CoBank reviews

Starting in late 2023, with a new executive hire, things became toxic quite quickly. They implemented scaled agile with no lead up and basically ripped teams up and patched them back together so that you were working with strangers and contractors. Then, when that got to be too expensive, they announced a “reduction in force” and let ~50 people go and gave a bunch of others the option to take a forced demotion or leave (without severance). According to people who are still there, the new CoBank is sloppy, hasty, unmethodical, and cutthroat. People do not feel safe expressing their opinions. It will take me a long time to get over the way they let people go - some were on FMLA, some were out of the country, some got their access revoked mid-call with HR, and some were escorted out of the building like they were criminals. These were all extremely knowledgeable and talented employees who had been rated “Valued Performer” or above the previous month and were doing their best to work well and be happy in the new framework. I would think twice about working at CoBank until there are massive changes in personnel at the top levels.

I got caught up in the last round layoffs? I'm not sure what they are calling them but the options that they gave hard working employees weren't really options. It was cut throat and it was brutle. A lot of former employees are hurting... Honestly, management should be ashamed of themselves. They should have treated the employees they were going to seperate with a lot more respect. We deserved that much. In IT, there is a new sherrif. She knocked down the old way and replaced it with her vision. Some of it, I agreed with, some of it I didn't. It doesn't matter now... My opinion doesn't really count much anymore as the new structure is fully in place and the old is just a faint memory. I wasn't a huge fan of SAFe Agile, but overall it is just Agile with a lot more metrics and eyeballs looking at those metrics. In my opinion, CoBank is going to be a corporate shell with no real personality. It will be a job. Maybe you hang out there for a few years but you will move on. Not a lot of career opportunities there and there is no psychological saftey there anymore.