BEC 阅读材料

BECBEC 阅读材料阅读材料 Layoffs costm orethan youthink Cuttingjobs m ay seemthe fastest easiest wayto manage in a recession But it s reallyone ofthe most expensive As Warren Buffett likesto say I t s betterto beapproxim ately right thanprecisely wrong Every CEOshould remem berthose wordswhen confrontingthe powerfultem ptationto laypeople off When you re desperateto save m oney calculating thesavings fromfiring staffis easy But figuringthe costs the realcosts is hard I nfact you can t doit precisely So a lot ofm anagers rather thantrying toget the costs approximatelyright just assume that theyequal theseverance costs That s beingprecisely wrong as Buffettwould say and itcan geta pany introuble Som etimes of course layoffs areunavoidable But beforeyou pullthe trigger consider theirtrue price Brand equitycosts Hundredsof panies nowstate anexplicit goalof beingan em ployerof choice in theirindustry orlocale That s aworthy goalin aneconomy wherethe warfor talentis along term factof life How badlywill a layoff damage your pany s brandas anem ployer and its ability toattract the best talent Top lawfirm s peteferociously forthebestnew lawyers yet m any ofthose firms are laying peopleoff New York based Sim pson Thacher Bartlett figuredthis wasthe mom ent to offerassociates achance totake ayear offto workon apublic serviceproject andget paid 60 000plus benefits less thanhalf theirnorm alpay butalotbetter thannothing And itm akes the firmm uchm oreattractive tothe nextcrop oflaw schoolgraduates Leadership costsLayoffs greatlyincrease thechance thatyou re firinga future panyleader You may neverknow whom but theeffect isstill real The bankingand electric utility businesseswent throughsevere cutbacksin the1980s and executives in bothindustries havetold methatthey paida heavyprice20years laterwhen theyneeded experienced knowledgeable leadersand foundonly abroad empty spacein theranks Morale costsEven thesurvivors paya price They will certainlyexperience some grief They alsofear theloss oftheir ownjob says leadershipconsultant Wally Bock Som etimestheeffects areworse Workers whorem ain after alayoff filedram aticallym orem edicalclaims reports astudy byCigna andthe Am erican Managem ent Association Wall Streetcosts Don t counton alayoff announcementtom akeyour stockgo up I tm ight if you re layingoff peoplebecause you rebining twopaniesinam erger says Bain Co But ifyou relayingoff employees strictlyas acost cutting measure Wall Streetmaysee them oveas asign oftrouble and sendyour stockdown Rehiring costsThe daywill e whenthe economyturns up and whenit does you ll facethecostsand delaysof hiringand trainingnew employees Com paniesthat haveheld onto theirworkers willbe ableto respondfar m ore quickly Northwest Airlineslearned thatlesson whenit firedhundreds ofpilots duringtough timesinxx When businesspicked uplater thatyear it hadto cancelhundreds offlights becauseit didn t haveenough pilots The airlinescheduled itsrem ainingpilots tooaggressively and atthe endof eachm onthmanyof themhad usedup theirpermissible flighthours The pany hadto speedup itsrecall andretraining oflaid off pilots Not many panies willavoid layoffsinarecession asbad asthis one Yet somemanage What dothey doinstead Toyota TM continues topay peoplebut usesthe time fortraining education and publicservice projects The cityof Atlantarecently cuthours andpay by10 FedEx FDX Fortune500 has imposed graduatedpay cuts less forfront line workers morefor managers Then there s Aflac AFL Fortune500 which hasnever had alayoffin its54years ofexistence Ja Baker senior VPof corporatelearning told me howthat recordfuels avirtuous circle Everyone understandsthat we ve neverhadalayoff andis agood stewardof ourresources tom akesure wedon t haveone How much isthat worth How much dolayoffs reallycost Just remem berthat it salot even ifyou neverknow precisely 沃伦 巴菲特 WarrenBuffett 常说 近似的正确好过 精确的错误 每一个CEO在面对裁员的强烈诱惑时都应该想想这句话 你想拼命省钱 就不难计算裁员带来的节省 但要算出成本 真正的成本 就不容易了 所以 很多经理人并没有搞清楚成本大致是多少 而是以为成本就 等于离职费 巴菲特会说 这是一个精确的错误 而且 公司会因此陷入麻烦 当然 裁员有时候无法避免 但在你举起大刀之前 想想这么做的实际代价吧品牌资产的成本 许多公司都定下了成为行业或本地 一流雇主 的明确目标 这个目标很有价值 因为在我们这个经济体 人才争夺战是长期不 变的现实 裁员会对你们公司作为雇主的品牌形象及吸引人才的能力产生怎样 的不利影响 一流的律师事务所为了争夺最好的律师展开激烈竞争 可如今 它们当中大多数正在裁员 纽约的盛信律师事务所 SimpsonThacher Bartlett 认为 此时可 以给律师提供一个机会 让他们用一年的时间从事公共服务项目 给了他们6万美元年薪外加福利的待遇 这虽然只有他们平常待遇的一半 但总比什么也没有好得多 而这也使得盛信在下一批法学院毕业生眼里更有吸引力 领导力成本 裁员使你失去未来的公司领导人的可能性大大增加 你可能不知道具体是谁 但仍会遭到报应 上世纪80年代 银行和电力企业经受了严重挫折 现在这两个行业 的高管都和我说 他们在20年后付出了惨重代价 这个时候他们需 要有丰富经验 有知识的领导人 结果各级职位都出现了严重的人 才匮乏 员工士气成本 即便幸存下来的员工 也付出了代价 领导力顾问沃利 波克 WallyBock 说 他们 肯定感到难过 还 担心自己的工作也丢掉 有时候 后果会更糟糕 信诺保险公司 Cigna 与美国管理协会 AmericanManagementAsso ciation 的一项研究称 裁员后留下来的员工的医疗保险索赔急剧 上升 资本市场成本 别指望宣布一次裁员就能让股价涨起来 贝恩公司 Bain Co 称 如果裁员是因为把两家公司合并成一家 股票有可能涨 但如果你把裁员仅仅当成削减成本的手段 华尔街也许会认为你这 么做意味你有了麻烦 股价会因此下跌 再雇用成本 经济上行时 这一天就会到来 你要面对招聘和培训新员工的成本 留住员工的公司可以很快做出反应 西北航空公司 Northwest Airlines 因在xx年困难时期裁掉上百名飞行员而学到了教训 当年年底 业务开始好转 由于没有足够的飞行员 公司被迫取消 数百个航班 之前未裁的飞行员的飞行任务安排过紧 到了月末 他们都用尽了 极限飞行时间 公司不得不召回并留住被辞退的飞行员 这次衰退十分严重 能避免裁员的公司不是很多 但有些公司做到 了 不