Pardon my ignorance but can someone please explain what the real purpose is behind the location strategy? It’s not just an excuse to lay off people, they’ve been doing that all along without having to need an excuse. It can’t be “collaboration” if they’re allowing teams to exist in multiple locations anyway. The loss of talent to this company will be huge once implemented. So what’s really behind this?
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It IS a mass layoff strategy.....24K people are remote which is a large pool to choose from.
Increasing voluntary attrition is the only goal of EVERYTHING Hudson Yards does. Everything. There's no other objectives in their playbook. They want the absolute minimum number of US employees, and to get there are the absolute lowest cost.
Attrition
I don't buy the real estate consolidation and increase occupancy as reasons for location strategy.
Real estate is sunk cost, occupancy rate doesn't change your rent. In fact, higher occupancy INCREASES your cost (utilities, maintenance, etc.). Let's not spin it anymore, it's just a ploy to get rid of people.
My belief is that it had to do with filling commercial real estate space. If I remember reading correctly, Wells Fargo lost hundreds of millions of dollars selling a building in downtown San Francisco.
It’s to get people to quit rather than have to file a WARN act and pay out severance. Normal attrition wasn’t happening dast enough.
As far as I can tell it's really about consolidating real estate and keeping occupancy up.
But the d-mb thing is affecting people who are remote that may have been hired over the past 1-10+ years. The collaboration thing is nonsense. Team exist all over the place and even with the location strategy there are like a dozen or more CITIES (and clearly multiple locations w/in cities). And when you throw in India etc. there's no face-to-face.
Shart has tried it before and failed. Attrition is the other reason. The reasons they spewing is nothing but BS to justify their bad behavior.
Attrition is part of it. The hope is people just leave so there isn’t a need for severance.
Looks legitimate to all parties but doesn't frighten potential investors from appearing as if the company is in any sort of financial instability.
It legitimizes mass layoffs. They can ramp up layoffs and point to location strategy and say "Told you so! This shouldn't be a surprise, we've been telling you it's coming for so long. It ain't our fault so stop whining and crying." They can also say "It's not you it's us, we are consolidating so you gotta go. It has nothing to do with your performance." By letting the word out about location strategy, it encourages people to find another job so they don't have to pay severance.
It is a viable strategy meant to inject dynamic new synergies into a reimagined work force. Sigh.
Power and control.