Originally Posted by bootstrap
Very well put Romulus, if we give you some QF managers emails could you pass this onto them?
I can guarantee you they have already read it and circulated it.
Most of the ones I know in QF Eng aren't bad blokes, equally they've never had any real training/advice in how to do this. Most managers sh*t themselves saying "no" to any employee because they think they have to be friends, when it comes to redundancy it takes a very very strong and secure personality to do it properly.
The failing of most redundancy approaches is not a reflection on the personality of the manager, especially not in terms of being vindictive, but in terms of being unable to do a very very unpopular job in a manner that they can live with. Couple that with a lack of proper HR training and they're bereft of knowledge of how to go about it, simple as that. It's easy for senior mgt to say "terminate XXXX people", but they rarely have to do it. Witness how often senior managers get promoted sideways. The dirty work is left to low and mid level managers and they're given nothing in terms of how to do it.
The "change management" program must (IMHO, this is a MUST not a SHOULD) take into account a period of training for the people who will convey the bad news but it rarely does because that's a major cost, and as most people learn quite quickly the people who do the "exiting" are usually on a redundancy list themselves that comes out once they have terminated all the other people.
I don't know if you remember it but there was a George Clooney movie about people in the USA whose entire job is to fly around terminating people so local managers don't have to. That's the crappiest way ever. Managers are paid to manage, and that doesn't just mean for the "happy" announcements. The company should teach people how to do this and provide them with support. I've seen some pretty hard core guys go to pieces when told they have to do this.
One thing I forgot to mention - all the counselling, career assistance, financial advice types should be immediately available to those people who are made redundant. No salesmen types when people are at their most vulnerable, just genuinely independent but paid for by the company advisors.