Big company layoffs: the risk of cutting the Gordian knot

Zhao Chenting

There is a case circulated in the industry. A U.S. company wants to lay off employees sharply. They pull employees onto the stadium and watch a match. After the announcement, the list of layoffs announced on the spot and employees singing back home.

Unfortunately, such a very happy case seems to be incompatible with the domestic situation. The development of the market determines the employees' acceptance of the downsizing behavior. The more the market is resisted, the more the layoff process should be considered.

Insiders admit that if a big company is laying off workers in the United States, it may do so after giving employees the right compensation; but in China, companies need to do more.

Perhaps, Microsoft is going through this process.

Cut the risk of knives and hacks

If you look at the new official's three-pronged Eastern saying, it is imperative for the new chief executive Satya Nadella to tap a bit of human resources right now.

On the evening of July 17, Microsoft released a public announcement announcing the plan to reorganize it and lay off a maximum of 18,000 people in more than a year. In April this year, Nokia Equipment and Services (mainly the mobile phone business) that had just been acquired became the hardest hit About 12,500 laid off workers will come from the department.

According to statistics, this is Microsoft's largest layoffs since its inception, after Microsoft announced in 2009, laid off 5800 people.

The fresh fourth-quarter results of fiscal 2014, Microsoft seems to give Satya Nadella ample reason for this decision.

In the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2014, Nokia reported an increase of nearly $ 2 billion in revenue for Microsoft but brought an operating loss of $ 692 million, including some one-time costs, to the fourth quarter of June 30, 2014.

Public information shows that in April this year after the completion of the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business transactions, the Nokia mobile phone business more than 30,000 employees transferred to Microsoft, making the total number of Microsoft employees reached about 127,000 people, while the number of layoffs accounted for Microsoft's current total About 14.2% of the workforce.

According to Microsoft's plan, this restructuring plan will be completed by December 31, 2014, most by June 30, 2015 will be completely completed. Currently, 13,000 jobs are being laid off.

In fact, in the substantial layoffs, Motorola tuition fees paid for the layoffs at this time may be able to give Microsoft more information.

On August 13, 2012, Motorola Mobile announced that it will lay off 4,000 people worldwide, accounting for about 20% of the total number of employees. The global strategic transformation led by Google led to a serious impact on China. As a result, China became the global layoff of Motorola The hardest hit.

In fact, not only the Nanjing Software Center was affected, but all the Motorola offices in China involved personnel cuts. Apart from employee opposition at the Nanjing Software Center, some employees in Beijing headquarters also experienced similar situations.

To this end, the management of Motorola China and the head of the personnel department had to arrive in Nanjing to lay off communications and instructions for Motorola's Nanjing Software Center.

Although in more industry observers, Google's "layoffs" is understandable, but such a tough downsizing incident, was interpreted by some Motorola employees as a Google acquisition of Motorola after the acquisition of "bridge cleaning ".

A similar scenario was staged at IBM in March of this year. According to the Financial Times, at that time, more than 1,000 workers gathered outside IBM's factories in Shenzhen to protest against IBM's compensation clauses for workers after it was acquired by Lenovo.

Tang Ningyu, assistant to the president of Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that some companies are worried about the negative impact caused by the layoffs and started to lay off their employees with the method of "cutting knots and scrambling up", but they often have a relatively heavy impact on their employees. Large-scale layoffs make employees have considerable bargaining power in layoff compensation.

Left to pay attention to leave behind

For this time layoffs, Microsoft said it expects severance payments and other expenses in the next four quarters to reach 1.1 billion U.S. dollars to 1.6 billion U.S. dollars, including $ 750 million to $ 800 million in severance pay and related subsidies, And $ 350 million to $ 800 million related to asset-related costs.

Microsoft will inform most of the workers to be laid off in the next six months, pay them severance pay and help them find new jobs.

It seems Downing Yu, layoffs process, companies need to pay attention to the basic point is to minimize the harm to employees, to inform the staff will be laid off, in addition to providing a good compensation plan, but also need to give vocational counseling and help.

Here, in addition to being laid off, human resources departments also need to pay attention to the feelings of the staff left behind.

Earlier this year, IBM China layoffs did not set off much in the industry news. "Although I know that the company may lay off staff in the near future, it is not until the department colleague packs up that layoffs really come." An IBM employee recalls the layoffs in China by the end of February this year.

As an employee who has not been laid off, her colleague who left with N + 3.5 compensation, the above IBM employees and the remaining companions were integrated into other departments, resulting in a more stringent performance assessment.

"It's a bit of an anxiety that it's even easier to feed a team than the previous one and there's even a need to take the initiative to ask for some items to ensure performance and not yet know if the layoffs will continue," the employee explained.

"The staff left behind will pay special attention to the future behavior of the company and in announcing the plan, the company also needs to tell employees if there will be a series of actions in the future so that the remaining people can see the hope of the future," explains Downing Yu.