The weekend has gone, the kebabs eaten (I only had one in the end), the beer drunk, the golf played and life returns to normal. Here's a mystery......I swim twice weekly (around 60 lengths of the pool each time), I cycle twice weekly (about 15km each time) and I go to the gym periodically. So how can 2 games of golf in 2 days make every single muscle and joint ache? Last night I was hobbling around the house like an 80 year old. Anyway, I played some good stuff so it's worth it. I think my golfing Mojo has been re-discovered.
On Friday at work it became clear that something was brewing. The Company has not reacted to the current financial crisis by jumping on the job shedding bandwagon, but neither has any of its competitors. But, I've always sensed that it was just a matter of time. The new Global Big Cheese is an accountant renowned for cost cutting via job losses. The blades are being sharpened for announcements tomorrow. Meeting rooms have been commandeered in our building and across the company's other sites.
Tomorrow, if the rumours are right, will be Hatchet Tuesday. No-one rreally knows how it'll work this time, with rumours going from 2.5% of the UK workforce to a whopping (and unlikely) 25%. To put this into actual figures, 2.5% is around 325 jobs, whereas 25% is around 3,500.
The Company is still very profitable, seemingly like Tesco's, MacDonalds and the utility companies it looks like we may be recession 'resistant' as opposed to recession proof. This leads me to belive the upper figure would be ridiculous. There appears to be two trains of thought on how this might be done. The normal re-organisation and loss of role method, or the the performance based method. Several of the worlds largest companies remove their bottom 5-10% of performers every year. Call me old fashioned, but surely that is THE fairest way of cutting staff. Why keep the duffers and let the good ones go? If you need specific savings then by all means offer some of the good people redundancy on generous terms but I've never understood how I've watched good people leave The Company whilst the morons remained behind.
This year, all of our annual appraisals have been bought forward to this month. I will have done all mine by the end of this week. Being a cynic , of course, I would link the new completion dates for annual appraisals as part of the plan to remove the bottom 5% or so of The Company. I assume that as long as this meets the target cost reduction then this is the way they will go. They may also decide to cull a few of those at the top end of their pay bands..........ooops......that's would put me in the line of fire then.
I have concluded that there is fuck all point in worrying though. If I am to get the chop, then I'm just going where better people than me have gone before. I have a plan in progress and hopefully this will help. If, yet again, the bullet with my name on it hasn't been manufactured then the plan will always be useful should this happen again. And lets face it, this will be a regular feature of UK life won't it? Employers can shed workers so much more easily here, than in any other EU country. It's our flexible work force culture isn't it? Or should I call it exploitable work force? We really did sell ourselves down the river when we let Thatcherism destroy basic working rights. But that's another subject.
For now, its squeaky bum time.
Can I hear someone shouting 'Timber' in the distance?
Later, GJ.
On Friday at work it became clear that something was brewing. The Company has not reacted to the current financial crisis by jumping on the job shedding bandwagon, but neither has any of its competitors. But, I've always sensed that it was just a matter of time. The new Global Big Cheese is an accountant renowned for cost cutting via job losses. The blades are being sharpened for announcements tomorrow. Meeting rooms have been commandeered in our building and across the company's other sites.
Tomorrow, if the rumours are right, will be Hatchet Tuesday. No-one rreally knows how it'll work this time, with rumours going from 2.5% of the UK workforce to a whopping (and unlikely) 25%. To put this into actual figures, 2.5% is around 325 jobs, whereas 25% is around 3,500.
The Company is still very profitable, seemingly like Tesco's, MacDonalds and the utility companies it looks like we may be recession 'resistant' as opposed to recession proof. This leads me to belive the upper figure would be ridiculous. There appears to be two trains of thought on how this might be done. The normal re-organisation and loss of role method, or the the performance based method. Several of the worlds largest companies remove their bottom 5-10% of performers every year. Call me old fashioned, but surely that is THE fairest way of cutting staff. Why keep the duffers and let the good ones go? If you need specific savings then by all means offer some of the good people redundancy on generous terms but I've never understood how I've watched good people leave The Company whilst the morons remained behind.
This year, all of our annual appraisals have been bought forward to this month. I will have done all mine by the end of this week. Being a cynic , of course, I would link the new completion dates for annual appraisals as part of the plan to remove the bottom 5% or so of The Company. I assume that as long as this meets the target cost reduction then this is the way they will go. They may also decide to cull a few of those at the top end of their pay bands..........ooops......that's would put me in the line of fire then.
I have concluded that there is fuck all point in worrying though. If I am to get the chop, then I'm just going where better people than me have gone before. I have a plan in progress and hopefully this will help. If, yet again, the bullet with my name on it hasn't been manufactured then the plan will always be useful should this happen again. And lets face it, this will be a regular feature of UK life won't it? Employers can shed workers so much more easily here, than in any other EU country. It's our flexible work force culture isn't it? Or should I call it exploitable work force? We really did sell ourselves down the river when we let Thatcherism destroy basic working rights. But that's another subject.
For now, its squeaky bum time.
Can I hear someone shouting 'Timber' in the distance?
Later, GJ.
No comments:
Post a Comment