A GM employee with nearly four decades at the automaker was recently laid off by a 5 a.m. email, sparking criticism aimed at the automaker’s impersonal approach. The employee, Adam Bernard, started at General Motors in 1986 as an analyst, then worked his way up the corporate ladder, holding various positions through the years before taking on the role of Associate Director, Competitor Intelligence, a role he held for the last 17 years. Bernard’s firing was part of a broader round of layoffs at General Motors wherein roughly 1,000 workers were terminated, effective this past Friday, November 15th.
“Well, in unexpected news, I was let go from GM at 5:07 a.m. this morning via email, along with (I hear unofficially) about 1,000 people globally,” Bernard wrote in a post to LinkedIn following his termination. “I wonder what I should do next…?”
The post prompted an outpouring of support, including a comment posted by Lucid Air Sedan Vehicle Line Manager John Maxgay.
“This news is unbelievable to me and is compounded by the impersonal manner in which it was delivered,” Maxgay writes. “Your contributions to GM are legion, and you will be a major asset in your next role!”
Bernard went on to post that he was open to new positions.
“I hadn’t planned on starting a new chapter at this point but I still love the auto industry and am looking to stay connected,” Bernard writes. The former General Motors employee has since received hundreds of encouraging messages, as well as job offers.
The recent round of layoffs were reportedly focused around the automaker’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. While the majority of terminations were in the U.S., some members of General Motors’ global workforce were also let go.
In a statement, General Motors said that “in order to win in this competitive market, we need to optimize for speed and excellence,” adding, “as part of this continuous effort, we’ve made a small number of team reductions.”
Comments
Handled horribly. Terminate the head of HR immediately.
You need to go a bit further up than that….
You took the words right of my mouth Tigger.
Holy cow, I actually knew and had a fair amount of interaction with Adam on some vehicle programs at GM. He spent decades at Design Staff in various analytical roles. A very smart and dedicated GM guy.
Garbage companies do this sort of thing.
Which is telling as friends who work at UPS and DOW, 2 really large companies often criticized as being large, greedy, “evil corporations” to the little man are also going through layoffs. They are asking employees to volunteer for their “buyout package”, and if they don’t get enough, they will request certain employees and only as a last result will they force individuals to leave, but still with a buyout package. It’s sad when GM is lousier than those.
Agreed. At least the poor fellow did not have to undergo the walk of shame that so many gm employees had to endure.
It’s so hard for some people to expect being terminated by a non valued job. Get use to it With A.I. now in the mix your going to see a lot more of this happening to keep up with your competition. G.M. isn’t all a out creating and keeping good paying jobs. It’s also about staying competitive in the auto market. The economy is going to take a big hit anytime soon they must be prepared for that. The home and Auto markets are the first to get hit.
That’s not cool
Worked with him, and he was a smug jerk. His role was redundant and his entire team did work that was unnecessary and didn’t improve profitability. Also, he had a bad habit of being an anti-Catholic/Christian/conservative bigot on the internal GM yammer site and was even reported to HR and investigated for his bigotry… BUT unsurprisingly he wasn’t canned because he is a member of an protected class, a director, and even the previous president of the LGBTQ affinity group. He had it coming. WhT is this forum deleting my factual comments? Afraid of the truth?
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Reminds me of how a maga president fired transgendered military personnel with a tweet, without even discussing it with the generals …because the pres wanted to take credit for it to put himself above the military serving this country. Imagine serving your country and seeing a tweet that you are no longer valued because of your sexuality.
I would have went in anyway. I would demand the personal touch. If I was doing the firing I would give him the Trump you’re fired.
Judging from the outpouring of support and job offers, they fired the wrong guy. GM essentially allowed one of their guys to get poached and got bad publicity in the process.
And gm deserves all the bad press it gets.
So they should have kept him even if they didn’t have anything useful/value added for him to do?
He got hired ASAP, so his role is highly valued in the industry. As Associate Director of Competitor Intelligence, he had value so long as competitors continued to release new products. Now more than ever is the right time for this position.
I am sure they would not have touched him if he were a DEI person.
Now Ms. Barra can make $25 +million in compensation with the mass firing of employees. You know how $20 million doesn’t go that far with the Biden-Harris inflation surge!!!!
Another uninformed person spreading political propaganda on here. Inflation was a result of post pandemic supply and demand and the oil pirtion was the war aspect, and companies making up for profits they did not make when people stayed home and did not drive . this was the case all around the first world countries …is Biden Harris running those countries too and causing inflation? Inflation has been 2.4 % recently and if there is a surge now it is because of companies slowly upping prives (like they said they would do) because of the cult leaders proposed tarrifs that economists say WILL cause price increases on many import goods AND hurts US businesses with the demented mans export tarrifs because overseas markets will buy less products if the cost is 25 or 50 % more. Some companies have said a slow price increase is better to swallow. Thank you to the cult followers for reelecting someone who over 20 nobel prize winning economists have said the economy will be worse under this most corrupt politician and business man this country has ever seen
Hey, it’s me–yes, the guy who got laid off.
And, actually, I’ve been out of the closet at GM for 24 years, and ran our LGBTQ employee resource group for 15 years, so you could consider me a reasonably well-known “DEI person”.
https://gaywheels.com/2012/02/interview-adam-bernard-chair-of-gm-plus-gms-official-lgbt-employee-resource-group/
The crew that designed the 8 speed should be let go.
I had the pleasure of working with Adam during my time at GM. He was well known on the Warren campus. It’s stuff like this is why I am an ex-GM employee now. I saw good people let go and knew I’d never be safe.
Actually it was also horrible at Mexico as well, in fact two persons I know with more than twenty years of service for GM, were laid off not giving any explanations to them. Fortunately for them, as the article says, their experience will be a very valuable asset for any other competitor here @Mexico, including all the Chinese brands that are a big headache to the top 3 Market leaders: Nissan, GM and Volkswagen.
The Trump administration has said that all EV incentives are going to be eliminated. All the major manufacturers know this is going to really hurt, reducing sales and squeezing profit margins. Whole lotta folks are going to loose jobs in the auto industry.
Don’t forget about all the government employees that will lose their jobs because Elon and Vivek recommended. And we all know how respectful Elan is when releasing employees.
Something like 43% of all jobs created in the past 3 1/2 years were government jobs. Very very few of them should even exist.
I suppose this is an attempt to blame Trump, instead of the current administration forcing the automaker to lose their asses on EVs through the hidden yet back-door implemented Green New Deal?
General Mediocrity strikes again.
Such a poorly run company.
As I see it, GM’s SLT bet big on the Triple Zero plan with a maniacal focus on EVs, AVs and making GM into a Silicon Valley-like tech company. Money has been lavishly spent with no ROI and apparently no thought of changing course. There has only been a stubborn insistence to push ahead. But it hasn’t been a plan grounded in reality. For a while success in China could buoy the losses but not now.
It seems they’ve now reached a point where those long-ignored facts, and the many costly errors must be faced and panic has now ensued. There have already been several staff reductions that were more thoughtfully implemented but this time it appears GM is alarmed and acting with urgency by heartlessly firing staff just before Thanksgiving and the holiday season.
There are many more stories like Adam’s; he is not alone. The way people are being fired is horrendous and morale at GM has reached a new low as I understand it. It would seem the company is trying to quell the bad publicity but they’ll only be able to do it for so long.
And gm’s market share and employment levels have reached new lows under Barra’s “leadership”.
I’m sure this won’t bode well for Barra’s DEI scores🙄
Government Motors, they lied to my mother and I when I was a teenager about 18 yo, now 66. I’ve owned one GM vehicle in all those years.
Looks like an ai generated article, and comments too, to me.
Any company advertising hot dogs or bacon (gm and ford) as American, must go out of business.
You people giving a free pass to these companies to encourage needless harm and violence as acceptable is not acceptable.
Pathetic!! This generation of kids don’t understand how to properly communicate with people. They are so used to looking down at a tablet and being “keyboard warriors” instead of facing each other like men and women, looking them in the eyes, and telling them how each one feels. My father has taught me this for 43 years of my life!
You DON’T fire people with a text. It could have come from anywhere on the web. If you must fire someone, you always do it in person. That way whoever you fire will know they are really fired. Doing it with a text is just plain childish and lazy and the person doing the firing with a text is afraid of confrontations.
So you spend a day or 2 of work time and a few thousand dollars on travel to fire a remote employee in person? That would be really stupid.
I am sure that if a person were fired by e-mail or letter, they would know they are being fired
This guy really needs thicker skin. This is how layoffs happen now. I would rather just get an email/text than have to go through the boring half hour HR Teams call/exit interview I had to endure 6 years ago when I was laid off. With 38 years in this guy should get a great pension and good severance.
The upside to his whining online is that it went viral and turned into great networking for his next job. I assume this will lead to an explosion of people whining online about how their layoff was handled.
If the company were run properly, there would be no need for mass firings.
Should just go into work as normal, and say you never received e mail. Then let someone tell your fired. Gm sucks, my traverse lease ran up last month, was at 479 a month, new one they wanted $680! 200 jump. For a now 4 cylinder. Went and got a 10k more fully loaded Hyundai palisade. Rear seats are also heated and cooled. For under $500 a month. Free oil changes and maintenance for length of lease.
Mary used to be head of Global HR at GM…..
When I was growing up, my dad and grandpa told me hard work, loyalty and honesty would get me far in life.. as an adult I feel like what I was taught was a complete lie.. What I was rais to believe in doesn’t exist in the world today.
They could have met with him in person and insisted he retire, with appropriate pension and retirement benefits. (Don’t forget the gold watch)
He should tell the competitor that hired him everything he knows about GM and all of their weaknesses. They clearly didn’t value him.
Welcome to real life sir…Suck it up and be happy to retire.
TOTAL RESPECT FOR ANYONE TO BE LAID OFF IN THIS FASHION!
PROOF THAT YOUR JUST A NUMBER!
HOW CAN ANY COMPANY EXPECT LOYALTY WHEN PEOPLE ARE TREATED THIS WAY?
Damn, 38 years and kicked to the curb….they should have at least given him the option to retire with benefits.
In my opinion, for what it’s worth, he was let go because of his age. This is common in all businesses large or small. All because of stereotyping older workers as not big producers, resistant to change and just doing their time until actual retirement. I would wonder what his last two reviews have to say about him. And perhaps they have an algorithm that shows them what employees by age are dead wood and need to go to save the bottom line one decimal point. This is not going to play well with General Motors producing and selling vehicles was known problems.
So much for Barra’s DEI program 🙄
Employees of companies MUST end these fantasies thst their work or contributionss ENTITLES them to benefits, staying power or further excesses.
None of us employed by companies is entitled to anything aside from the pay and/or benefits which before employment WE AGREED WITHOUT FORCE TO ACCEPT. Dont accept what you dont want by negotiations before accepting whats offered.
You don’t create loyalty in a company by treating employees like a disposable razor. If an employee is always looking over their shoulders to see if they’re the next one to be lopped, they aren’t concentrating on what’s best for the company. Funny, it seems like GM was a lot better shape when there actually was some job security.
When I was growing up, my dad and grandpa told me hard work, loyalty and honesty would get me far in life.. as an adult I feel like what I was taught was a complete lie.. What I was rais to believe in doesn’t exist in the world today.
Respons
IT NEVER DID.
Loyalty,respect,company values all terms used by companies to intimidated employees to walk the straight and narrow. Respect the pay. Nothing else matters.
They could’ve handled it with a little more class, but all jokes aside that wasn’t cool at all
GM was once the 33rd most powerful organizational entiry in the World (including countries). Tofay it is just another player in the flobal market, a shadow of what it was in the 1950s and 1960s when the company actually innovated, rather than just going through the motions.
Corporate America is staffed at the top with penny pinching buffoons who are increasingly out of touch with working class Americans. They justify their enormous salaries and benefit packages by squeezing the people on the line.
Humanity is absent from these corporate swamps.
My brother worked at the Tech Center … 32 yrs with GM. Same thing … no notice, no anything. Was walked out that day. Very poor treatment by $22 Million Mary.
GM is Mary Barra’s company. This sort of repugnant behavior is on her watch and she owns it. No one in GM leadership has a clue about how you build a TEAM. And her Human Resources department may very well be the most incompetent group in all of major industry. Her and her sycophant group of executives are all simply “useful idiots”.
Rjrj……your very first words you complain of political propaganda then the rest of your post you spew your TDS vomit. lol
General Motors has always treated it’s non union employees like dogs. In 1993 they eliminated 4500 of their security staff and treated them like they were nothing. Replace them with a contract guard company paying $10 an hour. The only thing I can say if you had a union contract with the UAW they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did. Loyalty is a 2 way street.
Lifelong Chevy guy, fourth generation… Whoever is running this company has to be trying to destroy it. No one is this stupid. EV only, no cars, no horsepower, nothing the American people want. Please, please, please, make the “leadership” of GM part of the “layoffs”