Don't come to work! We need the savings
My friend Barbara Kiviat over at Curious Capitalist sends me this news (from Reuters): Cisco is shutting down most its U.S. and Canadian business for five days to cut costs by more than $1 billion.
Imagine the memo. "DEAR STAFF: Please stay home for the holidays. In an effort to save your jobs and our company, we're going to give you extra time off in lieu of bonuses. Give a holla to Santa."
Me, I think I'd prefer a memo like that to one shoving me onto the street corner in time for Christmas. But Cisco and some of its tech sisters are known for smart and innovative approaches to managing its workforce. Take its flex options: over half of Cisco workers work at least two days a week from remote locations. That's cut down on the company's office costs and jacked up retention (untethered workers equal happy workers).
Then again, smart and innovative workplace solutions tend to go out the window in hard times. When you're bleeding red ink, suddenly a diversity committee or a work-life task force just don't seem so crucial to survival.
Barbara points out that she's heard of cost-cutting shutdowns in the auto industry, but not in white-collar office jobs. Turns out Cisco is in fact following the lead of HP, which has paused operations in the past to save costs. I've read of schools and businesses shutting down to save on gas costs earlier in the year.
Is your employer making a drastic call like an enforced, staff-wide holiday in order to cut costs?
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1
I'll make a more personal observation this time around: It's gotten really, really cold on the 22nd Floor of the Time & Life building. Some of us have been talking. It's not clear if the goal is to save money on the heating bill or if this is part of the "voluntary layoff" strategy.
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2
Where I'm teaching, we're trying more hybrid classes- 2 hours in class per week, one hour of online class per course in my department. That's freed up a lot of classroom space... hopefully it leads to happier students and better outcomes.
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3
Yes, my employer (US company - IT industry (like HP and Cisco)) have sent out the same message. In fact, it adds "if you don't have enough annual leave, please let HR know. you can bring fwd from the next cycle"
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4
One of the worst bosses I ever worked for had a timed layoff for the middle stratum of management--basically, if most of your duties could be shifted up or down, you were given a month off without pay. This coincided with a busy season, so you had two-thirds as many people doing twice the work, much of which was only just learned because the person who usually did it was on forced leave.
Not directly tied to layoffs, but I also worked for a data-management company which twice had tech problems. First the power went out for two days, next the computer system got a virus which rendered the entire network unusable. Both times we were sent home and not paid for the time we couldn't work, but were expected to make up the work we couldn't do when we returned with a smaller time frame.
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5
I suppose that might be better than the other option which is unemployment.
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