Would you buy a used car from this person?
There are many companies in difficulty, requiring expenses to be reduced. One key expense, of course, is personnel wages and salaries. So one obvious requirement then is laying off or firing employees--sad and tragic for those affected but, if done wisely, hopefully saving the remaining jobs and providing for the possibility of employment growth in the future. There are many ways to reduce employee costs, and usually the easier but typically wrong methodology is utilized (see category F. Progressive Downsizing in the right hand column).
But regardless, the message sent by the CEO is all telling. An honest, straightforward, you-can-bet-on-him CEO will say it like it is, along the lines of "we have to terminate x employees in order to have the opportunity for our company to stay alive". But when a CEO uses one of these spin lines of obfuscation, if i have an equity position i sell it--fast like a scared bunny:
*downsized
*rightsized
*synergy related headcount adjustment
*actions to simplify the organization
*offboarding
*rationalizing
*surplusing
*de-verticalization
If you have to take tough decisions, first do them right but at the very least have the guts to say it like it is.
So----if a CEO uses one of these or any other obfuscating spin description for a program to terminate employees, find another place for your equity investment.
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