Monday 24 September 2012

What do you wonder about when you hear about deep job cuts?

What I wonder about is this.

Hundreds or thousands of jobs lost, when there's no major change to the business offering. No closing of divisions, no withdrawal of Products or Services. No halting of R&D, no outsourcing of functions. Just lots of jobs gone.

Sounds like the Seniors haven't kept their eye on the recruitment ball. Sounds like the jobs and those people weren't being sufficiently "productive"... and whose fault is that? Oh, and for those that remain it sounds like more work and pressure!

So in the long-term game of business success, when you have recruited staff, trained them, supported and led them, the right thing to do is.... Get rid of them? Can't be right can it?

Now, I'm not reflecting on emergency job cuts to avoid bankruptcy (which would be accompanied by Board level pay cuts and losses?), nor major revisions to a business as described above.

Making someone redundant (that means their job is gone, not that they aren't doing it properly), is one of the hardest things any manager has to do. It's horrible.

The answer then? Not central corporate controls on recruitment, but Local Management that makes the most of every job, and morally doesn't recruit for a job that isn't really there.

That is one of the greatest attributes required of Local Management: morally strong people that make the best of the people and jobs they are responsible for where they work, for the benefit of the business and their people.