Shell CEO Cuts Jobs, But Don’t Worry—Shareholders Are Totally Thrilled While Employees Watch the Ship Sink

Shell CEO Cuts Jobs, But Don’t Worry—Shareholders Are Totally Thrilled While Employees Watch the Ship Sink

Posted by John Donovan: 11 Oct 2024

In today’s episode of “Corporate Greed Gone Wild,” Shell employees are shocked—shocked, I tell you—that their CEO, Wael Sawan, is gutting the company left, right, and centre, all to make a few extra bucks for their beloved shareholders. In an annual survey where employees got the rare chance to vent their frustrations without being immediately escorted out of the building, the results were exactly what you’d expect when a CEO slashes jobs like they’re going out of style.

According to internal documents leaked to Bloomberg, the annual “Shell People Survey” showed employees are less than thrilled with how the company is being run. Who would’ve guessed? After all, job cuts across vital departments like oil and gas production, chemicals, and even low-carbon projects like offshore wind are the perfect way to inspire workplace morale, right?

Rachel Solway, Shell’s HR and corporate officer, tried to spin the disastrous results with a corporate memo straight out of the “We Pretend to Listen” playbook: “These results come as no surprise considering the amount of change we have been going through recently.” Ah yes, “change.” That lovely euphemism for gutting the workforce and ensuring the remaining employees live in constant fear of losing their jobs while being asked to “do more with less.” Inspiring.

Sawan, clearly reading from the Gospel of Greed, vowed to take a “ruthless” approach to cutting costs and driving shareholder returns. Translation: make everyone at the top richer while everyone else gets a pink slip and a stress ulcer. And it’s working beautifully—if your definition of success involves alienating your employees and turning the workplace into a corporate hellscape.

One anonymous employee captured the mood perfectly in an internal forum: “This is what you get when you go for ‘ruthlessly pursuing shareholder value’ at the expense of the organization and the people who actually do the work.” Yeah, no kidding. Maybe that’s something for Sawan and Shell’s precious investors, like BlackRock, to chew on while they count their dividends.

The survey showed a drop in nearly every category—especially in those pesky little metrics like “employee engagement” and “organizational leadership.” But hey, as long as the shareholders are happy, who cares if the workforce is slowly spiralling into despair?

One particularly embittered employee took aim at Shell’s so-called “engagement” strategy: “The rewards have dwindled, salaries reduced, and in recent times it also feels like there is no longer any care or respect. The last is especially disheartening to see.” You don’t say? Who could’ve predicted that gutting your workforce for the sake of profitability would lead to employees feeling disrespected?

Other employees questioned whether Shell’s leadership is even listening: “I’d challenge our board to come up with three tangible actions and take responsibility to make those happen. What is the point of team discussions? For our team, it has been a waste of time.” Oof, hard to feel inspired when your CEO’s vision for the future is just a spreadsheet filled with layoffs.

One poor soul in procurement summed it up perfectly: “With billions in our profit, we have to ask vendors to come see us instead of seeing how they make products. I’ve been begging to get a little bit more budget to do my job properly for years.” Imagine raking in record profits and still forcing your employees to beg for crumbs. But hey, it’s all in the name of “efficiency”—which just means “keeping those stock prices high.”

But don’t worry, Shell’s spokespeople are here to reassure us all that everything is just fine. “Over 70,000 completed the survey, and their engagement score was 75, which is a small drop of 4 points from last year.” A “small drop,” you say? Nothing to worry about—just the sound of thousands of employees slowly losing hope in the company that’s busy bragging about its “strong earnings” while leaving them high and dry.

So while Shell may be in the midst of its biggest overhaul in years, rest assured that the only thing trickling down isn’t wealth—it’s misery. But don’t worry, shareholders are probably loving every minute of it.

Wonder who supplied the leaked internal documents?

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.