Corporations' “employees are expendable.”
Just as I had predicted, corporations, including tech companies, are laying off people again and taking away, what they see, as perks.
Microsoft announced a hiring freeze, indicating that layoffs could be around the corner. Apple is telling employees they can’t work from home, and Facebook’s CEO said employees have to work harder while he spends billions on Meta.
While there are still a lot of job openings that are left unfilled, employers see employees as replaceable cogs. What’s different this time is that I’m hearing employees who received excellent reviews are being told that they are expendable.
Some CEOs are also laying off people via group email. Shortly after, employees are cut off from all company systems and told to either mail or turn in any company equipment. By the way, CEO pay is up 20%, and most who fail are still rewarded with golden parachutes.
I understand that business is business, but how can, in good conscious, a CEO take home $17 million when laying off people? Too often, employees pay the price for bad decisions made by high-paid company executives (see Peleton).
While all this is happening, CEOs plan company team-building events that waste time and money and discuss how employees should give their all for their jobs.
Too many corporations feel that a paycheck and benefits are why they treat you like cube dwellers. I’m not saying you have to cuddle employees but showing them SOME respect goes a long way to improving company metrics.
Just as you have hired your employees, your employees have hired you (as their boss) and the company (as their employer). You have expectations, often outlined in the job description, explaining what you want the person in a role to do. In exchange for this work, in addition to a fair salary and good benefits, employees want to have opportunities to do good work, advance their skills and their careers, feel appreciated and productive as part of a larger team, and feel that their needs and expectations are by and large fulfilled by their jobs.
Organizations that rank in the top 25% at delivering a positive work experience triple their return on assets and double their return on sales compared to those that rank in the bottom 25%. Talk about huge gains.
Humans feel. They feel like they belong, feel recognized and appreciated, trusted, and feel safe. If your managers can tap into these needs, employees will feel more human at work.
Unfortunately, too many CEOs haven’t learned these basic principles. They’ll talk about the “pain” of letting people go as they drive their expensive cars to multimillion-dollar homes and sail on yachts.
