I have been Ford salaried employee over 30 years. The pattern repeated for all the salaried layoffs:
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Step 1 - nudge the highly paid or near retirement out the door
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Step 2 - hire many young people and have old conduct knowledge transfer and training
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Step 3 - decide which of young are keepers, flag others for lay-off
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Step 4 - hire many more people including H1B and have old conduct knowledge transfer and training
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Step 5 - decide which newly hired are keepers; decide which existing old employees are now redundant
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Step 6 - make initial lay-off list, while continually assuring employees they have nothing to worry about.
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Step 7 - good ole boys club scurries around protecting their people. you will see promotions, lateral movements, reorganization, ranking of favored d---beats as top achievers, and of course more hiring
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Step 8 - make announcement about restructuring and level of the cuts before Christmas break.
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Step 9 - voluntary packages distributed first quarter.
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Step 10 - involuntary packages distributed mid year.
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Step 11 - go on another hiring spree. Invariably the good ole boys club protects the incompetent and lazy ; the highly productive and competent exit voluntarily. The remaining employees seeing what behavior is rewarded model their behavior accordingly. Yes, it is a vicious cycle.
We are at step 8. Expect a webcast to be broadcast before holiday break. Schedule TBD your senior leadership. They have already been recorded and reviewed by senior leadership.
I feel for Hackett. He is genuinely trying to do the right thing. He is in the unfortunate position of having to trust his leadership team to do the right thing. This is the very leadership team that built and perpetuates the unfortunate and unproductive aspects of the Ford Culture.
If you are a Ford salaried employee then you know that there are employees throughout the pay scale ranges who are true subject matter experts who are highly productive and work tirelessly doing the right thing for Ford. (This is independent of age, gender, race and length of service.). These employees rarely are appreciated by the leadership team.
You also know that there is a large contingent of employees who contribute nothing or are negative contributors. These invariably rise up the leadership stack as they have ample time to bootlick.
Then there is the middle band of employees that are neither rockstars or d---beats, but have the potential to develop either way.
Of course Hackett wants all the rockstars to stay, all the d---beats to go, and the middle band to trend towards rockstars. It is a big company and Hackett has no way to know who the rockstars and d---beats are. He must trust his leadership teams to be truthful, and there lies the rub. Good people will be separated and d---beats will be retained, despite Hackett’s good intentions.
Good luck to everyone. For those that survive the lay-off, please do not follow the d---beats examples. I bleed blue and want to see Ford survive and thrive.