在20世纪90年代，“裁员”成为一个流行的口头禅.
当高管们宣布要缩减公司规模时, their company’s share price would jump as investors celebrated these “fat” organizations shedding “unnecessary headcount.”
调整, 减少管理层级, 业务再造, streamlining the organization…these are a few of the more current—and more politically correct, as some would argue—terms for the conventional business practice of eliminating jobs to improve profit. 有几十年应对不断变化的经济状况的经验, downsizing becomes a conditioned response in order to ‘right size’ the company to preserve financial performance, 投资者信心与股价.
高管们从不为这种情况负责. 外部市场因素, 前任管理层, 或者是一些他们无法控制的力量是标准的借口.
At least once, wouldn’t you like to hear a senior executive say, “We really didn’t get this right. 外围十大菠菜app在对业务和市场的假设上犯了很多错误, 不幸的是，外围十大菠菜app的人民将不得不为外围十大菠菜app的错误付出代价.”
不管原因是什么, executives dehumanize a downsizing by using terms like layoffs or reduction in head count. 当与其他ceo交谈时, they say that “it was difficult” but “we are better off” as we were able to “get rid of some performance issues.”
You rarely hear anyone talk with compassion about the impact on the lives of the individuals and the family members of those laid off after sending them home with damage to their self-worth and a dramatic loss of income! Rarely do they consider the impact on those who remain in the organization to witness the devastation and treatment of the people with whom they worked.
在2009年的经济衰退期间，Barry-Wehmiller被迫考虑裁员.
At our January Board Meeting, several Directors asked “Don’t you need to lay off people?在那个时候, our executive team felt that our backlog of orders and prospects were reasonable enough to get us through this challenge without impacting our people. 然而，几天之内，客户开始打电话取消订单. 当电话不再响的时候，外围十大菠菜app的新设备订单下降了40%. 突然间，外围十大菠菜app发现自己面临着本以为可以避免的挑战.
保持财务业绩, our executives were poised to react as we always had: layoffs of team members in the offices and plants experiencing a significant drop in new orders. 但在这一过程中，外围十大菠菜app的组织发生了一些变化.
In 2002, 一群团队成员聚集在一起，创造了外围十大菠菜app对领导力的愿景, 外围十大菠菜app的领导指导原则. We articulated a simple measure of success: “We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.”
这一愿景为该组织创造了一个以前不存在的“真正的方向”. This ‘true north’ allowed us to face the economic crisis with a different sense of responsibility to those lives in our care.
When the impact of the loss of orders began to hit, I was alone on a business trip in Europe. I immediately spent some time reflecting on how best to respond to this crisis within our vision. 新的思维出现了. 我问自己:“一个充满爱心的家庭在面临危机时会怎么做?”
The answer came to me easily: The family members would all take a little pain so that no member of the family would have to experience dramatic loss.
I challenged our executive team to determine a way past the crisis through shared sacrifice. 外围十大菠菜app不会简单地解雇制造团队成员, as was the traditional practice; every team member throughout the organization would share the burden.
Ultimately, we decided that every team member would take a furlough of four weeks of unpaid time off. 外围十大菠菜app还暂停了高管奖金和401K匹配.
进一步宣示外围十大菠菜app恪守指导原则的承诺, we continued investing in our leadership development and continuous improvement initiatives. We encouraged team members to use idle time to take classes in our corporate university. 外围十大菠菜app利用生产计划中的间隙来完成主要的改进事件. 外围十大菠菜app继续进行签名识别活动, and team members found creative ways to make them meaningful without spending a lot of money on the celebrations.
因为外围十大菠菜app的管理团队清楚地知道外围十大菠菜app的信念和行动方式, 在外围十大菠菜app的全球组织中实施很简单. 在10天内，休假计划在全公司范围内推行.
人们的反应是惊人的——比外围十大菠菜app预期的要好得多. 休假计划表明外围十大菠菜app非常关心外围十大菠菜app的团队成员. They felt an overwhelming sense of relief that they could count on their job and income. 此外, 他们很乐意提供四周的收入, knowing that it was not to make the company more profitable but rather to keep others from losing their jobs!
团队成员在最有价值的时候休假. Some relished being off in the summer with their school-age children; others used it to perform volunteer work. Some team members stepped forward and ‘took the time’ for peers in strained financial situations who could not afford to lose four weeks’ pay. Still, others needed coaxing to take time away, simply preferring to work through their unpaid time.
After nine months, we saw our business rebound well ahead of the broader economic recovery. 事实上，外围十大菠菜app的2010财年是盈利创纪录的一年! 因此，外围十大菠菜app再次询问如何与外围十大菠菜app的信念保持一致. 外围十大菠菜app不仅决定恢复401K比赛, but to increase it as a way to show our thanks and give back what team members had sacrificed.
回顾, it was clear that our shared vision and fierce commitment to measuring success “by the way we touch the lives of people” provided an ‘internal compass’ to look for solutions beyond traditional business norms. We recognized that the most fundamental way we touch the lives of our people is by the security of their employment with us. True commitment to Truly Human 领导 meant designing a business that offered sustainable success—for every person in our organization.
When layoffs occur, the impact on culture through loss of talent and morale can be devastating. 外围十大菠菜app的经历正好相反.
Although we had been on a leadership journey centered on our Guiding Principles for more than seven years, 许多队员仍然不相信外围十大菠菜app的诚意. ‘Walking the talk’ during this tough period did more to confirm our beliefs and strengthen our culture beyond anything we could ever verbalize or proclaim through a framed mission statement on a wall.
你是如何言行一致的?