Unbalanced hours for projects. One department may consume 70% of the hours on a project while producing 30% of the work, leaving the other departments very little to work with.
Lack of transparency from leadership. The day before the second round of layoffs, the president of the company gave a financial presentation saying that, though there was little work available, the company was still healthy and strong. He even chose to use the phrase "If you are foolish enough to leave the company..." in his presentation. The very next day, many people were laid off in a 2nd round of layoffs that was never supposed to come. (We were told that the first round was sufficiently large such that there should not be a second round, even if the company did not meet budget for the rest of the year.) This round also took place after performance reviews, where I am sure that most of the affected employees were given positive feedback and raises. This round of layoffs also took place just before many of the employees would become more vested in the ESOP program.
Many resources in the company were imbalanced. There may be one group of resources that works 60 hours a week while another group is totally un-applied.
Retention is an issue, there were many instances where project leaders and workers left the company mid-project, leaving the company to shove somebody else into that position. This also meant that the burdens of re-training new employees over and over again fell on the remaining team members.
Reckless hiring. Many were hired on as a direct result of the FLEX project. The hiring never slowed down even when the work was obviously coming to and end and there was no indication of more work anywhere near the same level.
