The Post-Layoff World - Employers Are Using Other Tools to Reduce Headcount

Layoffs seem so yesterday and ham-handed. They have the downsides for employers of bringing negative media headlines and having constituencies including investors question those as a sign of current or emerging financial/management problems. There is also the burden of severance and unemployment. 

What is replacing that old-line employee-reduction method are, documents Business Insider, a growing number of "stealth" strategies. They include:

RTO. Since that involves disrupting everything from a lifestyle to childcare responsibilities + doing the commute some employees will be unable or unwilling to comply. Gone could be the job. The process could begin with halting promotions and pay raises for non-compliance with RTO. There is no ambiguity about the message transmitted.

Harsh performance reviews. That assessment of how workers are doing can be configured and then graded in myriad ways to verify that there is cause for termination. In a sense, if that results in being put on a PIP (Proposal to Improve Performance), that can be a blessing: It buys time for the worker to search for another means of income before the ax falls.

Loss of perks and benefits. That can be symbolic such as moving workers from offices to cubicles or a hit to the pocket as cutting employer payment for parking.

Restructuring the position. There can be an overload of responsibilities or unpleasant add-ons such as having to file numerous reports.

Employers can “get away” with these approaches because currently they have the power. That is especially the situation in knowledge work. And it will become more so as AI eliminates the need for some tasks or does them more cost-efficiently as well as better than humans.

Whole sectors such as law, management consulting, publishing and marketing communications could be hollowed out. On professional anonymous networks such as Fishbowl and Reddit youth is being warned against majoring in disciplines most vulnerable to the AI threat such as graphic design and writing.

Interestingly, on those usually critical PANs there is a backing off of negativity about white-collar organizations which are known to be hiring. In the tough but high-paying legal field they range from Kirkland & Ellis to Paul, Weiss. For the former, there are even postings analyzing the previous badmouthing and why that probably was never entirely accurate. In coaching former Kirkland & Ellis employees I find a current softening of their attitude about that experience. Essentially it has been no paradise anywhere else. 

 Also, in my intuitive coaching I have become blunt with clients: If "they" want to "get rid of you" they will. When the signs are there of such tactics, the workers are wise to begin the search for other ways to bring in income for their labor.

Some have set up a series of micro businesses. Others have put together multiple sources of income by combining several gig assignments with a part-time job.

Meanwhile, for those who will be completing formal education and starting earning a living I recommend investigating the trades. Clients who are in, for example, construction or long-distance driving are fully employed. So are those in hands-on care. At a professional conference recently a professional in higher education posited that in 30 years all that will be left for work will be in the trades. I insisted on also adding personal services. 

 

2024. You can transform the craziness of this time into unique opportunity. Jane Genova provides you with intuitive career coaching, Tarot readings and related communications. Complimentary confidential consultation. (For appointment text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com)

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