Corporate Executions: The Ugly Truth About Layoffs-How Corporate Greed Is Shattering Lives, Companies, and Communities - Hardcover

Downs, Alan; Stogner, Camille

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814403077 ISBN 13: 9780814403075

Publisher: Amacom Books, 1995

Synopsis

"Layoffs are good for business." That's the myth that many of us have accepted as a grim business necessity. But Corporate Executions exposes, for the first time, the disturbing facts about this widespread and destructive practice. It demonstrates that in the long run, layoffs are not "good for business," measured by any means: company profitability, employee productivity, or national economic stability. In fact, most layoffs have proven to he ineffective for companies, not to mention disastrous for victims.
In chilling detail Alan Downs explains how a new "culture of corporate narcissism" supports the downsizing fad and undermines responsible planning and sound management. He reveals how greed, in many forms, is behind most layoff decisions. Bonus-hungry executives, Wall Street analysts, and investors all cry out for quick profit at any cost, craving the personal rewards that come when layoff announcements drive up stock prices. It's a vicious cycle that ultimately collapses because no company can function without a sufficient number of productive, motivated employees.
But Corporate Executions is not all bad news. It supplies positive strategies for avoiding layoffs or for carrying them out with minimal trauma, when absolutely necessary. It urges companies to seek "controlled growth," rather than short-term cost reduction, as the true road to competitive advantage. The book also proposes a "new social contract" between companies and employees. This enlightened approach takes into account today's realities - in business economics and in employee expectations. Finally, the book provides techniques (personal layoff protection) for individuals to use if they sense a layoff is imminent.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Downs, Ph.D. has taught courses in human resources management and industrial psychology at the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State.

Reviews

Drawing on his experiences as a human-resources consultant, Downs here analyzes the current "fashionably strategic" big-business practice: mass firings of employees by companies in a "culture of corporate narcissism" seeking lower costs and higher profits. He discusses how layoffs devastate employees' lives, impair "survivor" morale and productivity and adversely affect customer relations?without improving materially the firing company's prospects, he maintains. Downs asserts that the average workplace today has become less satisfying, with lower pay and fewer fringe benefits. He advocates reordering work relationships, with workers providing goods and services as professional independent contract (PIC) employees, until "the majority of workers... come to see themselves as mobile." PIC employees would be responsible for their own health care, life insurance and retirement plans. Under this new social contract, corporations would no longer bear the "parental" responsibility for their employees. If, as Downs claims, workers stand to gain enormously under such an arrangement, he fails to show how.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Doubts about downsizing have begun to surface here and there. For example, James Champy, the man behind the concept of "re-engineering," has warned against misusing his ideas as an excuse to lay people off. Here management consultant Downs provides his own highly critical analysis, documenting how, in spite of cutting nearly 8 million employees from the workforce, most companies have little to show for the sacrifice. Downs himself previously counseled companies to downsize but discovered that the results were not worth the heavy toll on individuals, communities, or companies. He recounts personal stories and offers company case studies to drive home his point. Even more significant than the validation of his argument is Downs' presentation of creative solutions for cutting costs without cutting staff--and without destroying morale. David Rouse

Edition details

• Publisher: Amacom Books
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814403077
• ISBN 13: 9780814403075
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240