correlation of org models with value - Dashboard
132
Total Responses
65
Completed
49.24%
Completion Rate
67
Dropouts
13 min
Average Time
 
Countries Responses
US 44.70%
AT 6.06%
DE 6.06%
CA 6.06%
IN 5.30%
SE 3.79%
GB 3.79%
NZ 3.03%
CN 2.27%
RU 2.27%
FR 2.27%
KR 1.52%
IL 1.52%
GR 1.52%
PH 0.76%
ZA 0.76%
IE 0.76%
ID 0.76%
EU 0.76%
ES 0.76%
EE 0.76%
DK 0.76%
CZ 0.76%
CO 0.76%
BE 0.76%
BD 0.76%
AU 0.76%
Total 100.00%
Have you been laid off at some point in your tech comm career? 
Answer Count Percent
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Yes 53 47.75%
No 52 46.85%
Other 6 5.41%
Total 111 100 %
Have you been laid off at some point in your tech comm career?  - Text Data for Other
06/20/2022 146753076 After mass layoffs of which I was not a part of, involuntary layoffs was offered, which I took.
09/10/2021 125683951 I undestood, that I should to go by myself. Because my tech comm department gave me work that was unnecessary for the whole company.
09/10/2021 125676319 I understood, that I should to go by myself. Because my tech comm department gave me work that was unnecessary for the whole company.
07/06/2020 73046185 had available hours cut back
07/06/2020 73040339 Left due to burn out
07/02/2020 72666758 work term employment
What organizational model best describes the tech comm structure at the company where the layoff occurred?
Answer Count Percent
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Centralized: Tech writers are grouped together in one central team and serve a variety of groups. 23 54.76%
Decentralized: Tech writers are individually embedded within different product teams and report up through those product teams. 2 4.76%
Distributed: A mix of the above two -- tech writers are grouped softly by discipline but are embedded with different product teams in a more distributed way. 16 38.1%
Other 1 2.38%
Total 42 100 %
What organizational model best describes the tech comm structure at the company where the layoff occurred? - Text Data for Other
07/02/2020 72674690 Lone writer at a startup
Why do you think you were laid off?
05/08/2025 192588170 The two main product I supported were reaching EOL. The hot new product development was not going well.
09/28/2023 170523131 This group was led by a manager who was documentation-unaware with narrow to no vision for the team. This group had seen consistent attrition or firing, but the hire-ups did not consider evaluating the manager. The company culture was old school and toxic, so I don't think things would have changed even today for this team. But tech writers were always admonished and demonized at monthly meetings as well. This is a rare thing I have ever experienced at any company, but I realized that such companies exist as well where product failure blame is placed on documentation.
09/21/2023 170161503 A) Senior management were sold a bill of goods about how an outsourced group of writers with minimal product knowledge and minimal dev team integration could produce content for much less $$ than internal writers. B) TW Director had not been strategic about building C-level support C) TW team as a whole was incredibly risk averse which limited its ability to adapt to a changing organization/changing product focus or to adjust doc processes and products as needed. D) poor on-the-ground people management, leading to lots of low performers .....all of which resulted in a poor reputation for the doc group as a whole within the organization.
02/20/2023 159900722 I was laid off at the first time because the company don't have enough doc works to do. I was laid off at the second time because the company which provide technical writing services don't have projects (or let's say orders) to perform.
09/25/2022 151881877 Things were working sooo well the way things were set up, the management likely thought that a smaller team could handle things just as well.
06/20/2022 146753076 It was a voluntary lay off because work had dried up by this time
10/07/2021 128080278 Conflict with an asshole manager
09/10/2021 125683951 Our CTO considers, that our tech comm department contains too many people in compare with our competitors. Our boss explains that we provide the best quality of docs, but it is true only in style of documents, the content of documents doesn't provide deep technical information.
09/10/2021 125676319 Our CTO considers, that our tech comm department contains too many people in compare with our competitors. Our boss explains that we provide the best quality of docs, but it is true only in style of documents, the content of documents doesn't provide deep technical information.
12/08/2020 92226360 Because our tech comm team was not considered as a mission-critical body of the organization in time of crisis.
Have you ever felt unimportant or undervalued in your tech comm role at a company?
Answer Count Percent
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Yes 74 83.15%
No 13 14.61%
Other 2 2.25%
Total 89 100 %
Have you ever felt unimportant or undervalued in your tech comm role at a company? - Text Data for Other
07/02/2020 72689639 depends on whom i'm working with
07/02/2020 72670977 Not understood. The docs magically appear, so it must b easy. You do it in Word, right?
What organizational model best describes the tech comm structure at the company where you felt unimportant or undervalued?
Answer Count Percent
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Centralized: Tech writers are grouped together in one central team and serve a variety of groups. 28 44.44%
Decentralized: Tech writers are individually embedded within different product teams and report up through those product teams. 9 14.29%
Distributed: A mix of the above two -- tech writers are grouped softly by discipline but are embedded with different product teams in a more distributed way. 21 33.33%
Other 5 7.94%
Total 63 100 %
What organizational model best describes the tech comm structure at the company where you felt unimportant or undervalued? - Text Data for Other
07/14/2020 73758378 Lone writer
07/07/2020 73123849 Lone writer for one company division, the other division has a "Company U" team but no technical writers
07/07/2020 73099958 All of the above organizations at some point had devalued technical writing
07/02/2020 72680256 I was the only TW of a multinational, part of the training team
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