Potato Chips

Way back when, there was a popular TV commercial about potato chips. The clever tagline was: “Bet you can’t eat just one!” (Never could myself.)

In today’s corporate world, perhaps the mantra should be: “Bet you can’t cut just one employee!”

That point was driven home this week when we received an email from our CEO about some “exciting” transformations in one of our departments. Once you read beyond that cheery opening, he got down to brass tacks and used a word that strikes fear into every worker’s heart: outsourcing. Yes, some of the department’s functions were being outsourced and because of that, six people were being let go by the end of the month. (Side note: If you were informed your job was being eliminated in three weeks, would you stay or would say, Frug you, and leave immediately?)

Naturally, he expressed regret over those employees who were losing their jobs (spare me your faux concern). But it had to be done to “transform” the company.

By my count this makes 16 people who have been let go since the beginning of the year. This after an entire department was pretty much wiped out in the fall…and after the CEO said he wasn’t planning any more personnel cuts. Oh, really….

To be fair, I truly understand that companies have to make expense cuts to survive and unfortunately, that means jobs are eliminated. Corporations have been in survival mode for so long that they have adopted a bunker mentality and are simply hunkering down in an effort to stay afloat. When the next economic tsunami hits, they want to be ready. Hard to argue with that logic.

But sometimes I wonder if corporations are taking it to an extreme.

When does cost cutting mutate from being a means to an end (higher profits, a leaner operation) to an end in and of itself? Is it possible that cost cutting can become the sole purpose of the corporation, its raison d'etre? Let’s cut more and more! Build up those profits! But what about making new products and services? Have corporations forgotten their basic missions? Have U.S. companies become nothing more that cost-cutting, job-slashing machines? How much can a company outsource before it becomes nothing more than a desk and a modem?

Cost cutting and eliminating jobs are easy to do. But innovation, well, that’s a lot tougher. And if a company wants to expand they will have to hire more employees, right? But that’s against their corporate mission.

And just because a company may hire in one area while cutting in others doesn’t mean the company is expanding. It just means it is maintaining the status quo. Until you actually hire more and expand your employee base or add new goods or services, you are merely shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

And what of our CEO, who clearly said he wasn’t planning any more job cuts. How can we believe or trust him? Which department will he and management target for transformation next? How many more of us will lose our jobs?

Because when it comes to employees, bet you can’t just cut one.