...and even 'one' is repulsive, especially if it was posted by a student with time in the workplace. However, I'm sure Matthew is sharing his vast experience of layoffs in industry from his .edu email address. Otherwise, IMO, he'd be a complete dick for publicly kicking 250 folks going through some temporary bad luck. Syms.
I meant 'without'.
No I think he's a layoff lawyer.
Your posts are thought provoking if not very accurate. You seem to have formed some personal opinions, but offer no real evidence to support them. The one thing I have observed about layoffs as well as hiring is that it more resembles Brownian motion than anything else. A company tries to bias the motion in a positive direction, but it is mostly just random changes. This is in no small part because managers have very poor insight into what is really good or bad for a company.
If a company has inefficient programs or workers, they don't need layoffs to get rid of them. Once identified, inefficiency can be easily dealt with. Forced firings (layoffs) are no different than chopping off a limb because a person is overweight. It solves the immediate problem, but doesn't really solve the long term issue. Whenever there is a problem with a company, it is *always* due to management. The workers have very little control over the fate of a company. If it were any other way, management would not be doing their jobs! If I told you of a great new company to invest in and you found that the workers all had total control over the success or failure of the company, would you invest in it?
So don't say mass firing is a good thing in any way other than reducing the payroll. That is their sole purpose and any other benefit is just due to random chance.
Rick
established
position
...snip...
Obviously tact with customers was not one of the criteria used to decide who to layoff. ;^)
BTW, this idea of business unit vs. functional unit, that is exactly the sort of Brownian motion stuff I mentioned in my other post. Management has to do something. So they rearrange the furniture. Then if a new customer walks in the door and buys something they can say it is working. I find management is a lot more effective if they focus on the realities of running a business rather than the superficial aspects.
Expenditures is one of those realities. Cutting payroll is a good short term solution to the need to reduce expenditures. But it has to be combined with other changes that produce long term improvements... changes other than decor.
Rick
"I'm being completely disrespectful - possibly even hurtful - but it's okay because I'm winking." Please let us know when a tragedy strikes close to your own heart. ;-)
I agree that this kind of realignment is superfluous. Businesses tend to vasciallate between functional orientation and product orientation, reorganizing to the other side of the fence every several years. Bizarre behavior in this engineer's eyes but it's the way things often go.
I agree that mass job cuts do little more for the business than to affect the stock price in the near term. The human cost is large. If any one company's layoffs are better than the "brownian motion" you suggest, then the long term benefits might be felt, but at a large human cost. The business cycle has regular boom and bust periods but tends to come out better over each cycle. It's just sad that it comes at such a cost.
- John_H
Wow, you're omniscient now. Yes, I am a graduate student, but I've seen/worked with graduate students of all different ages and levels of experience. So coming from an .edu domain means nothing.
I'm not kicking anyone, I don't have anything invested in those that got fired, I've been "let-go" before for less reason, that's life. These people will all find another job, it may not be easy, but it won't be devastating either.
---Matthew Hicks
Rick,
My main point is that intelligent CEOs and managers can actually use layoffs as a tool and that getting fired isn't an entirely bad thing. The problem is most let emotions cloud making sound capitalistic decisions, creating this random back-and-forth drift towards mediocrity. Of course, the emotions of the workers should impact decision making, one reason why firings can be bad.
---Matthew Hicks
That's one of the downsides of being open and honest, people can use it against you. I'd rather people know where I stand, I can work somewhere else. This isn't the 1950's, employees are assets, I don't feel the need to grovel at the feet of a large company, I feel a company would be lucky to have me. Egotistical, maybe, but I work very hard and I'm good at and enjoy what I do.
---Matthew Hicks
And not a single person reading that thinks any less of himself or herself.
Others besides myself, I suspect, connected your insights to the .edu address, shrugged, and just moved on. You've learned so much, and yet, know so little. Don't take that wrong. Some things just aren't taught in classrooms.
Getting RIF'ed hurts. It will feel extremely personal and completely misguided. The only way it can fail to affect you is if you truly don't give a rat's *** about what you've done and how well you've done it. That's all that was said. We know that you didn't know.
As for the other side, prune a shrub someday, and you'll see just how little hard work and innate talent matters. Really, really take the time to prune a shrub. Father's Day would be a good pretext if you need one.
I have been made redundant twice so I know how these people are feeling. If you can't help them by giving them sympathy or help with job contacts then I think you should shut up and go. You have not done yourself any favours. Andy
It's not a question of egotistical or not, it is a question of reality. Like Mike said, everyone thinks they are good at what they do. The question is do you meet the expectations of your employer? There are any number of reasons for being hired and and any number of reasons for being let go. We all have to believe in ourselves and not use our jobs as our identity or basis of self-worth.
More importantly, we all need to remain financially independent of our jobs just because we never know when they will end. Most people spend their lives thinking that they will have a job as long as they want to work. But lots of things can, and ***WILL*** happen. Virtually all companies can either go belly up overnight, or sell off huge chunks with no notice. When that happens you find yourself in a new company or in no company with no recourse. New companies then often "consolidate" and boom, you are out the door.
The rule of thumb I have always heard is to maintain 6 months of income in a safe place such as a savings account or other highly liquid asset. My personal rule is 12 months. I have gone through layoffs three times over the last 25+ years and I don't care for it. Further, it is getting harder and harder to find a new position which I can only relate to my age. A friend can prove age discrimination at Google. I never thought it was real until I am now being faced with it. My response is to go into consulting. The pay is much better and the vacations much longer. But the best part is that my age actually helps give an air of experience (the gray fur doesn't hurt either...)!
I just don't think of a job as anything but an open ended consulting gig. Maybe that shows and it works against me. But I am not going to put anything into a job other than what is required as part of the standard expectation. I have been burned too many times in the past with long work weeks for others and then being let go when the job was finished. A job is not a personal relationship, it is just a job. Learn to live without it.
Xilinx claims to have had no layoffs up until now. But I bet there have been a lot of people without jobs after they bought the many other companies or their pieces. If they bought a process from a company in Europe and employees came with it, do you think they maintained the offices there forever? No, once the company had what they wanted from the deal, the offices were closed and the employees were given the choice of moving to the US or quitting. Isn't that pretty much the same thing as a layoff? I bet the employees felt like it. Xilinx folk, free free to correct me if I am mistaken.
Rick
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