I need a bit of help here - I need some details on how to organize a Furlough for a Manufacturing facility - I have no affiliation with HON and I am just fishing for info about possible gotchas and what to look at as I plan this out.
There is no school that teaches you this and we haven't done it before. We are 100% US based (South) and we have every intention of not laying off anyone and keeping all jobs here in the US. Thank you for your inputs!
Ask employees to self nominate for a week of unpaid time off instead of forcing it - many will love the opportunity and those who financial can't, won't.
You could put a positive spin on the furlough, offer all employees the opportunity to take that extended vacation or fishing trip they always dreamed about, but never had enough vacation for, promise that their jobe will still be there when they get back. .or have a number of 3or4 days weekends so their paychecks dont change drastically. ..
In addition to Post ID: @JVSJ7xe-1cda,...and if after you lay people off you implement furloughs, salary cuts and reduced benefits on those that remain, and who now have increased work load, then you deserve everything you get, or don't get.
The choice is simple if you use simple common sense....something that doesn't' exist much at Hon.
Layoffs pisses off the few involuntary employees who are then gone with no opportunity for retribution against the company.
Furloughs or salary cuts or reduced benefits pisses off EVERYONE, including denied-volunteers, and everyone have the opportunity for retribution.
Implementing all four....well...do the math, and measure the productivity levels before and after. The imbeciles at Hon, of course, has mastered the use of the four pronged cattle prods.
Employees at honeywell are not part of the team; they're pain in the @ss expenses that need to be eliminated from the bottom line. The elitist hacks that run this company are only interested in 1 thing, and that is raping the employees and the company for as much money as they can before they leave. That's it. When you work at Honeywell, you're on borrowed time from day one and the longer you're here, the more the company wants to get rid of you and your salary.
The morale in Honeywell employee in the US is very Low do to two furlough and a possible third in the 4th quarter, good talent is leaving to Raytheon general atomic and poor talent is staying cause they cant find a Job. Furlough had people working hard at home to cover for the time lost in those weeks and Tim just put a end to that. By all means if your Honest and really want to keep your employees be honest to them but Honeywell is just Top management mistakes and Greed payed by employee.
Being a contractor at Honeywell....these furloughs do s---. BUT if the company is HONEST and UPFRONT with employees...i believe furloughs can work. One every qtr is absurd. Maybe your company gives people 2 extra days vacation at the end of the year? Employees need to feel like they are part of the team. Not one way...mgmt taking everything away.
Go to this link to see Dave Cote's thought on the furlough strategy back in 2013 after the recession. https://hbr.org/2013/06/honeywells-ceo-on-how-he-avoided-layoffs
The good employees that leave are "regrettable turnover". Honeywell was counting on the Baby Boomers work ethic to cover all the gaps that will be created when people leave. People are leaving without severance pay now because they just don't want to take a 10% cut in pay to support/maintain double digit profit for Wall St. People with all the "know how" will be gone in the next 3 to 5 years. People were working outrageous hours from home and at the office, however Timmy Baloney put a stop to that. Everyone needs to come into the site everyday. Nobody has face to face meetings anymore.... everything is on lync. Really pissed everyone off. Honeywell is getting 36 hrs per week ... just barley. The leadership team does all this stuff via e-mail communication.
Yes, layoffs on top of furloughs is probably the dumbest way of doing this possible. You get the disadvantages of both and advantages of neither. Either do massive layoffs or furloughs but not both...
Furloughs are a great idea if you're too cheap to pay severance and don't mind losing all of your best employees to the competition. If the workload is temporarily light put your people to work on IRAD and workplace improvement projects... they've been there for you when you needed critical projects done, you should be there for them on payday. If the work shortage is of longer duration, man up and lay off the appropriate number of folks, offering a reasonable severance package and job placement services that are worth a damn. The way Honeywell is handling this should be a textbook example of what NOT to do.
Sorry! Previous post! I worked for years at Hewlett Packard- 15- before getting headhunted away by Allied Signal, now Honeywell. Did not mean it to say a year!
My first suggestion would be "don't"
... It will leed to poor morale and attrition. May just be easier to let some poor performers go.
If you have to furlough because your VP and shareholders undetestimated the yacht's maintenance costs and need the money... Have the decency to think of the financial impact towards employees. Instead of a big hit on a single paycheck (like HW)...try rolling it out over several weeks... Every Friday off or something.
But, I'm sticking with just dont.
A furlough is better than a layoff. I worked for year at Hewlett Packard- back in the day when they were a great company to work for- they had never laid off in the company history but in the tech downturn in the early 90's they did a 10% furlough. It meant that every other Friday we had off, no pay but our state did cover a small amount with Unemployment coverage. It went on for nearly a year and affected everyone equally from top level management and down. We got used to those 3- day weekends, we got used to less money. And no one got laid off. I applaud Hewlett Packard for being the great company they were- too bad they got new management who totally tanked the company Kinda like what Honeywell is doing. Overall tho, I'm thankful I had the opportunity to work for two companies who at one time cared about their employees. It's not like that anymore, especially at Honeywell. Just greed.
Agreed. Furloughs will simply drive out your top talent as they can likely do better at your competitors. This is happening right now at honeyhell; steal money from your employees which pisses me them off so they leave.
If you have a furlough, your employees might not come back to work, or if they do, they probably will quit soon after.