced they are prioritizing increasing representation in leadership to 50% women (from 30% even though women make up only about 15% of engineers) and double the number of non-white people, so if you are eyeing a position at upper management then white men need not apply. They also have special events and awards specifically for women and black people and are promoting some kind of diversity event almost every month which segregates everyone and won't let you forget it. The company has never had a diversity or discrimination problem in the past but now they open discriminate against men and specifically white men and they publicize it regularly. The reason for all this is they have shifted their focus from keeping employees happy to raising their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score. They recently announced that they are releasing an ESG report which is intended to attract investors. If you do a search for "Raytheon ESG" you will quickly find a list of their priorities. At the top of the list are things like climate change, social responsibility, and DE&I with workforce development trailing behind those. Less than half of the things they are focused on to attract investors have anything to do with running a successful business or keeping employees happy.
The company also instituted a vaccine mandate and mask mandate despite the fact that the vaccine doesn't prevent infection or transmission which makes it pointless. In a recent meeting they claimed that around 200 employees were fired for not getting vaccinated and getting an approved exemption. Hundreds more who did not want to get vaccinated for health or other reasons were coerced into getting the vaccine out of fear of being fired including a friend of mine. Those who were able to get exemptions are being discriminated against and forced to undergo weekly testing in order come to work and several people have been fired for not complying with the testing policy. Those who are vaccinated are exempt from testing and allowed to get infected, come to work, and spread the virus freely. Masks are currently required for everyone, which is pointless considering everyone works in cubicles and is distanced enough to make masks unnecessary or they work closely together for extended periods which make the masks ineffective. However, the company has claimed that if local cases drop below a certain level then they will remove the mask mandate for vaccinated employees only, again discriminating against those who choose not to be vaccinated and haven't already been fired.
Morale, trust and respect for leadership, and outlook for future career growth are at an all-time low and people are jumping ship. All of my friends (men, women, white and colored) and myself are actively looking for positions at other companies and nobody wants to give 100% when they feel like they are going to get shafted for it. One of the top questions repeatedly submitted to every town hall style meeting with leadership asks how the company intends to recruit and retain talent when they continue to do X. Rather than improving benefits or removing oppressive or discriminatory policy they claim that doing more to promote DE&I is the solution. Clearly they are out of touch, prioritize investors over their own employees, and have grown too big to care.
