Downsizing

12 Pages 2883 Words

daily routine of actually getting the job done. By the time the employee actually learns the other jobs the workload will have piled up. It is then possible that management will have to hire someone just to catch the workload up. Finding and training them will take time and money as well. All of this will increase costs for AT&T. Loss of revenue comes in when the survivors cannot accomplish all of the work and customers suffer. Customers have a choice to stay or leave and if they feel they are not being treated fairly then they seek good customer service elsewhere. So now AT&T is spending money on marketing just to get the customers they lost back. Once the customers return, they’ll need adequate help to cover the volume of new customers. Increased spending will be focused on hiring back all of the people they just downsized. It is a vicious cycle. “Sometimes downsizing is a management tool. For example, managers may change corporate culture to improve competitiveness or to shake out complacency. But this sword must be wielded carefully, especially during a slowing economy. Management studies have pointed out the fallacy that layoffs or downsizing actually help a company. The American Association of Management, for example, found that about 60 percent of companies that downsize either see no increase in profits at all, or experience a decline in profits. We won't mention the other costs of downsizing. These are realized after the economy recovers, which it will. Costs like finding new labor to replace the employees let go. Costs like training, retaining your best employees, recapturing customers after your company has ticked them off because of poor service.”1 The employee behaviors that cause this cycle from the beginning are just a sense of being overwhelmed by their new tasks. They just aren’t skilled for the new jobs set before them and so they suffer from poor task performance.
“In addition, survivors have ...