Unnecessary Layoffs Reprehensible

Will Marré, CEO of REALeadership Alliance and author of Save the World and Still be Home for Dinner, recently wrote an interesting blog, Microsoft is Stupid, in lieu of Microsoft’s recent announcement to layoff 5000 employees.  Marré’s stand is that when a profitable company lays off employees, it is irresponsible and poor leadership.  He states, “I am of the firm belief that the foundation of Corporate Social Responsibility is that competent, committed employees should not be fired while a company is profitable.  It’s even more outrageous when Microsoft has tens of billions in cash languishing uninvested because they can’t think up new ways to grow.  This is an immense failure of leadership.”

While Marré’s view is certainly controversial, especially since it is not an uncommon practice of top leadership made famous by Jack Welch, CEO of GE, to me, it is dead on.  After all, shouldn’t a company’s top priority be to its employees?  Michelle Sterling, founder and President of building b: solutions, in Heads up HR: CSR is Knocking, states, “Research continually shows that the number one item that consumers look at to judge the CSR of a brand is how that company treats its employees.  Numero Uno.  Top of the lists.”  Marré states in Corporate Social Responsibility Needs HR,  “Doesn’t it make sense that an organization’s first social responsibility is to benefit and develop their own employees?  It seems that most American’s don’t care if businesses are recycling if they treat their own people like trash.”

Not everyone agrees, however, with this viewpoint.  In Some Firms Cut Costs Without Resorting to Layoffs by Cari Tuna it states, “Some workplace experts say layoffs are a useful part of the business cycle, allowing employers to weed out poor performers, increase efficiency and promote a high-performance culture.” Tuna continues, “Today, many companies argue that alternatives such as across-the-board salary freezes and budget cuts are more harmful, because they can drive away top performers.”

I have to disagree.  Aren’t layoffs, instead, the ultimate failure in taking care of one’s employees? Tim Sanders, author of Saving the World at Work, states, “In my view, socially responsible companies don’t have layoffs when they are still viable or making money. It is not an expense reduction strategy with an upside.”

IAC Chief Executive, Barry Diller, was quoted in Diller to profitable companies: Lay off the layoffs at Huffington Post: “The idea of a company that’s earning money, not losing money, that’s not, let’s say ‘industrially endangered,’ to have just cutbacks so they can earn another $12 million or $20 million or $40 million in a year where no one’s counting is really a horrible act when you think about it on every level. First of all, it’s certainly not necessary. It’s doing it at the worst time. It’s throwing people out to a larger, what is inevitably a larger unemployment heap for frankly no good reason.”

Employee layoffs should not be the easy way out for companies, even though they see a decline in profits.  Top leadership should be doing everything they can, trying every other option before resorting to layoffs, especially when remaining profitable.  In Some Firms Cut Costs Without Resorting to Layoffs Cari Tuna also explores what some companies are doing to avoid layoffs. Tuna states, “Some employers are freezing hiring, offering voluntary retirement packages, cutting hours, reducing salaries or delaying raises. Other cost-saving tactics include raising employee health-care contributions and slashing bonuses, employer contributions to retirement plans and budgets for training, travel and other perquisites.”  Alex Chang, founder of real-estate search engine Roost.com, has gotten creative to save of his employees jobs from moving to a smaller office space and allowing some employees to work from home and asking vendors for discounts.

The bottom line is that CSR must start with responsibility to employees. As Marré concludes in Microsoft is Stupid, “[Microsoft’s] first Corporate Social Responsibility is to hold leaders accountable for their persistent inability to use their resources to create products and services that people value.  Laying off 5000 people is reprehensible.”

Corporate Responsibility OR a Disposable Society

Frankly I am amazed almost daily by the breakthroughs companies are making to create more responsible and greener products and humanitarian services.  I am not talking about superficial PR to re-label factory made food as organic or other advertising buzzwords designed to mislead us.  Rather I am impressed that global companies are making genuine progress to reinvent the future.

I have been most recently impressed when I visited the big financial firm ING to learn of their aggressive micro-credit business in India and their European car leasing operation that buys carbon credit for every mile driven to make their auto fleets carbon neutral.  I am inspired that General Electric is making organic lights that are nearly 10 times more effective than every light sold today.  Even if you’re not a raging environmentalist, you’ve got to be impressed with how companies are paying more attention to making more things more energy efficient.

The reason these trends are persisting is that consumers, especially younger ones, are demanding products that are more responsible.  Companies that are responding to this growing consumer demand will continue to grow while those who don’t will fade away.

Why General Motors is Failing

That’s one of the main reasons General Motors is sucking air.  My brother-in-law once owned a GM Geo Metro, a dog of a car if there ever was one.  As the tin and can aged he noticed that the price of parts was beginning to exceed the value of the car.  Finally a mechanic told him, “Hey, the Geo was designed as a disposable car and guess what, it’s time to junk it!”  A disposable car.  Hmmm.

A Disposable Society

In the 1950’s the big American car company accountants came up with the brilliant idea of planned obsolescence that required engineers to design parts to fail at 50, 60, or 70 thousand miles.  This, they were told, would increase their downstream parts business.  What a tragic idea.  But this has been the mindset of leadership over the past 40 years—create one big disposable society.  Disposable cars, disposable marriages and fast food that has as much nourishment as the cardboard package it comes in.  Have we gotten so seduced by “new” things that we have lost sight of the quality of our lives and the strength of our society?

Americans are Rethinking Their Addiction to Waste

Americans are a resilient people.  We seem to have un-ending ingenuity.  So inventors, engineers, and increasingly companies are re-thinking their addiction to waste.  They are doing so because we are demanding it and our children are demanding it.

So what’s the best thing we can do? We should all be fully engaged, noisy consumers.  We need to demand genuine quality, real nutrition, and yes environmentally responsible products.  We should demand personalized, low-stress service to be treated like a person instead of a problem.  The louder our voices are in the market place, the more it will change.  I am seeing this first hand.  Of course progress is slow and imperfect, but at least there is progress.  Progress caused by us.

So what do you think?  Am I into something or is my view to rosy?  What’s the best thing you can think of to drive business to become more responsible?