From Sizzle to Fizzle
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Caption. WSJ March 16, 2024.
How to avoid layoffs when the sizzle (demand for one's product/service) fizzles?
It's axiomatic: leaders are supposed to anticipate and plan for bad times especially during good times.
Let me give you a failed example on what to do when work fizzles.
A Systems Analysis class (in which I was a student) took a tour of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, not unlike this photo from the 1950s
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Our professor led us into a cavernous space with hundreds of desks in perfect rows, as far as the eye could see - an all too real caricature of a bureaucracy. I noticed (unlike this photo) that most of the seated workers were reading books.
When I inquired, our professor explained, candidly, it was past tax season. They had no real work to do.
Today, many of the layoffs among tech companies can be attributed to over-hiring during their good times resulting in morbidly obese corporations.
Now, with a different economy, lots of folks are being discharged (or asked to pretend to work, to make do, like in my tax department).
Unlike the techs, Hologic - a 7000+ employee health care company - took and takes a different approach to avoid employee glut.
During Covid, and now, managers had to vigorously defend a need for a new hire. And, existing workers were and are expected to help in other areas when business is booming or fizzling.
Workers are not laid off.
Instead, because of wise stewardship, full time workers do real work.
Some might term this type of management as mean and lean.
But is it really mean to wisely budget resources so that the organization can thrive and survive in both good times and bad?
An article in the Wall Street Journal gives the details:
How One Company Navigated a Boom and Bust With No Mass Layoffs.
One quote rang the proverbial bell for me: "When (Hologic) employees leave, positions aren't necessarily backfilled. Instead, managers ask whether another part of the business needs the position more?"
That was similar to the radical approach I took when charged with getting a traditional organization out of a decades-long funk. In cowboy terms, I was asked to herd the organization's sacred cows and head them all in the same direction.
The organization had found, over decades, excuses to avoid streamlining and improving production.
While not incompetent, we could have been doing much more with less.
In that environment, temporarily giving up a worker to help in another area was risky. If you sent one of your staff to help another unit, why, maybe, your position was not really needed?
So, while a unit's morale and production could be high and workers would help each other, helping an outside unit was taboo.
Now, a hard-nosed manager might have a quick solution to what I describe - quit pussy-footing around and order workers to help other units.
In my world, "Surely you jest!?" would have been the most likely response. And, if I were to persist in my folly, multiple other reasons as to why this was a bad idea would be invented including that I did not understand.
The prospect of such a negative response is enough to cause most managers to retreat.
Interestingly, Hologic states that, "(m)ass layoffs (due to overhiring) are a failure of leadership."
I don't think it is bizarre to state that in many bureaucracies or any rigid, nonporous organization staff are prohibited by management and union policy from helping out in other units.
Well then - besides the short-term motivator of a kick in the ass - how do we get employees willingly helping their fellows, willingly crossing turf boundaries and doing what is best for customers and the organization?
People want real work to do, meaningful work. When wasting one's day is seen as normal the staff and the supervisors' behavior becomes pathological - a Soviet socialist reality: "We'll pretend to lead while you pretend to work."
Instead, leaders at all levels ought to work toward a new collaborative and supportive mindset.
How?
Hologic offers us some clues. They incentivized stepping up with bonuses 10-15 times more than the annual average.
And, they hired temporary employees to help with ramped up production demands.
What about creating one's own temp service? Not everyone will want to participate, but many will if that participation leads to more money and prestige, not to mention resume enhancement.
Of course, the bosses have to be on board.
What do they get out of it? In my case, I promoted the managers who had the ability to see beyond their turf. My success in bringing about long needed change was attributable to three or four department heads who shared my vision and my peculiar, if you will, ability to let go.
I was fortunate in my situation because I followed a generation of micromanagers who had stifled staff creativity. So, my unleashing that innovative spirit almost immediately resulted in productivity gains.
Another significant motivator was my policy to permit a unit's salary savings to be used by that unit to enhance operations. And, organization-wide, some of those savings were made available to provide relief in understaffed areas. I made a point of publicizing and recognizing where that money came from.
My recent blog on the Un-DMV gives additional ideas for keeping an organization flexible and nimble.
Leaders at all levels could make a meaningful difference by facilitating and protecting managers and staff, however few to start with, who want to collaborate with other agencies, who want to help out where needs are greater. Without that support, my reform efforts would have faltered.
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BUY THIS BOOK: Fables provide ancient wisdom for today's workers and managers :
And, for examples of collaborative teamwork in the workplace:
Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.
Copyright all text John Lubans 2024
John Lubans - portrait by WSJ